Feedback & Butterfly Effects in Growing Children
There’s are several books sitting on a nearby shelf that I’ve used for years in a class I called, Love, Sex & Friendship. One that actually changed my life is entitled On Being A Friend, by Eugene Kennedy. It illuminates how it is that human relationships suffer when the masks we develop to protect ourselves actually become prisons, of sorts, and prevent us from ever being a real friend, to ourselves or anyone else.
The other is called Your Child’s Self-Esteem, by Dorthy Corkhill Briggs, and it may well have changed my daughter's life. It illuminates how the habit of putting on a false front to please one's parents and other significant caretakers can begin early on in family childrearing strategies that reinforce inauthenticity and insecurity at a very early age, and can become lifelong patterns in the process.
Together, these two books illuminated for me at a critical time in life how important the way we talk to one another can be, especially when it comes to giving feedback to children that help form their reactive habits at a very young age.
Briggs shows how parenting strategies form communication dynamics involved in raising children (including control vs. understanding, punishment vs. teaching, authoritarian vs. democratic), tend to have what we might call butterfly effects when it comes to the development of the young child’s self-image and character. (I take issue with the term self-esteem, btw, especially as it’s tossed around culturally, for we fail to distinguish between it and self-respect – a critical difference, philosophically, but more on that later.) In this sense, children are ‘sensitively dependent on their initial conditions’ – and what this means is that seemingly small influences in early childhood development can magnify into dramatic consequences, for better or worse.
The unfortunate reality is that our parenting strategies can backfire if they are ill considered, and both children and parents have to live with the unintended consequences of the errors made early on in childhood development. As the ancient knew interference early in the flight of an arrow will send it wildly off course, when the same effect near later in its flight will have little or even no effect.
What Briggs calls “seat-of-the-pants parenting” is the strategy many tend to employ, as it seems to be the easy way, at first. It’s easy to assume that following this path of least resistance will lead to good results, and many don’t realize until the damage is done that a little more effort, early on, can save a lot of difficulty, for both children and parents, later on. In fact, this may be true, even if our own patterns are kind and loving, which children do tend to bring out in parents. It’s true, you can’t love a child too much, but you can fail to teach by simply taking the path of least resistance. Unreflective parents may simply be reenacting the patterns of their own upbringing, which may seem good enough, if they themselves are happy, and may well be, until the child need understand that the parent may not notice or respond to.
But parenting strategies often go the other way as well, if and when dynamics kick in that are motivated less by love, and more by the will to control. Some might even believe that near complete control would simply make the difficult job of parenting easier, make children more compliant. But, in fact, as Buddha and Socrates would have warned, attempting to control our young can fail to teach, and only condition behavior, which can backfire when children assert their need for self-control, which any healthy child will eventually. Even when over-authority works early on, it can end up making a parent’s job more difficult as children grow, when the child’s will to self-control show itself as defiance toward over-controlling parents, and perhaps even all authority.
So we do ourselves, and them, a favor if we help our children learn self-control when they are still very young. And this must both be modeled and taught, because doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time requires that the skill of reasoning out our options and choices, which can begin at a very early age.
So as parents, we would do well to choose our parenting techniques carefully, for the consequences of thoughtless errors have a way of blowing up in our faces and/or coming back around to haunt us - and more to the point, can make life difficult for our children, maybe for a lifetime. Thoughtful parents may well make mistakes as well. Indeed, no one is ever perfect. But since we will make mistakes anyway, better to make those of careful and deliberate parenting, than those that might have been avoided by putting the child’s interests first. At least we will know we did our best, which is, after all, the best that one can hope to do. Whereas the mistakes of thoughtless parenting that can turn out to be overwhelming for us as well as our children come with the added regret of knowing that we would do it differently if we had it to do over again.
The truth is, Briggs emphasizes, that in raising children, problems change, but never end. Because the nature of human growth is that we are all always learning, advancing, and facing new challenges, and the job for parents is to help children develop an understanding of these changes themselves. The ever-new challenges that children face are challenges for parents as well. So a parent who understands that children are always changing and growing will not only remain flexible, always learning from the child themselves as they face new challenges that arise, but will also act to increase the child’s sense of understanding of these changes as well.
An effective parent will understand children’s stage development because they are different at every level of development, and if parents understand this, they are more apt to understand the child’s behavior in light of what he or she needs to learn at a given moment in time. Not only are children different from one another, as the Hindus emphasize, but like all people, they are even different from themselves at different points along their own paths. Seeing this, parents are less inclined to want to punish (unless absolutely necessary, which it sometime is), and more inclined to develop the habit of teaching. And as children learn, comes a faith in the child’s capacity for self-direction.(p.109)
From the get go, this parenting strategy conditions the habit of empathy in the parent, putting oneself in the child’s place, treating them as you would like to be treated if in their shoes, looking at child’s world from his point of view (p.53), But this habit must begin as a reasoned choice about how to regard and discipline the child from the start. Parent who deliberately disciplines with understanding (which does not come ‘naturally’ to many of us, even those who are loving) will act to relieve the child’s distress in new circumstances, and in this way, encourage inner peace, confidence, feelings of self worth in the child, which are necessary for learning.
What’s more, developing the habit of positive regard for the child by recognizing the child’s need to learn at every turn will also habituate confidence and positive self-regard in the parent themselves – a positive feedback loop that can make parenting easier from the start.
What’s more, a parent who will not learn gives rise to a child who cannot learn. A family in conflict effects their children’s intelligence, because the mind cannot function well when caught up in worry and unresolved tension. Of course, some conflict is unavoidable in life, and this is all the more reason that learning to resolve it is so important. But conflict that cannot be resolved, such at that between parents who, one or the other, cannot or will not come to center, do their part to reach understanding, puts the child in a permanent state of tension. And this cannot be made right by the other parent simply giving in because the child has their own reasoning faculties, so can tell when wrong remains wrong, even when tension is quite. As the old saying goes, “No justice, no peace; know justice, know peace.”
