Irene Watson - Rewriting Life Scripts

Recovery and Your Family Tree

What does genealogy and family history have to do with recovery? Everything. Our family tree has the roots of our codependency, alcoholism, or addictions in it. Just as we get our genes from our ancestors, we get our dysfunctional behaviors, either inherited or through their influence. In recovery, it is helpful to understand where the dysfunctional behavior comes from in ourselves and in our immediate family members—parents, siblings, children. We need to understand the people who shaped us and the people who shaped them. Often, we find researching our family tree will fill us with healing, love, and understanding for our family.

 

I recommend you try to trace at least five generations of your family, starting with yourself and your siblings and then your parents, grandparents, and your grandparents’ parents and grandparents. Most of us knew our grandparents and they played significant roles in our lives. Similarly, who our grandparents were was shaped by their parents and grandparents so to understand our grandparents we need to understand the generations before them.

 

It may or may not be easy to find this information. Sometimes our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles can fill in details. Sometimes we have no one we can ask. Sometimes our family members may not even want to talk to us about the family—they may feel those things are better left alone—that in itself is a clue of dysfunction and information we will be stronger for knowing. Family members are the best source of information but their memories may be faulty, or they may only know what their parents or grandparents told them, and that may not be everything. We can also consult birth, death, and marriage records, censuses and historical information about the community where our ancestors lived. But how does this information help us?

 

Say your father was emotionally abusive, and you have realized over the years he has low self-esteem, which he compensated for by trying to control you. You remember your grandfather as a mean, ornery old man. You might even know that he physically abused your father as a child. But as you research, you learn more. Your grandfather was an immigrant to this country. Back in his home country, he had to work as a young boy to help support the family because his own father died when he was twelve. He had a mother and younger siblings to help support. Imagine the burden on him. Imagine how difficult it must have been for him to leave his family to come to the United States to find a better life for himself. Imagine being an immigrant in a country where you didn’t speak the language and you knew no one. Imagine finding that life here was not much better than back home. You found a wife and had a family but you were still poor. Imagine living through World War II, daily fearing for your mother and siblings that you left back in Europe. Imagine losing one of your children in a fire. I would think that would give you some reason to be mean and ornery. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does make it understandable, and grandpa then took out his frustrations on dad who in turn took them out on you.

 

It’s just a start. Remember grandma has her story too. Think about it—your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents—that’s thirty people whose lives have directly or indirectly affected your life. By knowing their stories, we can trace the dysfunction, the pain, as well as the positive aspects about them that we have today. It leads to a better understanding of ourselves, where our dysfunction came from, and how we can keep it from continuing to rear its ugly head by finding different means of dealing with life’s frustrations.

 

In the process, we will also see the triumphs. Maybe dad was emotionally abusive, but unlike his father, he never hit his children. In his own way, he tried to do better, to break the cycle. And grandpa—he didn’t know how to deal with disappointment but he still worked so life would be better for his children than it was for him. That’s love even if not spoken. When we understand our family members, we can see them as whole, complicated people, but people who tried to do better, just like us, and we can continue that family tradition, not of dysfunction, but of trying to do better. Whatever we end up finding in our family trees, we will better understand how dysfunction began and worked in our families and we will be better prepared to deal with the imprints that have been passed down to us.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Do You Need a Job for Codependency Reasons?

One of my friends who retired a couple of years ago told me the other day that she thought she should get a job. Not thinking that she and her husband might have financial problems, I asked her whether she was bored with retirement, and I suggested she find some new hobbies or she volunteer somewhere—to do something she would enjoy without having to be tied down to a work schedule. But she told me she was enjoying retirement and that wasn’t why she needed a job. She needed to make some money.

 

Then I asked her whether she and her husband were having financial difficulties. Had they not saved enough for retirement? Had they lost a substantial amount of money during the recent economic downturn? No, she told me, they had plenty of money to live on.

 

After a few more questions, she admitted to me that she felt she had to make money so she would have something to leave to her grown son because he was in credit-card debt and had a job that only paid a little over minimum wage.

 

I tried gently but firmly to enforce in her mind that while it was admirable that she loved her son and wanted to take care of him, he was an adult, nearly middle-aged, and it was not her responsibility, since he was an adult, to take care of him. She expressed her concern that she didn’t know what would become of him when she was gone. She also expressed that she didn’t know where she went wrong in raising him.

 

This son admittedly has little ambition to do anything; he tends to be negative and have a defeatist attitude, but I don’t see this as his mother’s fault. She made sure he had what he needed; she pushed him to get through college; she gave him every opportunity she could. Yet she feels like a failure, like she is responsible for his failure, or at least his unwillingness to do something to better himself.

