Quiz: What do these behaviors have in common?
1 - A child who is obsessed with big shoes, purses, and phones while ignoring toys.
2 - A child who is a relentless back-seat driver.
3 - A child who closely watches everything the adult does, then tries to undo it.
4 - A child who eats until he is full, leaving food on his plate, then, when removed from the high chair, runs to the table to try to get someone else's food (though it's the same as he had.)
5 - A child who runs to every car he sees and tries to open the door, frantically tries to get in the drivers' seat when placed in a car, and fights his car seat straps.
6 - A child who completely freaks and melts at the word "No."
7 - A child who we've jokingly said should get a calling as a Nursery leader, since she's always trying to direct the group activities. But then she takes off running down the hall, abandoning her charges, a behavior that is discouraged for Nursery leaders.
Every child likes to "play grown-ups." Children model the lives of those around them and learn more advanced skills day by day through their imaginative play. Being big is fun! But most children are also content to sit back and be nurtured by someone else--be read to, be fed and dressed, be put in a car seat and driven around without worrying about whether the adult knows where he's going. The answer to the above quiz is: these children are trying to be in control. They are programmed to resist submitting--to paraphrase a famous quote about the Irish, they "don't know what they want, and are prepared to fight to the death to get it."
It took me a long time to put all these pieces together as one whole picture. For a several months I was scratching my head about these behaviors, since my kids are super passive and biddable by comparison (not every day and about everything, but in general). Then I was given the book Parenting the Hurt Child, by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky, and it all clicked. Neglected and abused children are obsessed with being in control of everything around them because they perceive that it will prevent them from being hurt. They run around frantically trying to nurture themselves because they see that as the way to stay alive--because nobody did the nurturing for them. To quote from the book, "When infants are well taken care of, the parents are in complete control--dressing them, feeding them, moving them about, and making all the choices....(thus) the infant learns to trust the parents who make the choices, because in the process, his needs are being met....Children with attachment issues have learned not to trust adults, and that is the lesson they need to unlearn. The only way for them to learn to trust is to give up control, thus getting the message that they won't be hurt if the parent is in charge."
Years ago in college I learned that "Trust vs. Mistrust" is the first stage of psychological development, which usually happens between birth and one year (Erik Erikson). If that goal was not met, "reparenting" is necessary--one must excavate the faulty foundation and lay it again. And that's not easy, and it takes a long time. Think about how many times the child has not had his needs met when he has been crying out for nurturing, and then think about how that has hard-wired maladaptive behavior patterns into the brain's neurons, and then think about how many repetitions of the need/gratification cycle may be required to rewire the brain into more normal patterns.
For years I've been all about freedom--I even have the "Don't Tread On Me" rattlesnake license plate (well, that's another story, it was the day after Obama got re-elected that I had to go into the DMV and I was ticked--it looks ridiculous on my green minivan, but I don't care). But now I see another side: submission can be beautiful too. We put ourselves in another person's control when we fall in love and get married, and we put ourselves in God's control when we agree to keep commandments (though we're not sure that breaking them would really hurt us). It's called trust, and if we don't learn to trust as infants, we will always see the world as a shifting mass of people you can't rely on. How sad is that! I'm doing my best to not let that happen to three more souls, and thanks to all of you who are helping (even if it means chasing them around the chapel during sacrament meeting!)