The more the child’s relationships begin to reflect this power dynamic, the more difficult it will be for the child to concentrate on schoolwork or anything else (p.30)… child needs positive life experience…key to positive self-concept…experience that reinforces competence (p.57)…inner worth…joy in being self… child’s attention and energy are not free for peaceful and spontaneous play or learning, when always worrying what others think, “Whether a child’s mental ability is available for use depends on how emotionally tied up he is. Repression acts like a dam that can narrow the river of intelligence to a mere trickle. There are youngsters whose tested IQs have jumped 60 to 100 points when emotional blocks have been removed. Children cannot absorb from the printed page when their focus is turned inward… Energies tied up in repression are not available for constructive purposes.”(p.182)
One example offered, “when [one] boy’s home and school environment were most confirming (sending positive reflections), his IQ score increased to 140; when they were least nurturing it dropped to 117. The psychological climate surrounding any child has a strong influence on his mental functioning.”(p.269)
Another set of examples, one child’s “burning curiosity and desire to learn push her to use her ability, while [another] daydreams and worries about what others think of him. Self-confidence permits a child to perform; whereas, brilliance may be trapped in low self-esteem.”(p.270) “When feelings are expressed in vigorous physical action, released through clay, art, drama, music, or words, the energy wrapped up in the emotion is discharged. The body, then, returns to its former state of equilibrium.”(p.182)
“Creative children tend to be independent, rather unconcerned with group pressures or conformity, and disinterested in what other people think of them.”(p.278-279) “Studies show that the freely creative youngster is high in self-confidence, emotional maturity, calmness, and independence. He has the capacity for sustained concentration and involved absorption in his projects.”(p.280) In this case, a parent needs to eliminate as much outer pressure as possible…for a child with inner pressure and turmoil needs opportunity to master self without competition with others…self-mastery is its own reward (p.126)
By contrast, a parent who does not understand how love has this power to bring out the good in both parent and child is likely to read a child’s changing needs as if it is deliberate defiance and disobedience.’ A parent who over-controls, who thinks that ‘good’ children should simply do what they’re told, is likely to treat the child’s changing needs as misbehavior, with scolding, punishment, and withdrawl. This tends to communicate that something’s ‘wrong’ with the child and suggests a belief that the child is fundamentally bad, which undermines the child’s confidence and inner worth. And the more a parent believes or at any rate communicates that a child is intrinsically bad (which may not reflect a parent’s actual view, by the way, but rather his or her unreflective habits), the more the child is likely to believe it themselves, and act on it, if only by putting on a good act.
And as the child feels increasingly misjudged, unloved, unhappy, these feelings of worthlessness can quickly develop into the felt need to get attention, even if that attention is negative, and the child will often misbehave simply to get it, which may seem better than getting no attention at all to the child. Showing off, empty chatter, obnoxious misbehavior, aim to draw some kind of affirmation. But the result is often that it elicits rejection, instead of acceptance, which only further reinforces the child’s belief that he is intrinsically bad and therefore unlovable, and thus may increase his efforts to get attention, and so on and so forth.
This is how feedback loops get started, and it’s easy to see how this pattern can quickly becomes a vicious cycle, if it leads to ever more scolding and punishment (or rejection, especially from other children), which in turn increases misbehavior, and so more scolding (or more rejection), and so on and so forth. A positive feedback loop develops in this way (and this does not mean ‘positive’ in the sense of good; see section on feedback loops), and ultimately can have a butterfly effect on a child’s life, meaning, it can magnify into large scale problems that started from small scale misunderstandings. If left unchecked by unreflective parents these problems can become lifelong personality traits.
Briggs shows how this dynamic is reflected in homes that utilize control vs. shared power – authoritarian vs. democratic parenting strategies. “Seeing children’s needs as important as yours and trusting their capacity for reasonable cooperation makes you more inclined to share power. Then, you can afford to be democratic in your discipline.”(p.232) While authoritarian parenting strategies tend to raise outer-directed children who learn early on to follow the direction of those outside themselves, and to ignore the direction of their own inner voice. For this reason, “Authoritarianism is great training for children who will live under dictatorships, but far from adequate for children who will be expected to think independently… It literally instructs youngsters not to trust their own capacity to reason or judge.”(p.237)
Authoritarian parenting may win submission from the child, but the conflict that would be worked out in the open exchange of a democratic home is instead internalized inside the child, who may internalize the message to mean they are not good, and construct a mask to appear go to the world. By contrast, democratic parenting calms those inner power struggles by allowing open discussion through which parent and child can work thing out together, teaching their young by example how to resolve conflict by modeling ways to deal with it. Such parenting strategies also teach children how to argue in healthy ways, so to understand and be understood, rather than simply to win.
Democratic child rearing techniques teach children to get rid of tension and negative energy by encouraging free expression, taking feelings seriously, and helping children to understand, express, and respect themselves. It incorporates elements of safety, trust, honesty, sincerity, and thoughtfulness, encouraging the young to feel safe and free to speak up for themselves.(p.181) They learn to value their own and others opinions, to reconcile different perspectives with their own, and to make a habit of looking at the world through many different windows,(p.103) encouraging them to search for ever more of the whole truth by ongoing and cumulative learning.
Discipline usually aims to encourage good behavior, but methods can backfire in this way, actually bringing out the worse in our young, when we are mistaken about what actually works and end up teaching something other than what we mean to teach. When we discipline by scolding and punishment, rather than teaching, it appeals not to the better nature of the child, but to the child’s fear and self-interest. And in the process, it tends to encourage them to react to what others expect, to develop the need to please, always trying to be what others want, which is not actual learning, but habituation, and it tends to just make the child more fearful, anxious, self-conscious, self-doubting, and ultimately undermines confidence in their own goodness
This becomes particularly painful for the child when expectations of others are always changing, like living in a world of shifting mirrors. In order to cope with the constantly changing anxieties, fears, insecurities, inadequacies, the child will be constantly on edge, and in the process of trying to steady themselves, the child learns to use external cues, and stops trusting their own inner impulses, inner voice, and conscience, which would otherwise guide if helped to think as they go. Again, this may well bring them to believe that their inner impulses are indeed bad, and so they will erect defenses as cover-up, like scar tissue around psychological wound.
