Teenagers cause parents such angst!  So let’s address three questions: What are some of the issues with which parents and teens struggle?  How can we understand teenagers?  And what one key might be most helpful in your relationship with your teen and his or her development?

Teen and Parent Issues

Teenagers are remarkable – the volatility!  The passion!  The chaos, self-absorption, mood shifts, love and anger, separation and closeness. 

What are teenagers dealing with?  Physical changes, puberty, sexuality; the formation of their own identity, as they grapple with their identifications with their mother and father and try to figure out their own interests.  Increased pressure around school, work, and friendships abound.

And what do parents struggle with?  How to give their teens both roots and wings — how to enhance healthy maturation and independence while providing necessary structure and boundaries.  And the arguments and distortions the teens inflict upon their parents — all this can leave parents gasping, remembering their own adolescence, and asking themselves why their teenagers have to separate in such a noisy, messy (in every sense of the word!), and provocative fashion.

Understanding Your Teenager: Focus on the Feelings

The best way to understand your teenager is by focusing on his or her feelings.  Feelings are the foundation.  Behaviors are caused by feelings.

Human beings appear to be born with the capacity for approximately nine feelings: interest (curiosity), enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust (reaction to toxic tastes) and dissmell (reaction to toxic odors).  These feelings combine with each other and with experience to form our complex emotional life.  Remember the issues with which teenagers struggle as noted above?  These issues all stir up feelings: distress, joy, anger, embarrassment, and on and on.

 So, how can we make teenagers understandable?  Focus on — and talk about — their feelings!

The Main Key

And, yes, in the midst of all this complexity, there really is one major key which can enhance your relationship with your teenager and help his or her development.  Focus like a laser beam on the feeling of interest (or curiosity).  The feeling of interest is the root of all our exploratory, learning, and creative activities.  Do your best with your teenager to figure out what his/her major interest(s) is, and then help pursue it.  Does she like horses and riding?  Find her a stable and opportunity to ride and take care of horses.  Does he love baseball?  Take him to games, get him a coach, and help him participate in whatever teams and leagues he wants.  Does she like acting and singing?  Get her to drama classes, stage opportunities, and a voice instructor.  Is he passionate about firefighting and paramedic work?  Hook him up with fire department programs, ride-along opportunities, and CPR and paramedic classes.  Think it won’t work?  Try it!

By understanding and focusing on what your teenager is interested in, you set them up to put 110% into their life.  You give them great teen years, and you also give them the best tools for the rest of life’s major decisions — their work and relationships.

The last several articles focused on setting up a foundation for understanding feelings. The best current model suggests human beings are born with nine feelings: interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust (a reaction to toxic tastes) and dissmell (a reaction to toxic odors). These feelings combine with each other and with experience to form our more complex adult emotions.

The problem with physical punishment is twofold. First, physical punishment elicits precisely the negative feelings one does not want to generate in children, namely, distress, anger, fear, shame, and disgust. Second, physical punishment squashes precisely the feelings one wants to encourage in children, specifically interest and enjoyment.

For instance, what about the little boy or girl who is consistently hit for “getting into everything”? In such a case, distress, anger, fear, and shame become associated with the feeling of interest, which is exactly what one does not want because interest drives our learning and exploratory activities. Or how about so-called “bad words”? Try reaching for the dictionary, not the soap. The dictionary triggers interest (learning), the soap triggers anger, fear, and disgust (inhibiting learning).

Effective Alternatives to Physical Punishment

These alternatives provide parents and other caregivers with a focus on child development. They present strategies which can lead to less violent behavior in children and adults, and they can help decrease the frustration and helplessness in parents which often lead to physical punishment.

1. One of the most useful ways to achieve healthy child development is to promote words instead of actions. As Anny Katan eloquently summarized: “If a child would verbalize his feelings, he would learn to delay action.” Increasing the child’s capacity to put words to feelings and actions results in increased tension regulation, self-awareness, and thoughtful decision-making. This process is accomplished by:

a. Talking and using words instead of actions – talk rather than hit. Talk with the child about what behaviors are acceptable or not, what is safe or dangerous, and why.

b. Listening to the child – find out why he/she did or did not do something.

c. Explaining your reasons – this will enhance the child’s decision-making capacities.

2. The word “discipline” comes from the Latin word for “teaching” or “learning.” Children’s behaviors have meaning, and behaviors are directly connected to inner feelings. Thus, discipline is a process which addresses behaviors and the feelings which cause them.

3. Help the child label his or her feelings with words as early as possible. The nine inborn feelings (interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust, and dissmell) should be labeled with words. This will facilitate tension regulation and aid the transition to more mature ways of handling emotion.

4. Positive reinforcement – rewards and praise – will enhance the child’s self-esteem when appropriate standards are met. Positive reinforcement is more effective in obtaining long-term behavioral compliance than frightening and shaming punishments.

5. Set a good example for the child. The child wants to be like the parents. Children identify with their parents, and they will put feelings and actions into words when they see their parents doing this. Who the parents are, and how they behave, will have a profound impact on the development of their children. Your child will follow your lead.

