“Just where did my kid come from?” … “Sometimes I just don’t get her” … “Where did he learn to say that?”
You would be amazed at how many parents of young children entertain such simple thoughts from time to time, especially when their child seems to be acting up or zoning out.
You see, as parents we really have to walk a very thin tightrope – a balance of allowing our children to grow into who they really are, but at the same time 'fit in' to:
family expectations
school requirements, and, as they get older
friendship, relationship and career aspirations (yours, that is … not theirs).
It doesn’t have to be this way. Your child was born as a unique human being, one with a ready-made set of strengths, weaknesses and gifts … their ‘talent’ … the value they will bring to others as they grow towards adulthood.
There are six key areas of influence over your child’s development:
natural behaviours
external influences
mimicking language
learned behaviours
modelling others
genetic heritage
When all are put together, we begin to get a glimpse of the ‘personality’ of the child, a taste of what they will become as they grow.
To be aware of this as a parent is gold, for both parent and child. And it is very important to understand these key drivers influencing your child’s growth and development to ensure an ongoing positive environment for your child to grow in.
Natural behaviours:
Everybody has unique talents, and everyone seeks to think and act in the most natural way to themselves.
When allowed to be our natural selves we experience:
harmony in our relationships
a sense of flow in all our activities
complete satisfaction in all we do.
When we are forced to assume behaviours not natural to us we quickly begin to feel:
frustration
out of sorts
as if we were acting like someone else.
For adults, we can encounter this behavioural rollercoaster daily, and we have become used to controlling these shifts in our activities, tasks and interactions.
But when a child is ‘made’ to do and say things in a way not natural for them, they start to feel as if they are not up to standard, as if they are not making their parents proud, or their teachers happy.
How can you identify your child’s natural behaviour in their early years?
Try watching for such tell-tale signs as how:
they talk about their day at day-care or at school
fussy they are when dressing
they eat their food
focused they are when playing with (for example) Lego blocks
comfortable and willing they are to be around people they are not so familiar with
patient they are
how they attend to tasks given to them.
The list is endless, but you get the picture. These behaviours quickly identify your child’s natural way of thinking and acting. Knowing this puts you in a better position to guide your child along their own natural path of engagement, communication and action.
Learned behaviours:
When children begin to adopt learned behaviours (behaviours that belong to someone else, but have become ‘normal’ for them), they are in danger of adopting living and learning styles that will follow them into adulthood.
They will grow up believing, and accepting, such behaviours are what they have chosen to do or become.
To become a fully integrative, functioning person we need to be able to:
distinguish our natural talents, abilities and personalities from what were imposed on us
appreciate the influences others have had over time (for some this never goes away)
decide what to accept and keep, what to discard, what to seek instead.
You know how hard this can be for a fully functioning adult. So why do we allow our children to go through this, even though we have the best of intentions?
A successful person will utilise a combination of natural and learned behaviours as they mature into adulthood.
As parents, we need to remain aware of this and provide our children with the opportunity of being who they choose to be, given that sometimes we recognise the need to intervene for their own good.
External Influences:
The decisions a child makes as to how to engage with their world is influenced by more than just learned and/or natural behaviours. At every stage of life, we are faced with the task of interacting with our world.
We are continually bombarded with external influences on our behaviour and thinking; ideas, expectations, opinions that can influence our day to day lives, not to mention our futures.
These outside forces will confront us from the day we are born, but over time, the context in which they appear will make meaning of the content.
For example, a child at different stages of their young life will be heavily influenced by
his/her parents’ values, behaviours and the like
what their friends think and do,
what they are exposed to on social media.
Modelling Others:
Most of us know modelling is a useful strategy for learning new behaviours and skills. However, what many of us overlook is the reality that our children model us from a very early age.
The essence of modelling is that the learner never asks the model why they are doing something, what they are feeling etc.
The value is in seeing and adopting what we observe ‘as is’, and children are excellent at doing just this.
When your child acts out in a particular fashion you consider unsuitable, check whether this is something they have seen you as parents doing, or perhaps their friends or teachers. If so, your task is to gently ‘re-model’ the behaviours you would prefer them to exhibit.
This is not an easy task, and many children see it as a game, so patience and consistency is key.
Mimicking language:
This influence on a child’s behaviour is perhaps one of the hardest to control, as many parents have discovered.
While many seek to act like you, certainly most children do like to sound like you.
How many times do parents find themselves embarrassed when their young old child offers a clear and not so nice expletive? And then make a big noise about it to their child, demanding they don’t say it, that they are being naughty and so on.
For many children, the mere act of responding to this use of language is the greatest spur to continue saying it.
The hardest thing for a parent to do is ignore it, or quietly and calmly suggest an alternative, saying, for example, that it is not nice behaviour.
And, when a parent continues to use any inappropriate language, they are really unconsciously telling their child that it is okay to do so, despite what they say.
Oh, what a hard and treacherous road we as parents travel on.
Genetic Heritage:
There is not much we can do about our genetic past. We are all ‘victims’ of the genes we inherit from past generations.
So, before you ask why your child has green eyes when you both don’t, or where a particular gesture came from, or why they frown or smile as they do, chances are it belongs to someone in their more distant past.
It is not natural behaviour, nor learned behaviour, and it probably didn’t come from other external influences. It is just who they are.
Our children … the love of our lives, the bane of our existence. They are people, just like you, and they have their own uniqueness…just like you.
Children that are encouraged to be themselves, while being guided and supported appropriately, are most likely to grow into adulthood with the least frustration and anger, with the least sense of being lost or unfulfilled.
They will have:
open and accepting minds
strong self- belief
confidence to ask parents for advice because they are trusted, valued and respected.
Will your child have the freedom to explore his or her own true self, with your help? To be a round peg in a round hole?
It is never too early to create this open and positive mindset, though the choice will always start with you.
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