And distracted by the felt-need to create the appearance of being good for outside eyes, they will develop a kind of mask (the ‘good girl’, or the clown, etc.) to cover up low self-esteem and win approval. As the child struggles with this dynamic, creating the appearance of bring, rather than actually being, then the more the child internalized the assumption that their inner self is simply not good enough, the more the child will construct a phony self.
The child may try to appear perfect, but will fail (since no one ever is) and so experience even more self-loathing and inner tension. For this reason, a person with low self-esteem tends to be rigid and to fear change. Whereas one with high self-esteem (or better yet, self-respect) knows he has underdeveloped potentials, so tends to be changing, not afraid to confront weaknesses and make them into strengths.
And as the child ages, increasingly this “emphasis shifts from being to appearing.” (Karen Horney, p.30-32) He may get approval for the false self, but he will always be off balance, because his center of gravity is outside of himself. ”He thinks the façade protects him from further rejection. But it’s a personal trap. And his relationship with other remain counterfeit for as long as he plays this game.”(p.33) So parenting in this way can actually shift the child’s locus of control from inner to outer, and may encourage the development of a belief in one’s badness in the process, albeit as a self-defensive reaction.
And unable to trust his own intrinsic cues, the child doesn’t know what to do expect, so learns to follow extrinsic cues. This makes him vulnerable to extrinsic control by other’s expectations, such as peer pressure, good or bad, education, political and religious manipulation, and the effects can take root and continue to grow for life.
All of which gives rise to bad conscience, which precludes self-respect, and ultimately his own true happiness. And as a self-protective reaction, understandably self-interested, this mask can quickly make the child simply self-absorbed, and even selfish. For in creating the appearance of being good, he or she does not do, or even know, what is truly good, just what is appears to be good in others eyes, which often simply translates into ‘good for me’ – which often turns out to be anything but good for them.
This is especially problematic when this person, the phony self, themselves becomes a parent…and probably doesn’t believe their kids are any good either…so rationalizes they need control and punishment to learn to appear good…and the cycle begins again.
It’s sad to watch this happening (and as it may be only one parent who elicits this, it may be the other who is witness to its effects), because again, it become a self-reinforcing feedback loop that tends to get worse as it goes. Children who behave this way need love, more than anything, to restore their confidence, but actually get less love because their behavior makes them ever more difficult to feel good about.
In this way, the weight of such judgments can be indelible and even self-magnifying when internalized at a very young age, in part because the child’s behavior will tend to reflect and reinforce the parent’s initial judgment. And in their efforts to avoid the punishment that comes of displeasing a parent, children learn to see themselves by way of reflection they see in other’s eyes. This reflection that begins in the eyes of parent, is magnified when, later on, their resulting misbehavior elicits disapproval from others as well. All of which just makes parent’s job and child’s life more difficult.
By contrast, treatment that reflects a belief that a child is good, and aims to understand the child’s changing behavior, will reinforce the habit of confidence and inner worth, which can also leave a permanent impression by way of negative feedback, which corrects the child’s errors, rather than magnify them, and might even form a positive feel back that amplifies the child’s belief in his own inner goodness.
A parent who disciplines by teaching understands that misbehavior reflects a need to learn, thus a parents responsibility to learn from the child what the child needs to learn. The parent knows they need to understand and respect the child’s bad feelings, but discourage acting on those feelings. When a child behaves badly, they will help the child recoup a positive perspective, remember the good inside themselves in order to further actualize it, especially when the child themselves forget it. In this way, discipline should remind the child of their own goodness, with the goal of helping the child learn self-control and self-discipline.
Children will always misbehave sometimes (born of frustration, or misunderstanding, or simple ignorance of what is right) and may well be wrong or even bad sometimes. But behavior is not equal to the person, and a parent who takes the child’s learning process seriously will try to understand that bad behavior in context, knowing that it is temporary, and needs to be corrected by learning. This approach will help a child make peace with any inner demons that may arise, help them learn to work things though so to make things right – what the ancient Hawaiians call hoponopono.
To accomplish this, a parent needs to respond in a way that teaches doing the right thing for the right reason, not merely for appearances. By appealing to the child’s better nature, they encourage self-understanding, learning from mistakes, and active self-direction, which builds confidence, self-esteem, inner worth, and gives rise to happy play. Feelings of unworthiness can rarely be reached by scolding or words, only love and positive experience, until parent’s understanding that child is good is internalized by the child themselves.(p.25)
To recognize that children develop according to this psychological weather in a family helps us better understand how habits develop, not by way of an intrinsic nature (as some who hold views like ‘original sin’ might assume), or in response to particular events (as psychologists tend to surmise), but rather by way of a sort of ongoing dance that takes place in the habits of stimulus and response that become patterns in ongoing relationships. Parent’s own habits and self-concept, if unreflective, as well as beliefs about the nature of their children, become internalized as habitual responses by their children, and young children see themselves reflected in parents eyes.