Suggested Readings

American Academy of Pediatrics – Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (1998). Guidance for Effective Discipline. Pediatrics 101: 723-728.

Darwin C (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. (Third Edition, P. Ekman, Editor). Oxford University Press, 1998.

Gershoff ET (2008). Report on Physical Punishment in the United States: What Research Tells Us About Its Effects on Children. Columbus OH: Center for Effective Discipline.

Gershoff ET (2002). Physical punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin 128: 539-579.

Holinger PC (2003). What Babies Say Before They Can Talk: The Nine Signals Infants Use to Express Their Feelings. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Katan A (1961). Some thoughts about the role of verbalization in early childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 16: 184-188.

Strauss MA (2001). Beating the Devil Out of Them: Physical Punishment in American Families (2nd Edition). Piscataway NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Overview of Physical Punishment

It turns out that physical punishment is a serious public health problem in the United States, and it profoundly affects the mental health of children and the society in which we live.  Studies show that over 60% of families still use physical punishment to discipline children.  Yet, the research shows that: physical punishment is associated with an increase in delinquency, antisocial behavior, and aggression in children; and physical punishment is associated with a decrease in the quality of the parent-child relationship, mental health, and the child’s capacity to internalize socially acceptable behavior.  Adults who have been subject to physical punishment as children are more likely to abuse their own child or spouse and to manifest criminal behavior (see Readings, 1).

Spanking is a euphemism for hitting.  One is not permitted to hit one’s spouse or a stranger; these actions are considered domestic violence and/or assault.  Nor should one be permitted to hit a smaller and even more vulnerable child.  Hitting a child elicits precisely the feelings one does not want to generate in a child:  distress, anger, fear, shame, and disgust.  Studies show that children who are hit will “identify with the aggressor,” and they are more likely to become hitters themselves, i.e., bullies and future abusers of their children and spouses.  They tend to learn to use violent behavior as a way to deal with disputes.

What Is Physical Punishment?  What is Physical Abuse?

Physical punishment has been defined as “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience bodily pain or discomfort so as to correct or punish the child’s behavior” (see Readings, 1, p. 9).  This includes: spanking, hitting, pinching, squeezing, paddling, whipping/whupping, swatting, smacking, slapping, washing a child’s mouth with soap, making a child kneel on painful objects, and forcing a child to stand or sit in painful positions for long periods of time.  Physical abuse can be characterized by “the infliction of physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking, or otherwise harming a child” (see Readings, 5, as cited in 4, p 540).  Behaviors which cause pain but not physical injury are considered physical punishment, whereas behaviors which risk physical injury are termed physical abuse.  Both physical punishment and physical abuse should stop.  Alternatives exist which are more effective in enhancing the healthy development of children.

International Considerations

Internationally, there is increasing consensus that physical punishment of children violates international human rights law.  Significantly, 24 countries have prohibited physical punishment in all settings, including the home.  Among these countries are Sweden, Germany, Spain, Greece, and Venezuela.  More than 100 countries have banned physical punishment in the schools.  The United States has not banned physical punishment, but approval of physical punishment in the United States has declined gradually and steadily over the past 40 years.  The United States has signed, but not ratified, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), an international treaty which expressly prohibits all forms of physical or mental violence (see Readings, 1).

Effective Alternatives to Physical Punishment

The American Academy of Pediatrics concludes: “Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior” (see Readings, 2, p. 723).

Effective alternatives to physical punishment exist to help children tolerate frustrations, regulate tension, behave in socially-acceptable ways, develop appropriate ethical and moral standards, and improve self-esteem.  These alternatives will be the subject of the next article. 

As Martin Luther King, Jr., stated: “I’m sick and tired of violence… I’m tired of war and conflict in the world.  I’m tired of shooting.  I’m tired of hatred.  I’m tired of selfishness.  I’m tired of evil.  I’m not going to use violence no matter who says it!”  (As quoted in At Canaan’s Edge by Brandon Taylor).

If we truly want a less violent society, not hitting our children is a good place to start. 

 Readings

1. Gershoff ET (2008).  Report on Physical Punishment in the United States: What Research Tells Us About Its Effects on Children.  Columbus OH: Center for Effective Discipline.
2. American Academy of Pediatrics – Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (1998).  Guidance for Effective Discipline.  Pediatrics 101: 723-728.
3. Strauss MA (2001).  Beating the Devil Out of Them: Physical Punishment in American Families (2^nd Edition).  Piscataway NJ: Transaction Publishers.
4. Gershoff ET (2002).  Physical punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review.  Psychological Bulletin 128: 539-579.
5. National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information (2000).  What Is Child Maltreatment?

Additional Research

Gershoff examined hundreds of studies and presented the results of meta-analyses of the association between parental physical punishment and child and adult outcomes.  She found that in childhood physical punishment was positively associated with aggression, delinquent and antisocial behavior, and being the victim of physical abuse; it was negatively associated with the quality of the parent-child relationship, mental health, and moral internalization (child’s internalizing of socially acceptable behavior); and associations with immediate compliance were mixed.  When measured in adulthood, physical punishment was positively associated with aggression, criminal and antisocial behavior, and adult abuse of one’s own child or spouse; physical punishment was negatively associated with mental health (Readings, 1, 4).

