5 silent pressures every eldest child faces

Being the eldest child often feels like being the test pilot for a brand-new plane when you know everyone is watching your first flight, taking notes from your successes and mistakes. While it sounds adventurous, you’re the first to hit unexpected turbulence and the one responsible for smoothing the way for all who follow. Here are 5 things that an eldest child feel that no one gives much thought to.

Often, eldest children are labeled as the guardians for the younger ones. While this process of parentification makes the eldest child more responsible and capable of handling tough situations, it also comes with some negative implications. It can be in the form of increased anxiety when their siblings can’t meet their parents’ expectations, or ending up with eating disorders and personality disorders. While it can help children become more efficient in terms of task management and school achievement, this can contribute to problems like compulsive overwork.

As an eldest sibling, one will see that when their younger siblings start fighting, they automatically have to play the role of referee, counselor, and sometimes even mediator. In a way, it teaches them how to handle conflict situations, but it also often leaves with a feeling that nobody is there to listen to what they feel, or that feelings are not worthy at all.

In general, kids often develop this feeling of ‘not being good enough’ if they aren’t able to fulfill what their parents want from them, and if you are the eldest one, this feeling takes even more control. The reason being, there’s a constant feeling that someone else will follow your footsteps, so it has to be perfect. These high expectations and perfectionism often leave them feeling like nothing they do is good enough or up to the mark. In some way or another, this impacts their self-confidence.

Until the time their siblings arrive, they enjoy a taste of solo attention, knowing there is no one to take a part of what is there for them. The sudden change of being okay with sharing everything that was previously just their own is something that often becomes hard to digest. Research shows that most children develop sharing abilities around 3.5–4 years old; that too needs a specific amount of effort from the parents' side. Force-sharing is nothing but obedience. They share because they are forced to, not because they genuinely want to.

In most cases, parents expect the eldest child to do everything just right—wake up on time, get ready early, and sometimes even wake their siblings also—because apparently, it’s expected that their younger siblings will absorb punctuality by seeing their elders. While it is true that youngsters learn things from their elders, the other side of the coin also says the elders are human beings, not machines.