Parents also may bring influences from their own childhood into their methods of discipline. And factors like tension, attitudes of hostility, distrust, indifference will be internalize in the child’s responses. Many other variables add to this anxiety, and words especially have power, so names, insults, and negative labels (like ‘bad’ ‘naughty’ ‘stupid’ ‘what’s wrong with you?’ etc) take root, as do mixed messages and body language. And, of course, when anger goes unchecked, parents who lack of self-control will pass it on in the form or anger to the child (p.206) Spanking and violence, rather than teach the lessons expected by parents who use them, often only recharge the child’s emotional battery, making the problem worse rather than better. (p. 234)
Parent with intense inner conflict, who have been habituated by such ways in their own youth, can be distracted by the felt-need to create the appearance of being good parents for outside eyes, and in the process, neglect the child’s need for the real thing. They may have difficulty empathizing with the child, so busy with their own inner reactions and angers. To such parents, children become means to their own ends, (p.47) as children feed parents needs and hungers. For this reason, parents must resolve their own inner conflict, for when we don’t resolve our own problems with inner worth we may unintentionally expect children to fill that void (p.54) The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference (p.66) And parents who are hard on themselves will be hard on their children (p.56) and will be likely to give them attention only when their misbehaving.
But children need focused here and now attention, active listening, and to be seen through always fresh eyes that offer spontaneous distress relief, and genuine love requires focused attention and understanding (p.64) They need solitude enough to develop a relationship with themselves, and opportunity to develop healthy and creative relationships with others. And this is why eastern philosophy cannot only help revive our better self, but make us better parents in the process.
Low self-esteem is cured only by enhanced self-respect. True confidence is conviction and faith in ones inner self, self-respect in who you really are, who you know yourself to be, not whether one’s mask is on straight. And to make matters worse, this mask acts as sun glasses that filter out genuine love b/c those who love the real inner person generally don’t like the mask very much, so seem critical, judgmental, unloving, disapproving, which only reinforces the secret sense of unworthiness in the beloved.
Others may well fall in love with the genuine person inside, but then still have to put up with the less authentic person who is the outside. If a person is unreflective, then anyone who loves them has to live with their demons, their bad habits, anxious, self-conscious, and angry self, which makes for an attraction/rejection dynamic. And the problem for those who love people through their masks is that, knowing themselves to be less than loveable, those closest to them tend to be mistreated and taken for granted, which diminishes what love they might otherwise show for the abuser (as Woody Allen famously said, “they don’t want to belong to any club that would have them as a member”). In this way, habits of unreflective reaction take root at a very young age, and can show up as problems in adulthood.
Vicious circles can be broken though when understood for what they are…hard to be angry when you understand how children’s behavior makes sense…but more difficult the longer one waits…usually only healed by an understanding parent or other adult who is understanding…can help the child remember his better self…requires being and encouraging self-reflection (p.33)…looking within…to see the difference in the phony self and the real self… “learning to accept her true nature…Realizing her life had been one long game of play-acting, she recognized that for her own mental and physical health she had to live according to her intrinsic nature, even though that meant not living up to what had been expected of her earlier….She was astonished when long-time friends told her they liked the real [her] better than the phony one.” Often surprising to discover that, “In fact, others like us much better without [our masks], for genuineness is captivating.”(p.33)
All of which is important to consider if we are to truly understand the lessons of ancient philosophy and apply them to the challenges of our lives. Patterns of self and other control, self and other respect, and communication feedback, are critical variables in healthy relationships of all kinds – most especially educational.
*
This book did get me started studying child psychology…thinking about how habits of thinking and the assumptions underlying it begin at an early age. As it happens, I was taking a logic course at the time, and realized how powerful assumptions are, as the foundation for all our reasoning thereafter. As those aspects of our thinking that go largely unexamined, sometimes for a lifetime, they can provide a solid foundation, or do a great deal of damage, along the way.
I marvel at how often I’m still learning from that book. It’s sitting next to my computer as I write because I’ve referenced it so often lately. If we wish to understand how our lifelong habits developed in the first place, it helps to consider how childrearing practices can bring out the better and worse in us when we are still very young.
As a philosophical counselor, I’m disinclined to put responsibility for psychological and behavioral issues on past events (as a psychologist might), or to believe that certain traits, like selfishness, are a person’s ‘nature’, as many are inclined to think. Because the human mind is always free to change, there are always choices being made, though often beneath the surface of awareness.
I am very inclined, however, to examine habits of thinking, assumptions underlying that thinking, and the feedback patterns of someone’s early childhood experience that give rise to habits of thought and behavior to begin with. The family climate that is our first ‘normal’ can have lasting effects on the psyche, for better or worse. And a better understanding of how their lifelong patterns took root at an early age can help a person take control of and change their thoughts, assumptions, behavior, and ultimately change their lives.
A person who desires change can benefit by considering how they came to think the way we do, for it is our reasoning – that is, the reasons that we choose to act one way and not another – that makes us ‘who we are,’ in a certain sense, or allows us to change into who we’d rather be. Habits that go unexamined, especially habits in thinking, often begin as assumptions at a very young age, and soon take the form of reasons we act, the strategies we follow, which are especially potent in their long term effects – and these effects can be either self-enhancing, or self-destructive over the course of a life.
Buddha once said, “You are what you think.” And to a great extent, this is true. But changing our thinking will not automatically change your life, at least not as quickly as we might like. Changing our thinking makes a difference only when it changes our behavior, and this is a process that must be understood in order to be mastered. For we live in the garden we have planted, and we must plant the seeds of the future we would like, and then allow time for those seeds to grow.
The art of self-mastery can sometimes come to be expressed in very simple terms, as Briggs had done in this book. But the coming to understand is a process that cannot be shortcut or bypassed. Words can sometimes work an awesome magic, when it comes to advancing understanding, but by themselves them selves, words do not constitute understanding…unless and until those words take root in our life. That is, unless they change our behavior.
Again, as Aristotle said, we need both theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom.
If changing our behavior were enough, we could simply recondition people like Pavlov’s dogs. But the essence of the challenge that the ancients put before us is not just to change our behavior, but to change the understanding upon which our behavior rests. For only when we truly understand why we behave as we do, will our thoughts plant the seeds of behavior from which the garden we wish to live in can grow. Only then can we begin to proceed toward becoming the persons we wish to become and the lives we wish to live.