Gershoff also summarized the various demographic and risk factors which are more likely to be associated with use of physical punishment: being single, separated, or divorced; excessive stress from negative life events; maternal depression; lower income, education, and job status; southern part of the United States; and conservative religious beliefs and affiliation (Readings, 1, 4).

It has become fashionable of late to trash the “parenting market” — that is, the books and magazines and TV shows which deal with parenting.  Yet, much of this “parenting market” is a response to well-intentioned parents who are trying their best with their children to prevent problems and enhance potential.  And, in fact, much progress has been made, with sophisticated explorations of the inner world of children and adults beginning in the early 1900’s via psychoanalysis and child psychoanalysis.  The pioneers writing for the lay public back then had their hands full: they were struggling just to get parents to stop threatening their children with castration and to understand that masturbation did not cause serious mental illness!

So, progress is being made, and part of the purpose of the last few articles has been to show how much better we understand feelings (motivations) and the actions (behaviors) which result.  Many people have contributed to these advances; a few of them are noted here, with some names being more familiar than others: Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Klein, Piaget, Spitz, Winnicott, Mahler, Fraiberg, Tomkins, and Stern.

But, of course, there is still progress to be made, and this ushers in the discussion of physical (corporal) punishment.  Physical punishment is a major public health problem in the United States, and it is still underemphasized and largely unaddressed.

Physical punishment will be discussed in detail in the next article, but a few introductory comments might be made here.  Physical punishment is associated with an increase in delinquency, antisocial behavior, and aggression in children, and a decrease in the quality of the parent-child relationship, mental health, and the child’s capacity to internalize socially acceptable behaviors; adults who have been subject to physical punishment as children are more likely to abuse their own child or spouse and to manifest criminal behavior (see the Readings below).  Internationally, there is increasing consensus that physical punishment of children violates international human rights law.

The American Academy of Pediatrics concludes: “Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior.”  A marvelous recent report summarizing the research in this area has been written by Elizabeth Gershoff, Ph.D., and is titled Report on Physical Punishment in the United States: What Research Tells Us About Its Effects on Children (see Readings below).  It can be accessed through the Center for Effective Discipline (www.StopHitting.org).

Readings

American Academy of Pediatrics – Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (1998).  Guidance for Effective Discipline.  Pediatrics 101: 723-728.

Fraiberg S, Adelson E, and Shapiro V (1975).  Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships.  Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 14 (1975): 387-421.

Gershoff ET (2008).  Report on Physical Punishment in the United States: What Research Tells Us About Its Effects on Children.  Columbus OH: Center for Effective Discipline.

Gershoff ET (2002).  Physical punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review.  Psychological Bulletin 128: 539-579.

 Now, how do these feelings work? Try putting aside everything you have ever learned about feelings before!

 Surprise, fear, and interest depend on the speed of the in-coming stimulus. Any stimulus (noise, light, etc.) which comes in very fast will cause the baby to be surprised (and to show that facial expression). If the stimulus comes in a bit slower, the baby will register fear. And if the stimulus comes in still more slowly, interest is seen in the baby’s face. Previous posts show these expressions. Think about it in terms of the baby’s brain needing time to process the incoming information, and showing these various expressions as it does so. This model also takes into account individual differences between babies, because different babies will process different information at different rates.

Example: Several young children are walking to a auditorium somewhat near an airport. Suddenly, there is a loud noise, and the children jump, their faces showing a surprise reaction; moments later, their faces show the fear expression; and then, as they look up and realize the noise was caused by an airplane flying low over the rooftops, they manifest the interest expression. These feelings, or “affects”, can occur very quickly—milliseconds.

Distress and anger do not depend on the speed of the in-coming stimulus, but rather on the amount, or quantity, of the stimulus. Any stimulus (again, light or noise or pain or whatever) which is too much for the baby will cause the distress reaction. If this stimulus becomes greater or is sustained too long, the anger reaction occurs. This is very important for parents to understand…the anger of a baby (and adult!) is simply excessive distress, a “too muchness”! Think of adults: too much stress leads to distress; even more stress leads to irritability and anger.

 Also, too much of any negative feeling can lead to anger. Example: Your young child runs into the street. When you catch up to him, you are mad. Why? Because your fear and distress were triggered and  heightened, and then morphed into anger.

 Enjoyment is signaled by a decrease in tension. Think of how you feel when you are distressed or scared of something and the issue is resolved.

 Shame is a reaction to the interruption of interest and/or enjoyment. Example:  The baby is in her high chair with a cup of milk in front of her. The parent leaves the room, and the baby begins playing with the milk…it smells good, tastes good, and looks neat as it splashes out of the cup; she lifts the cup up and slowly begins pouring it out, making a wonderful white waterfall—and then the parent walks in again! “What in the world are you doing?” her parent may yelp, and with this interruption of the baby’s interest and exploratory activities, the baby’s eyes may drop, head avert, and shoulders slump, in the classic expression of shame.

