2 Types Of Parents: Which One Are You? Part 2

Last week I was talking about two different approach to child rearing: the ancient, closeness seeking bonding between mother and child and the stimuli-response style "Let the child learn from I don't react style."

Here it is: http://www.yourtango.com/experts/zita-fekete/unconventional-parenting-part-1

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Is it really only the behavior that counts, or are there something important behind it?

You might sit before the window and be looking out into the thin air. From the behavior perspective that’s it and nothing more. At the same time, inside you, you can daydream about your future, you might replay the kind words what your spouse whispered in your ear last night, or you might be raging about your boss who gave a promotion to your less talented but two faced opponent. Subjectively, this is what matters, not merely the sitting and looking.

Translating it to the child rearing, you can teach your children that no matter how long she cries, you will not go into the room. Sooner or later she would stop crying. It is the behavior part. What is not that obvious from the behaviorist perspective is that during the process, she learns that you (and through you the whole world) is not good to fulfill her needs, crying (or communicating negative feelings) is not worth it because there is no reply, and that she is not worthy enough for you (and the world) to respond to her call.

In other words: you build up trust issues, avoidant communication style and low self-esteem.

If you are an orthodox behaviorist, you might say this is untrue! There is no such thing as trust, communication style and self-esteem, only the conditioned answer. Then you don’t have to consider how you can support its development in your child. But if you think it was an oversimplified theory of the 1930-es, then it’s high time to revise its practical implication to child rearing.

For today psychologists agree that over the stimuli-response conditioning, children learn mostly from modeling their parents’ behavior. The first point is when children learn something about empathy when their parents empathize with them. Later on they have to learn to imagine themselves in the other’s situation and predict others’ state of mind. However, this all builds up on their original experience that the care giver understood and responded to their needs.

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Taking their requests seriously, we also model respect for a person and for feelings in general. Sure enough, the opposite is true. If we don’t consider the child’s feelings, we should not be surprised if the child grows up and doesn’t respect the care giver’s feeling either.

Cognitive development goes hand in hand with emotional development. If we ignore that, the child naturally seeks closeness for security and she might experience a wide variety of feelings while exploring the world. We might compromise her balanced development.