There’s are several books sitting on a nearby shelf that I’ve used for years in a class I called, Love, Sex & Friendship. One that actually changed my life is entitled On Being A Friend, by Eugene Kennedy. It illuminates how it is that human relationships suffer when the masks we develop to protect ourselves actually become prisons, of sorts, and prevent us from ever being a real friend, to ourselves or anyone else.
The other is called Your Child’s Self-Esteem, by Dorthy Corkhill Briggs, and it may well have changed my daughter's life. It illuminates how the habit of putting on a false front to please one's parents and other significant caretakers can begin early on in family childrearing strategies that reinforce inauthenticity and insecurity at a very early age, and can become lifelong patterns in the process.
Together, these two books illuminated for me at a critical time in life how important the way we talk to one another can be, especially when it comes to giving feedback to children that help form their reactive habits at a very young age.
Briggs shows how parenting strategies form communication dynamics involved in raising children (including control vs. understanding, punishment vs. teaching, authoritarian vs. democratic), tend to have what we might call butterfly effects when it comes to the development of the young child’s self-image and character. (I take issue with the term self-esteem, btw, especially as it’s tossed around culturally, for we fail to distinguish between it and self-respect – a critical difference, philosophically, but more on that later.) In this sense, children are ‘sensitively dependent on their initial conditions’ – and what this means is that seemingly small influences in early childhood development can magnify into dramatic consequences, for better or worse.
The unfortunate reality is that our parenting strategies can backfire if they are ill considered, and both children and parents have to live with the unintended consequences of the errors made early on in childhood development. As the ancient knew interference early in the flight of an arrow will send it wildly off course, when the same effect near later in its flight will have little or even no effect.
What Briggs calls “seat-of-the-pants parenting” is the strategy many tend to employ, as it seems to be the easy way, at first. It’s easy to assume that following this path of least resistance will lead to good results, and many don’t realize until the damage is done that a little more effort, early on, can save a lot of difficulty, for both children and parents, later on. In fact, this may be true, even if our own patterns are kind and loving, which children do tend to bring out in parents. It’s true, you can’t love a child too much, but you can fail to teach by simply taking the path of least resistance. Unreflective parents may simply be reenacting the patterns of their own upbringing, which may seem good enough, if they themselves are happy, and may well be, until the child need understand that the parent may not notice or respond to.
But parenting strategies often go the other way as well, if and when dynamics kick in that are motivated less by love, and more by the will to control. Some might even believe that near complete control would simply make the difficult job of parenting easier, make children more compliant. But, in fact, as Buddha and Socrates would have warned, attempting to control our young can fail to teach, and only condition behavior, which can backfire when children assert their need for self-control, which any healthy child will eventually. Even when over-authority works early on, it can end up making a parent’s job more difficult as children grow, when the child’s will to self-control show itself as defiance toward over-controlling parents, and perhaps even all authority.
So we do ourselves, and them, a favor if we help our children learn self-control when they are still very young. And this must both be modeled and taught, because doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time requires that the skill of reasoning out our options and choices, which can begin at a very early age.
So as parents, we would do well to choose our parenting techniques carefully, for the consequences of thoughtless errors have a way of blowing up in our faces and/or coming back around to haunt us - and more to the point, can make life difficult for our children, maybe for a lifetime. Thoughtful parents may well make mistakes as well. Indeed, no one is ever perfect. But since we will make mistakes anyway, better to make those of careful and deliberate parenting, than those that might have been avoided by putting the child’s interests first. At least we will know we did our best, which is, after all, the best that one can hope to do. Whereas the mistakes of thoughtless parenting that can turn out to be overwhelming for us as well as our children come with the added regret of knowing that we would do it differently if we had it to do over again.
The truth is, Briggs emphasizes, that in raising children, problems change, but never end. Because the nature of human growth is that we are all always learning, advancing, and facing new challenges, and the job for parents is to help children develop an understanding of these changes themselves. The ever-new challenges that children face are challenges for parents as well. So a parent who understands that children are always changing and growing will not only remain flexible, always learning from the child themselves as they face new challenges that arise, but will also act to increase the child’s sense of understanding of these changes as well.
An effective parent will understand children’s stage development because they are different at every level of development, and if parents understand this, they are more apt to understand the child’s behavior in light of what he or she needs to learn at a given moment in time. Not only are children different from one another, as the Hindus emphasize, but like all people, they are even different from themselves at different points along their own paths. Seeing this, parents are less inclined to want to punish (unless absolutely necessary, which it sometime is), and more inclined to develop the habit of teaching. And as children learn, comes a faith in the child’s capacity for self-direction.(p.109)
From the get go, this parenting strategy conditions the habit of empathy in the parent, putting oneself in the child’s place, treating them as you would like to be treated if in their shoes, looking at child’s world from his point of view (p.53), But this habit must begin as a reasoned choice about how to regard and discipline the child from the start. Parent who deliberately disciplines with understanding (which does not come ‘naturally’ to many of us, even those who are loving) will act to relieve the child’s distress in new circumstances, and in this way, encourage inner peace, confidence, feelings of self worth in the child, which are necessary for learning.
What’s more, developing the habit of positive regard for the child by recognizing the child’s need to learn at every turn will also habituate confidence and positive self-regard in the parent themselves – a positive feedback loop that can make parenting easier from the start.
What’s more, a parent who will not learn gives rise to a child who cannot learn. A family in conflict effects their children’s intelligence, because the mind cannot function well when caught up in worry and unresolved tension. Of course, some conflict is unavoidable in life, and this is all the more reason that learning to resolve it is so important. But conflict that cannot be resolved, such at that between parents who, one or the other, cannot or will not come to center, do their part to reach understanding, puts the child in a permanent state of tension. And this cannot be made right by the other parent simply giving in because the child has their own reasoning faculties, so can tell when wrong remains wrong, even when tension is quite. As the old saying goes, “No justice, no peace; know justice, know peace.”