 Disgust and dissmell are the body’s  defensive reactions to bad toxic tastes and odors, respectively. Later, they take on psychological meaning, such as “this situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

 So try thinking about your and your baby’s feelings in this different way. Adults have these feelings too:  these nine feelings combine with each other and with experience to form our more complex adult emotional life. 

                                                             Readings

 The following readings give more examples and pictures, and, for those who are interested, convey some of the complexities of this model.

 Holinger, Paul C. (2003) . What Babies Say Before They Can Tal k: The Nine Signals Infants Use To Express Their Feelings. New York: Simon and Schuster.

 Holinger, Paul C. (2008). Further issues in the psychology of affect and motivation: A developmental perspective. Psychoanalytic Psychology 25:425-442.

There are six negative feelings.

Distress:          Distress is an “SOS” signal – the baby is saying “I need help!  Something is wrong!”  The eyebrows arch in the middle, the corners of the mouth turn down, and there may be tears and crying, or fussiness.

Anger:              Anger is really an “SOS” signal!  While most of us feel assaulted and hurt by someone’s anger, anger from the baby really means “I need help!”  Why?  Because anger is simply excessive distress.  There may be a clenched jaw, red face, slit eyes, distended nostrils; or you may see the “roar of rage,” with screaming, kicking, hitting, or biting.

Fear:                Fear occurs when something happens too quickly for the baby to control or understand.  Fear is quite toxic and may be expressed in several ways.  The baby’s eyes may be frozen open, skin pale, trembling, hair on end; she may be very still or cry out.

Shame:             A shame reaction occurs when your baby’s interest or enjoyment feeling is interrupted.  Shame is marked by slumped shoulders, downcast eyes, and sometimes head averted.

Disgust:           This is a reaction to bad tastes – it is built-in to protect your baby!  Disgust is shown by a protruding lower lip and tongue, sometimes with spitting things out or becoming nauseous and vomiting.  Later, this reaction is expressed psychologically, as in “this situation left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Dissmell:         This is also a protective device – it protects the baby from substances with bad odors.  The baby raises and averts his head, raises his upper lip and wrinkles his nose.  Later this reaction turns into the feeling that “this idea smells bad.” 

This, then, completes our list of nine built-in feelings.  Next time we talk about how these feelings work – and when you understand how they work, your life as a parent becomes much easier!

Over the next several months, we’ll be looking at infant and child development, parenting, and the role of feelings.  If you understand what your child is feeling, everything else falls into place.

Some of the topics I’ll take up include your baby’s earliest feelings, how they are expressed, what feelings are and how they work, and how understanding feelings can make sense of not only early childhood, but adolescence and adulthood as well.  We’ll take a look at pictures of babies, and we’ll explore specific issues such as self-esteem, corporal punishment, recent research, and the views of experts in a variety of fields.

For the moment, let’s just take a brief look at your baby’s earliest feelings.  You might ask “How do you know my baby even has feelings?”  Great question!  After all, the baby is not using words yet to tell you how he/she is feeling!  I’ll explore this question later when discussing how feelings work, but for now the answer lies primarily in the facial expressions of your baby.

Current research shows that your baby is born with about 8 to 10 built-in feelings, as shown by the facial expressions.  Although there are some interesting controversies in this area, the best information available now suggests humans are born with 9 feelings:

Interest (curiosity)

Enjoyment

Surprise

Distress

Anger

Fear

Shame

Disgust (a reaction to noxious tastes)

Dissmell (a reaction to noxious odors)

Believe it or not, these are your baby’s earliest feelings!  Most of them are apparent within the first few days of your baby’s life.  Over time, they will combine with experience and with each other to form our more complex emotional life.  This is the embryology of feelings!

These feelings operate on a low-to-high scale, so that the range of feelings looks like this:

Interest – Excitement

Enjoyment – Joy

Surprise – Startle

Distress – Anguish

Anger – Rage

Fear – Terror

Shame – Humiliation

Disgust – lower to higher levels

Dissmell – lower to higher levels

“But,” you might say, “What do all these look like?   How does my baby communicate these feelings?  And, most importantly, what do I do with them?!”

Again, great questions!  And if you use these feelings to understand your baby, parenting – and your life – becomes a lot easier… so, that’s where we’ll start next time! 

Suggested Readings

1. Ekman, Paul.  Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life.  New York: Henry Holt, 2003.
2. Stern, Daniel.  The Interpersonal World of the Infant.  New York: Basic Books, 1985.
3. Tomkins, Silvan S.  Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume III): The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear.  New York: Springer, 1991.

 What Do Feelings Look Like?

 Last time the discussion involved your baby’s earliest feelings.  The idea was introduced that human beings are born with about 8-10 reactions, or feelings, which turn into the more complex adult emotional life.  Today the exploration involves what these feelings look like – that is, how your baby expresses her feelings.  In a future discussion, we will examine how feelings work.

