The Benefit of Experience
Fevers are more common for babies and toddlers than they are for older children. My kids used to have fevers all the time. I got to the point that I could tell how high a fever was just by putting my cheek against the child’s forehead. Often I used a thermometer just to verify, but I was right within a degree. I can’t do that anymore. It has been so long since fevers were a regular part of our existence. Although after the past couple of weeks I’m starting to regain my skill. Its a skill I’d just as soon stay rusty.
Today is Patch’s miserable day. He just lays on the couch and tries to get comfortable. This means he’ll still have a fever tonight and probably tomorrow. Then the cough will settle in but he’ll feel better. I’m expecting to keep him home from school all week. Patch benefits from my experience with the prior three kids having this same flu. I know what to expect and so I can tell him.
Patch is often the beneficiary of my experiences with the other kids. That just comes with the territory of being fourth. He benefits from the routines that I figured out when the other kids were his age. He doesn’t feel very scared about growing up because he’s watched older siblings tread the path before him. On the other hand, he always feels like he his being left behind, last one to the party. I know how he feels. I’m a fourth child too. Only I had three siblings following me as well, so I didn’t feel like I was trailing everyone.
There have been lots of studies done on birth order with lots of conflicting results. In my observation of my own kids, the older two have more pressure placed upon them to be responsible, but the younger two succeed at responsibility younger because the structure is in place to support it. The older two had more individualized adult attention at younger ages but the younger two had role models who spent time playing with them. I don’t know that any of them are better off for when they were born. They each have their own package of challenges. I do believe that our family as a whole improves the more experience we have in being one.