The more the child’s relationships begin to reflect this power dynamic, the more difficult it will be for the child to concentrate on schoolwork or anything else (p.30)… child needs positive life experience…key to positive self-concept…experience that reinforces competence (p.57)…inner worth…joy in being self… child’s attention and energy are not free for peaceful and spontaneous play or learning, when always worrying what others think, “Whether a child’s mental ability is available for use depends on how emotionally tied up he is. Repression acts like a dam that can narrow the river of intelligence to a mere trickle. There are youngsters whose tested IQs have jumped 60 to 100 points when emotional blocks have been removed. Children cannot absorb from the printed page when their focus is turned inward… Energies tied up in repression are not available for constructive purposes.”(p.182)
One example offered, “when [one] boy’s home and school environment were most confirming (sending positive reflections), his IQ score increased to 140; when they were least nurturing it dropped to 117. The psychological climate surrounding any child has a strong influence on his mental functioning.”(p.269)
Another set of examples, one child’s “burning curiosity and desire to learn push her to use her ability, while [another] daydreams and worries about what others think of him. Self-confidence permits a child to perform; whereas, brilliance may be trapped in low self-esteem.”(p.270) “When feelings are expressed in vigorous physical action, released through clay, art, drama, music, or words, the energy wrapped up in the emotion is discharged. The body, then, returns to its former state of equilibrium.”(p.182)
“Creative children tend to be independent, rather unconcerned with group pressures or conformity, and disinterested in what other people think of them.”(p.278-279) “Studies show that the freely creative youngster is high in self-confidence, emotional maturity, calmness, and independence. He has the capacity for sustained concentration and involved absorption in his projects.”(p.280) In this case, a parent needs to eliminate as much outer pressure as possible…for a child with inner pressure and turmoil needs opportunity to master self without competition with others…self-mastery is its own reward (p.126)
By contrast, a parent who does not understand how love has this power to bring out the good in both parent and child is likely to read a child’s changing needs as if it is deliberate defiance and disobedience.’ A parent who over-controls, who thinks that ‘good’ children should simply do what they’re told, is likely to treat the child’s changing needs as misbehavior, with scolding, punishment, and withdrawl. This tends to communicate that something’s ‘wrong’ with the child and suggests a belief that the child is fundamentally bad, which undermines the child’s confidence and inner worth. And the more a parent believes or at any rate communicates that a child is intrinsically bad (which may not reflect a parent’s actual view, by the way, but rather his or her unreflective habits), the more the child is likely to believe it themselves, and act on it, if only by putting on a good act.
And as the child feels increasingly misjudged, unloved, unhappy, these feelings of worthlessness can quickly develop into the felt need to get attention, even if that attention is negative, and the child will often misbehave simply to get it, which may seem better than getting no attention at all to the child. Showing off, empty chatter, obnoxious misbehavior, aim to draw some kind of affirmation. But the result is often that it elicits rejection, instead of acceptance, which only further reinforces the child’s belief that he is intrinsically bad and therefore unlovable, and thus may increase his efforts to get attention, and so on and so forth.
This is how feedback loops get started, and it’s easy to see how this pattern can quickly becomes a vicious cycle, if it leads to ever more scolding and punishment (or rejection, especially from other children), which in turn increases misbehavior, and so more scolding (or more rejection), and so on and so forth. A positive feedback loop develops in this way (and this does not mean ‘positive’ in the sense of good; see section on feedback loops), and ultimately can have a butterfly effect on a child’s life, meaning, it can magnify into large scale problems that started from small scale misunderstandings. If left unchecked by unreflective parents these problems can become lifelong personality traits.
Briggs shows how this dynamic is reflected in homes that utilize control vs. shared power – authoritarian vs. democratic parenting strategies. “Seeing children’s needs as important as yours and trusting their capacity for reasonable cooperation makes you more inclined to share power. Then, you can afford to be democratic in your discipline.”(p.232) While authoritarian parenting strategies tend to raise outer-directed children who learn early on to follow the direction of those outside themselves, and to ignore the direction of their own inner voice. For this reason, “Authoritarianism is great training for children who will live under dictatorships, but far from adequate for children who will be expected to think independently… It literally instructs youngsters not to trust their own capacity to reason or judge.”(p.237)
Authoritarian parenting may win submission from the child, but the conflict that would be worked out in the open exchange of a democratic home is instead internalized inside the child, who may internalize the message to mean they are not good, and construct a mask to appear go to the world. By contrast, democratic parenting calms those inner power struggles by allowing open discussion through which parent and child can work thing out together, teaching their young by example how to resolve conflict by modeling ways to deal with it. Such parenting strategies also teach children how to argue in healthy ways, so to understand and be understood, rather than simply to win.
Democratic child rearing techniques teach children to get rid of tension and negative energy by encouraging free expression, taking feelings seriously, and helping children to understand, express, and respect themselves. It incorporates elements of safety, trust, honesty, sincerity, and thoughtfulness, encouraging the young to feel safe and free to speak up for themselves.(p.181) They learn to value their own and others opinions, to reconcile different perspectives with their own, and to make a habit of looking at the world through many different windows,(p.103) encouraging them to search for ever more of the whole truth by ongoing and cumulative learning.
Discipline usually aims to encourage good behavior, but methods can backfire in this way, actually bringing out the worse in our young, when we are mistaken about what actually works and end up teaching something other than what we mean to teach. When we discipline by scolding and punishment, rather than teaching, it appeals not to the better nature of the child, but to the child’s fear and self-interest. And in the process, it tends to encourage them to react to what others expect, to develop the need to please, always trying to be what others want, which is not actual learning, but habituation, and it tends to just make the child more fearful, anxious, self-conscious, self-doubting, and ultimately undermines confidence in their own goodness
This becomes particularly painful for the child when expectations of others are always changing, like living in a world of shifting mirrors. In order to cope with the constantly changing anxieties, fears, insecurities, inadequacies, the child will be constantly on edge, and in the process of trying to steady themselves, the child learns to use external cues, and stops trusting their own inner impulses, inner voice, and conscience, which would otherwise guide if helped to think as they go. Again, this may well bring them to believe that their inner impulses are indeed bad, and so they will erect defenses as cover-up, like scar tissue around psychological wound.