The human face is made up of many small muscles.  These muscles help give the face its expressiveness.  The face is a wonderful area for communication.  The infant cannot talk.  “Infant” means “incapable of speech.”  So the infant uses its face, along with vocalizations and bodily movements, to express what’s going on.

Studies show that babies prefer to look at human faces more than anything else.  They especially focus on the eyes and the mouth.  The eyes and mouth have the most muscles in the face and can send the most overt and subtle messages.  Thus, the baby and the adult communicate largely through their faces.  The adult will also use words, which the baby will gradually learn and hook up with feelings.  As future articles will explore, things can get complicated and confused because the words of the adult may not accurately label the feelings of the baby; in addition, adults are able, to some extent, to mask and distort their basic innate feelings. 

One way to understand feelings is to divide them up into positive and negative feelings.  There are two positive feelings: interest and enjoyment.  There is one transitional or “re-setting” feeling, surprise: surprise seems to clear or rest the nervous system to prepare it for the next stimulus.  There are six negative feelings: distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust, and dissmell.

You might wonder: why are there more negative than positive feelings?  Great question!  It may be because it is more important for your baby to let you know when there are problems than when things are going well.   Negative feelings are really “SOS” signals.  Negative feelings are your baby’s way of saying “Please help! I am in trouble – something is wrong here!”

Today, the positive and transitional feelings will be presented.  Each feeling will be described and shown how it is expressed. 

Positive Feelings

Interest (curiosity): The feeling of interest or curiosity is seen in your baby’s exploring.  Interest is the root of our learning and creativity.  The facial expression includes the baby being focused, looking and listening, engrossed.  The eyebrows may be slightly lifted or slightly lowered; the mouth may be a bit open.

Enjoyment:       Your baby smiles, her lips widens up and out, she laughs, and her eyes brighten.  She may make some high-pitched sounds and gleeful noises.  If your baby is smiling and laughing, all is well.

Transitional Feelings

Surprise:          The baby’s eyebrows are up, and the mouth forms an “O” shape.  Her head may turn, and she may make an effort to turn the body if the surprise came from the side or in back of her.

So these, then, are the earliest positive and transitional feelings.  The next time the negative feelings will be examined.

Suggested Readings

Ekman P (2003).  Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life.  New York: Henry Holt.

“When the infant’s caretakers act to soothe and hold it, the infant internalizes the qualities and functioning of its caretaking environment. This will have an effect on how the infant perceives and experiences danger, tolerates affects, and develops a capacity to allay its own anxieties.” Ivri Kumin, 1996, p. 27.

“You ask about crying—Jessie cried a lot. Sometimes it seemed non-stop. In the old days they would have said she had colic, now they attribute it to all kinds of problems with allergies, foods, exposure to smoke. She cried so much that it was impossible to know what she wanted or needed. It wasn’t until she was several months old that it stopped. By then both she and I were worn out. I have three other kids, 8,4, and 2, and it’s been tough sometimes. With Jessie, I have to make a special effort to pay attention when she cries or fusses. My inclination was to ignore it a little bit. But now that’s she’s getting bigger she can be consoled, I can actually do some good for her. I just have to learn not to shut down when she starts to crank up the volume. I have to remember she is sending me a message and I need to try to figure out what it is. Is she tired? Hungry? Sick? Anxious? Usually these days, I figure it out. And sometimes my other kids are a real big help is identifying the cause..”
–Marie, 40, mother of four

My son used to love to ‘shave’ with me. I would help him lather up his cheeks and give him an empty razor so he could pretend. But, on a busy morning, it was easy to forget how important his drive to imitate my behavior really was, and how much of a compliment it was, too. As the minutes ticked by, I would try to remember this, however, and to encourage and support his play-acting. I would guess most parents have had the same experience. To remain patient, I would remind myself about just how much of a role model parents are to their children and what a big help it can be in cementing your relationship and providing guidance. Keeping this in mind may help prevent you from misunderstanding some of your child’s imitative behavior and from injuring your child’s good-hearted impulse to be like you and be liked by you.

–P.C. Holinger

Your child’s tendency to want to be like mom and dad is one of the most powerful influences on his emerging character. In fact, your baby’s tremendous conscious and unconscious urge to emulate you is one of the strongest, and perhaps most often overlooked, motivators of behavior. This inherent impulse to identify with you can be a tremendous help in raising an emotionally healthy child.

What’s behind an infant’s tendency to imitate and identify with parents? The answer takes us into a much studied and somewhat complicated aspect of infant development. Darwin (1809-1882) was much intrigued by the strength of imitative tendencies in both animals and man, and Freud (1856-1939) studied these processes in depth from a psychological perspective. More recently, researchers such as Meltzoff and Gadini explored the tendencies of infants to identify with and emulate the important people in their lives. These studies suggest that at a very early age much of a child’s well-being and sense of belonging comes from the feeling that ‘I am like my parent’ and ‘My parent is like me.’ Parents too have these feelings of “likeness” with their children. And it is this exchange of identification that gives a child a feeling of kinship and leads to a child’s idealization of the parents. These are complex dynamics. Even sorting out words such as identification, imitation, mimic and the phrase “to be like” is more than we need to take on—each has a distinct meaning in the world of child psychology. However, for this discussion, I will use the words interchangeably and with their everyday conversational meanings.

