Family and Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler studied 'individual psychology' and the relation of parental influence and birth order on development of an individual. Adler claimed that people are motivated by their strive for superiority. This is brought from an individual who feels dependant and very aware of their weaknesses, and focuses primaraly on overcoming this.
Parental influence can come from two angles of the spectrum, "pampering" which is often times also called spoiling the child; and "neglect". Children whose parents are too far on either extreme can have intamacy issues as adults as a result. Birth order also comes into play here where first-born children are found to more often be papered where the later born children are closer to being neglected.
Monika is the first born child with three younger siblings. As the first child she was pampered and has a very comfortable and safe life. Once her siblings were born each sibling was less and less "pampered" due to multiple children's needs being shared between the same two parents. The younger siblings led less and less sheltered lives and were in turn less spoiled. This lead the younger children to strive for attention from the parents as well as Monika's new found need to strive for attention now that there were siblings to share her parents with. As the oldest child she is expected to set a good example and this means striving for superiority over her siblings to show them what is right as well as making the parents proud.