And distracted by the felt-need to create the appearance of being good for outside eyes, they will develop a kind of mask (the ‘good girl’, or the clown, etc.) to cover up low self-esteem and win approval. As the child struggles with this dynamic, creating the appearance of bring, rather than actually being, then the more the child internalized the assumption that their inner self is simply not good enough, the more the child will construct a phony self.
The child may try to appear perfect, but will fail (since no one ever is) and so experience even more self-loathing and inner tension. For this reason, a person with low self-esteem tends to be rigid and to fear change. Whereas one with high self-esteem (or better yet, self-respect) knows he has underdeveloped potentials, so tends to be changing, not afraid to confront weaknesses and make them into strengths.
And as the child ages, increasingly this “emphasis shifts from being to appearing.” (Karen Horney, p.30-32) He may get approval for the false self, but he will always be off balance, because his center of gravity is outside of himself. ”He thinks the façade protects him from further rejection. But it’s a personal trap. And his relationship with other remain counterfeit for as long as he plays this game.”(p.33) So parenting in this way can actually shift the child’s locus of control from inner to outer, and may encourage the development of a belief in one’s badness in the process, albeit as a self-defensive reaction.
And unable to trust his own intrinsic cues, the child doesn’t know what to do expect, so learns to follow extrinsic cues. This makes him vulnerable to extrinsic control by other’s expectations, such as peer pressure, good or bad, education, political and religious manipulation, and the effects can take root and continue to grow for life.
All of which gives rise to bad conscience, which precludes self-respect, and ultimately his own true happiness. And as a self-protective reaction, understandably self-interested, this mask can quickly make the child simply self-absorbed, and even selfish. For in creating the appearance of being good, he or she does not do, or even know, what is truly good, just what is appears to be good in others eyes, which often simply translates into ‘good for me’ – which often turns out to be anything but good for them.
This is especially problematic when this person, the phony self, themselves becomes a parent…and probably doesn’t believe their kids are any good either…so rationalizes they need control and punishment to learn to appear good…and the cycle begins again.
It’s sad to watch this happening (and as it may be only one parent who elicits this, it may be the other who is witness to its effects), because again, it become a self-reinforcing feedback loop that tends to get worse as it goes. Children who behave this way need love, more than anything, to restore their confidence, but actually get less love because their behavior makes them ever more difficult to feel good about.
In this way, the weight of such judgments can be indelible and even self-magnifying when internalized at a very young age, in part because the child’s behavior will tend to reflect and reinforce the parent’s initial judgment. And in their efforts to avoid the punishment that comes of displeasing a parent, children learn to see themselves by way of reflection they see in other’s eyes. This reflection that begins in the eyes of parent, is magnified when, later on, their resulting misbehavior elicits disapproval from others as well. All of which just makes parent’s job and child’s life more difficult.
By contrast, treatment that reflects a belief that a child is good, and aims to understand the child’s changing behavior, will reinforce the habit of confidence and inner worth, which can also leave a permanent impression by way of negative feedback, which corrects the child’s errors, rather than magnify them, and might even form a positive feel back that amplifies the child’s belief in his own inner goodness.
A parent who disciplines by teaching understands that misbehavior reflects a need to learn, thus a parents responsibility to learn from the child what the child needs to learn. The parent knows they need to understand and respect the child’s bad feelings, but discourage acting on those feelings. When a child behaves badly, they will help the child recoup a positive perspective, remember the good inside themselves in order to further actualize it, especially when the child themselves forget it. In this way, discipline should remind the child of their own goodness, with the goal of helping the child learn self-control and self-discipline.
Children will always misbehave sometimes (born of frustration, or misunderstanding, or simple ignorance of what is right) and may well be wrong or even bad sometimes. But behavior is not equal to the person, and a parent who takes the child’s learning process seriously will try to understand that bad behavior in context, knowing that it is temporary, and needs to be corrected by learning. This approach will help a child make peace with any inner demons that may arise, help them learn to work things though so to make things right – what the ancient Hawaiians call hoponopono.
To accomplish this, a parent needs to respond in a way that teaches doing the right thing for the right reason, not merely for appearances. By appealing to the child’s better nature, they encourage self-understanding, learning from mistakes, and active self-direction, which builds confidence, self-esteem, inner worth, and gives rise to happy play. Feelings of unworthiness can rarely be reached by scolding or words, only love and positive experience, until parent’s understanding that child is good is internalized by the child themselves.(p.25)
To recognize that children develop according to this psychological weather in a family helps us better understand how habits develop, not by way of an intrinsic nature (as some who hold views like ‘original sin’ might assume), or in response to particular events (as psychologists tend to surmise), but rather by way of a sort of ongoing dance that takes place in the habits of stimulus and response that become patterns in ongoing relationships. Parent’s own habits and self-concept, if unreflective, as well as beliefs about the nature of their children, become internalized as habitual responses by their children, and young children see themselves reflected in parents eyes.