How your child sees you;

Babies always seem most interested in what you have or what you are doing. They want to play with the shaving cream or use the toothbrush. As a parent, you can use this tendency to teach the baby a variety of things. For example, what better way to teach your child to wash his hands or brush his teeth that to do it first, yourself. “See Mommy brushing her teeth like this. Uppers. Lowers. Oh, you want to play with this? Okay, here we go.” Or, if you have to struggle to get your child to allow you to clip her nails, you can try showing her how you clip yours, first. “See? Clip this one, and this one. Now, do you want to try? Okay, here we go. Let me hold it with you and we’ll do it together. Very good.” Imitation can also help make haircuts an easier process. They are often a real trial, because of the newness of the situation, the rapid movements toward the child’s head and eyes, and the use of scissors, which have been the subject of loud warnings such as “Sharp! Be careful.” The solution? Try sitting in the barber’s chair and get a little trim first. Pretty soon your child will be clamoring to get in the chair or on your lap and have a haircut too.

Children learn more than simple tasks through their impulse to imitate you. They use imitation and identification to pick up a lot more complex and subtle information. Much of your child’s character is formed by the tendency to imitate your worldview, emotional expressions and attitudes. She inevitably picks up your habits regarding tension regulation, playfulness, learning, interpersonal relationships and expression of affection. That’s why being affectionate and honest in your dealings with your child and other people will help tremendously in raising an affectionate and honest child. Telling your child, “Don’t lie,” or “Be nice!” is much less effective than telling the truth and being kind yourself. You’ll discover very quickly the wisdom of “actions speak louder than words” and “practice what you preach.” As one dad once told me, “I sure learned in a hurry to watch my bad habits once Charlie was around.”

Other ways to use identification to help your child develop include:

Demonstrating tension regulation: If you are able to modulate your emotions, so that you don’t fly off the handle when you are frustrated, your child has a better chance of learning to do the same. If, on the other hand, you are given to impulsive rages, outbursts of anger or yelling, chronic impatience and irritation, then your child will think that is the right way to handle stressful situations. If you don’t have good tension regulation yourself, then chances are there will be two people—you and your child—in the house who don’t know how to defuse a tense situation or soothe their frazzled nerves. That can make for a lot of bickering, ill will and mutual frustration. All of this really gets back to understanding and dealing reasonably with the foundation of emotional life—the nine built-in signals.

Playful is as playful does: As we discuss in chapter TK on playfulness, being able to find the interest and enjoyment in a wide variety of circumstances—even those that are stressful such as a traffic jam—teaches your child useful ways of regulating tension, and makes the world a more interesting and rewarding place.

Instilling the love of learning: If you have a curious mind and enjoy reading, taking classes, figuring out how to build things, or discussing ideas and world events, you will provide a role model for your child that will bring a lifetime of pleasure and reward. When watching TV, keep a dictionary, encyclopedia or computer handy so you can look up words, or historical figures or find more information on a subject. Make a game out of it. When you travel, make an effort to show your child maps of where you are going, explain geography and encourage questions about where you are and what you see.

Showing your child how to express affection and to be a good friend: The ability to have satisfying intimate relationships is learned, in part, through the way parents relate to their children, to one another and to their friends. If you are able to show affection and to be both sympathetic and empathic, then your child will not only receive the benefits of your warm nature, he will also learn how to form intimate relationships.

Translating actions and feelings into words: As mentioned earlier, labeling feelings and substituting words for actions greatly enhances the emotional and cognitive development of a young child. Talking to your child about what you are thinking and feeling and labeling your child’s signals and emotions for him from a very early age will help him learn how to manage emotions and use the metaphor of language to express intense emotions as early as possible. You can help your child develop this skill by making sure you actively use words to communicate your feelings and as a substitute for actions. For example, when you are angry, if you express your feelings using reasonable words that convey your thoughts instead of throwing things or ranting, then your child will learn to do the same.

Including your child in decision-making situations: From an early age you can help your child gain confidence in his ability to identify and express what he thinks, wants and believes by asking him to participate in everyday decision-making. Even toddlers can be allowed input in a family decision: Go to the grocery store or to a restaurant for dinner? Make soup or a peanut butter sandwich for lunch? Wear your pink socks or your blue ones? It may make life less efficient in the short-run, but in the long run you will teach your child about the decision-making process, weighing pros and cons, and that you value his opinion and trust his judgment.

Using imitation and identification to help develop manners: Manners are important for children, not only do they make it easier for children to find acceptance and make friends, but manners also teach boundaries and remind them that other people’s feelings and needs are important. Even before your child learns to talk, they can pick up the nuances that are communicated when people treat one another with respect and care. You have the chance to set a tone that she will bring into her world of words and language as she mature. But how often have you heard a parent admonish a child, “say, please;” “say, thank you,” “say you’re sorry;” “hold the door for that person;” but without saying or doing those things themselves? If you want your child to learn manners, things will go much easier if you demonstrate the behavior instead of talking just about it. If you treat your child politely and say, “sweetheart, would you please pick that apple up off the floor,” or “thank you for closing the door,” the child will be much more likely to act politely as she gets older.

Children also learn to apologize and acknowledge a mistake without being defensive by watching how you handle your mistakes. If you say, “Oh, I am so sorry I pinched your finger in the high chair,” or, “Honey, I am very sorry I dropped your toy car and chipped the headlight. Should I try to fix it?” then they will grow up with a graceful style of handling their own missteps.

Using humor and appealing to your child’s self-interest are also good ways to teach manners. If you want your preverbal child to learn to say please, you can turn it into a fun sounding game: “Honey, will you pleeeeeze give me that book?” makes the word ‘please’ funny and entertaining. It catches the child’s attention and teaches a lesson using playfulness.

Beyond modeling behavior: teaching decision-making

Imitation can also be used to help your child develop good decision-making skills so they can sort out feelings and select the most appropriate option for responding. Manners, tension regulation, playfulness are all important examples of the ability to make a good decision about how to handle complex interactions and internal emotions.

Here again, kids pick up a lot of their habits about decision making from watching you do the same. If you impose rules on a child, “because I say so,” then the child will learn that arbitrary seeming responses are the way to behave and one day when you ask why on earth your child has done this or that, the toddler will look at you and say, “Because I want to,” and feel that is a reasonable explanation. Being authoritarian toward your child may be mirrored back at you in the form of stubbornness and inflexibility. That’s why over and over I have stressed the importance of labeling and explaining your directives to your child. When you tell a child to do or not do something, set out your reasons for it in a calm, loving voice. Don’t hesitate to say, even to the youngest infant, “I don’t want you to do that because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt.” Or, “You can’t have that because that is something that is valuable to Daddy and he would be sad if it was ruined.” Explain why. Talk about what you believe and feel. Take the time to communicate instead of trying to end a situation quickly and moving on. If you operate with the unstated message that sharing thoughts and discussing reasons for decisions is a waste of time, your child will pick up on that. But if you explain why you do or think things, then the child will understand that you think things through and will learn to do the same himself.

Common misunderstandings:

Parents can easily misunderstand a child’s desire to imitate their behavior. It is an injustice that can stick with a child her whole life. Many times, when I ask parents to recall an early conflict with their parents, they often mention being misunderstood when they were simply trying to act like their mom or dad. Yet, ironically, with their own kids, they fall into the common trap of seeing their child’s actions as “misbehavior,” when they are often no more than innocent imitation. One child I knew was always playing with the buttons on her parents’ alarm clock before she went to bed. Her father was getting angry about it, until her mother realized that the child was simply doing what she’d seen her father do when he was getting ready for bed. They cleverly decided that the solution was to put an old alarm clock in the child’s bedroom so she could “set” it for herself.

I know of another father of a two-year old boy who was convinced that his son was learning how to steal money when he found him going through his work pants and taking out keys and coins. The father was going to punish the boy rather severely, until a friend suggested that the little boy was just doing what his father did. “He’s trying to be a grow-up man, just like you. He’s putting his change and keys in his pockets and getting ready for work.” The dad then bought his son a pair of overalls with a front pocket and put a little wallet in it with a couple of dollar bills and some plastic keys. He then made a point of putting his pants on the same time as his son did and they both put their keys and money into their pockets. Sharing the activity delighted his son and the son’s so-called stealing was correctly understood to be playful identification with dad. The father validated his child’s desire to imitate him, but he also took advantage of the situation to impart an important lesson in manners and behavior. He explained to his son that it is not a good idea to take money or anything else that belongs to someone else. “You need to ask first, and explain why you want it,” he told him.

Potential trouble spots: When children imitate parents’ misbehavior:

Since an infant child cannot discriminate between your attributes that are worth copying and those that might be better left alone, it is useful to be aware of the negative traits that you might be teaching your child—some of which you may have picked up from your own parents. You may want to take an inventory of how you express the nine signals—interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust and dissmell. And take some time to reflect on your own behavior and to think about any personal habits or qualities that you may want to change, improve or mitigate. Your power to mold your child’s attitudes, emotions and behavior is so great that it is wise to try to make sure you are transmitting messages that you want your child to receive.

First time moms often experience a kind of déjà vu. When I asked a friend if she was aware of how much children identify with and imitate their parents she exclaimed: “It’s so true—now that I have Clöe, I realize how much I am like my parents, how much I absorbed from them. These are things that I was only vaguely aware of—and some of them are not so good. But now I see how I get agitated over small things like my mom and how I tune out like my Dad. I hope I can stop being so much like my parents so Clöe won’t learn the same bad habits from me.”

Luckily people can change and grow. I am reminded of a famous Hall of Fame hockey player who used to rack up 200 penalty minutes a year. He was a notorious brawler.