Parents also may bring influences from their own childhood into their methods of discipline. And factors like tension, attitudes of hostility, distrust, indifference will be internalize in the child’s responses. Many other variables add to this anxiety, and words especially have power, so names, insults, and negative labels (like ‘bad’ ‘naughty’ ‘stupid’ ‘what’s wrong with you?’ etc) take root, as do mixed messages and body language. And, of course, when anger goes unchecked, parents who lack of self-control will pass it on in the form or anger to the child (p.206) Spanking and violence, rather than teach the lessons expected by parents who use them, often only recharge the child’s emotional battery, making the problem worse rather than better. (p. 234)
Parent with intense inner conflict, who have been habituated by such ways in their own youth, can be distracted by the felt-need to create the appearance of being good parents for outside eyes, and in the process, neglect the child’s need for the real thing. They may have difficulty empathizing with the child, so busy with their own inner reactions and angers. To such parents, children become means to their own ends, (p.47) as children feed parents needs and hungers. For this reason, parents must resolve their own inner conflict, for when we don’t resolve our own problems with inner worth we may unintentionally expect children to fill that void (p.54) The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference (p.66) And parents who are hard on themselves will be hard on their children (p.56) and will be likely to give them attention only when their misbehaving.
But children need focused here and now attention, active listening, and to be seen through always fresh eyes that offer spontaneous distress relief, and genuine love requires focused attention and understanding (p.64) They need solitude enough to develop a relationship with themselves, and opportunity to develop healthy and creative relationships with others. And this is why eastern philosophy cannot only help revive our better self, but make us better parents in the process.
Low self-esteem is cured only by enhanced self-respect. True confidence is conviction and faith in ones inner self, self-respect in who you really are, who you know yourself to be, not whether one’s mask is on straight. And to make matters worse, this mask acts as sun glasses that filter out genuine love b/c those who love the real inner person generally don’t like the mask very much, so seem critical, judgmental, unloving, disapproving, which only reinforces the secret sense of unworthiness in the beloved.
Others may well fall in love with the genuine person inside, but then still have to put up with the less authentic person who is the outside. If a person is unreflective, then anyone who loves them has to live with their demons, their bad habits, anxious, self-conscious, and angry self, which makes for an attraction/rejection dynamic. And the problem for those who love people through their masks is that, knowing themselves to be less than loveable, those closest to them tend to be mistreated and taken for granted, which diminishes what love they might otherwise show for the abuser (as Woody Allen famously said, “they don’t want to belong to any club that would have them as a member”). In this way, habits of unreflective reaction take root at a very young age, and can show up as problems in adulthood.
Vicious circles can be broken though when understood for what they are…hard to be angry when you understand how children’s behavior makes sense…but more difficult the longer one waits…usually only healed by an understanding parent or other adult who is understanding…can help the child remember his better self…requires being and encouraging self-reflection (p.33)…looking within…to see the difference in the phony self and the real self… “learning to accept her true nature…Realizing her life had been one long game of play-acting, she recognized that for her own mental and physical health she had to live according to her intrinsic nature, even though that meant not living up to what had been expected of her earlier….She was astonished when long-time friends told her they liked the real [her] better than the phony one.” Often surprising to discover that, “In fact, others like us much better without [our masks], for genuineness is captivating.”(p.33)
All of which is important to consider if we are to truly understand the lessons of ancient philosophy and apply them to the challenges of our lives. Patterns of self and other control, self and other respect, and communication feedback, are critical variables in healthy relationships of all kinds – most especially educational.
*
This book did get me started studying child psychology…thinking about how habits of thinking and the assumptions underlying it begin at an early age. As it happens, I was taking a logic course at the time, and realized how powerful assumptions are, as the foundation for all our reasoning thereafter. As those aspects of our thinking that go largely unexamined, sometimes for a lifetime, they can provide a solid foundation, or do a great deal of damage, along the way.
I marvel at how often I’m still learning from that book. It’s sitting next to my computer as I write because I’ve referenced it so often lately. If we wish to understand how our lifelong habits developed in the first place, it helps to consider how childrearing practices can bring out the better and worse in us when we are still very young.
As a philosophical counselor, I’m disinclined to put responsibility for psychological and behavioral issues on past events (as a psychologist might), or to believe that certain traits, like selfishness, are a person’s ‘nature’, as many are inclined to think. Because the human mind is always free to change, there are always choices being made, though often beneath the surface of awareness.
I am very inclined, however, to examine habits of thinking, assumptions underlying that thinking, and the feedback patterns of someone’s early childhood experience that give rise to habits of thought and behavior to begin with. The family climate that is our first ‘normal’ can have lasting effects on the psyche, for better or worse. And a better understanding of how their lifelong patterns took root at an early age can help a person take control of and change their thoughts, assumptions, behavior, and ultimately change their lives.
A person who desires change can benefit by considering how they came to think the way we do, for it is our reasoning – that is, the reasons that we choose to act one way and not another – that makes us ‘who we are,’ in a certain sense, or allows us to change into who we’d rather be. Habits that go unexamined, especially habits in thinking, often begin as assumptions at a very young age, and soon take the form of reasons we act, the strategies we follow, which are especially potent in their long term effects – and these effects can be either self-enhancing, or self-destructive over the course of a life.
Buddha once said, “You are what you think.” And to a great extent, this is true. But changing our thinking will not automatically change your life, at least not as quickly as we might like. Changing our thinking makes a difference only when it changes our behavior, and this is a process that must be understood in order to be mastered. For we live in the garden we have planted, and we must plant the seeds of the future we would like, and then allow time for those seeds to grow.
The art of self-mastery can sometimes come to be expressed in very simple terms, as Briggs had done in this book. But the coming to understand is a process that cannot be shortcut or bypassed. Words can sometimes work an awesome magic, when it comes to advancing understanding, but by themselves them selves, words do not constitute understanding…unless and until those words take root in our life. That is, unless they change our behavior.
Again, as Aristotle said, we need both theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom.
If changing our behavior were enough, we could simply recondition people like Pavlov’s dogs. But the essence of the challenge that the ancients put before us is not just to change our behavior, but to change the understanding upon which our behavior rests. For only when we truly understand why we behave as we do, will our thoughts plant the seeds of behavior from which the garden we wish to live in can grow. Only then can we begin to proceed toward becoming the persons we wish to become and the lives we wish to live.