Eventually he married and had a daughter. When she was around three years old, she started watching him play on TV. He’d never felt the slightest compunction before about his on-ice behavior, but one day she asked, “Daddy, why do you fight so much?” Suddenly he was horrified at the thought that she was seeing him hit other players and get into fistfights. So he changed how he played. From that day on he was more contained on the ice; in fact he won several league awards for sportsmanship and leadership and his reputation as a player didn’t suffer at all. He credits his daughter with teaching him two valuable lessons, one about being a parent and the other about playing hockey.

While you may try to modify your less desirable traits, your need to be aware that your most muted, hidden emotions and unconscious actions may be coming through loud and clear. Infants can pick up aspects of your emotions, worldview and physical actions that you may not even be aware of consciously. For example, some parents who profess open-mindedness, but are actually intolerant or prejudiced, often end up with equally intolerant kids. The children may hear lip service given to civil rights, for example, but the message that some people are inferior comes across in gestures, expressions and word choices. Children adopt the same prejudiced point of view, even if they are too young to actually know what it means. We had a neighbor when we were first married who was cordial and well mannered but filled with all kinds of biases about people. In casual conversation he’d say things like, “you know how the [fill in an ethnic or racial group] are,” or “that was as dirty as a [fill in an ethnic or racial group].” It was shocking to her his three-year-old son would mouth the same upsetting stereotypes.

This can be a problem because developmentally kids have a tendency to create cliques, to include or exclude others. They have a strong inclination to repeat the familiar and enjoy matching up things that seem to have similar patterns—just think about how many times your child can watch her favorite video and how she enjoys a particular game or puzzle. But kids also have a strong interest in novelty and new stimulus which can provide balance.

There have been some interesting and successful attempts to counter prejudice in young children. A wonderful book, “You can’t say, ‘You can’t play,’ tells the story of what happened in an elementary school when a teacher decided to make it a rule that no child could tell another that he or she was excluded from a group activity. All the kids—including those that were sometimes singled out as different because of race, appearance, or behavior—were to be included. At first, many children resented the rules, and they wrestled with issues of inclusion, exclusion, rejection and fairness. But over time they discovered that they could enjoy everyone’s company and learn from those kids who were different. The class developed much more harmony and fewer cliques.

Imitation: Another reason not to abuse:

A child who is hit or otherwise abused is likely to have many negative feelings of anger, distress and fear stirred up and these interfere with healthy, normal development. In addition, an abused child may also adopt the very behavior that is hurting him and become abusive himself. Hitting may be seen as a normal and acceptable way to solve problems and get what he wants. And not only will the child become mean to others, he may become mean to himself. Abused children often turn the impulse to hit onto themselves and adopt various self-destructive behaviors and relationships.

Your child wants to be like you, but she is different!

Parents gain a great deal by recognizing how much their children want to be like them, but they also need to remember how un-like them their child is. These differences are not just matters of taste and pace and different strokes for different folks, but also of age-related mental abilities. Young children do not have the same capacities as adults to understand and remember what is safe and what is not, what can be played with and what cannot, and so on. They simply haven’t developed the impulse control or cognitive abilities to understand that they are not supposed to be playing with electric wires or the contents of the refrigerator. This can cause a lot of frustration in parents who aren’t aware that it is a natural and normal stage of development, best managed by offering the child other equally intriguing alternatives to play with, not a scolding or worse.

As your child grows older:

Your child’s impulse to identify with you does not stop with childhood. You can continue to use it to help your child navigate successfully through adolescence and into adulthood. With teens, lessons in moderation and responsible behavior, respect for one’s own health, and an interest in ideas and other people are often best transmitted through example instead of words—particularly if they learned through example as infants. That doesn’t mean that identification will make it easy to teach your teen to act wisely or to dial down impulsiveness. Much of adolescent behavior is the result of a struggle between a teen’s desire for independence, on the one hand, and closeness to parents on the other. It turns out you are more of a role model than you may know, and it can have far reaching benefits to your child and to you as well.

A friend of mine found he was constantly getting into verbal fights with his teenage son because the boy would borrow hats, ties, jackets and coats without asking. It was only when I suggested that perhaps his son was simply trying to get close to his Dad, to be like him, that the father was able to see the nice side to having his closet plundered and to appreciate his son’s well-meaning though irritating behavior. There were a lot fewer fights after that, although the father did have to struggle to get his son to learn to ask before taking the clothing. In time, they even went shopping together and have started spending some more time together playing sports. “I never expected to be so close to Sean at this age,” he says now. “I just thought I’d be the enemy until he was about 25. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I took the time to understand what was behind his raids on my closet.”

Teenagers borrow their parent’s clothing, wear makeup like an adult, try out adult experiences such as drinking and sex, often because they want to identify with their parents, for good or for bad. They also search for mentors and idealized heroes that help them define their own personalities more clearly during the upheavals of adolescence. This is all part of a complicated pattern of identification and imitation. So take a deep breath, and remember, when you mess up, it’s just one more opportunity to help your child learn decision-making, how to apologize, and humility. You’ll discover that there are a lot fewer parenting mistakes, if you just make them part of the learning experience.