 

If any role in this world can breed codependency, it has to be that of motherhood. Mothers never cease to be mothers. But they also have to realize that no matter what they do for their children, ultimately, their children are responsible for making their own decisions, especially once they are adults. Sure, parents want to leave something behind for their children, but they are not required to do so; they don’t have to do so. Retirement should be a time for people to relax and enjoy themselves.

 

You may not be able to help yourself from worrying about your children, but ask yourself whether you are enabling them when you give them money and gifts to compensate for necessities they should be able to provide for themselves?

 

My friend asks herself what is going to happen to her son after she is gone. If she continues trying to take care of him rather than letting him learn to take care of himself, then I wonder as well.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Encourage Children to Follow Their Hearts

In my last post, I talked about ways to encourage children by introducing them to “firsts” and new activities and interests.

Children have minds of their own, and while we try to encourage them, we also should not be rigid about what we encourage them in. We want our children’s lives to be better than ours—we want to encourage them to dream and accomplish things we did not have the opportunity to do when we were children. At the same time, we must learn that we cannot control them. As their parents, we have a responsibility toward them, but we must also let them be their own persons. We must protect them from dangers, even when they may be endangering themselves, but ultimately, we must let them make their own decisions.

Too often, we may try to relive our childhoods through our children. Perhaps we played high school basketball, but we were never one of the stars of the team. We can introduce our children to basketball and encourage them, but if they do not have a proclivity for the game, we do not push it upon them. We offer them variety. We give them the opportunity to try soccer, golf, swimming, or track. If athletics is not their inclination, we encourage them to pursue their interests in art, music, dancing, or creative writing.

We want our children to be well-rounded, but we also want them to be happy. If they are doing poorly in math, we do what we can to encourage them to do better, but we do not focus solely on the poor math grades without appreciating that they got a lead role in the school play. We may worry that acting is not going to get them as far in life as calculus, and yet, many people have taken a path away from the herd and come out ahead.

It is not uncommon for young men and women to be high achievers in high school and college, only to find themselves unhappy as lawyers and doctors because they did not become musicians or kindergarten teachers as their hearts desired; they either spend their lives being miserable, or they find the courage to leave their careers and pursue their dreams anyway.

Not to let children make their own choices is to disempower them. What we most want to do is to encourage children to believe in themselves. Even if we worry how our children will support themselves by devoting their time to motorbike stunts or skydiving or painting with watercolors when the law or medicine would make them financially stable, we still encourage them. The human heart knows what is best for it, and it has the power to transform a person’s talents and interests into success. Let us not forget the words of Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Teach Children to Have Fun and Explore

As parents, we may be focused on teaching our children right from wrong, how to behave, and reminding them to do their homework. But we also have to teach them to have fun, to explore the world and to dream about the future.

As a grandparent, it’s a bit easier to focus on fun with children. I try to bring that balance to my grandchildren’s lives.

Recently my thirteen-year old grandson came to visit. I only get to see him about once a year since he lives in Canada and my husband and I live in Texas, so we make the most of our time. Based on my grandson’s recent visit, here are a few suggestions of fun things to do with children that can create lasting memories and teach them to enjoy life.

Introduce New Experiences. When my grandson visited, we took him out for sushi—raw fish. It was the first time he had ever tried it although he had California Rolls before. It was an exotic adventure for him to say the least, and he loved it.

Visit Interesting Places. We took my grandson to the Gulf Coast to go swimming and fishing. It was the first time he had ever swam in the ocean, other than in Vancouver; of course, it was a completely different experience since the Gulf Coast is a lot warmer so you can play in the water much longer.

Introduce Interesting People. Find successful, happy, and interesting people who will take time to talk to children. We introduced my grandson to someone whom he termed a "high-profile business man." This businessman was willing to share his experiences, and my grandson asked a lot of questions. It inspired him to think about career possibilities for himself and to set his visions high.

Introduce the Arts. Twice during his visit, we took my grandson to music performances. We made a point of buying the performers’ CD’s and giving my grandson the opportunity to speak with the musicians. He had never met professional musicians before and it inspired him to think about playing and performing himself.

Create Memorable “Firsts.” My husband and I tried to let our grandson experience things he had never done before. Sushi was exotic for him, but practical things can also be fun and exciting the first time. Papa gave him a couple of his driving lessons, which got him excited about getting his driver’s license in a few years. He also took him to a shooting range and for the first time he got very close to the center target. They also went golfing, and he went to Schliterbahn, the world’s largest water park here in Texas, with friends he met here.

The point of all these activities is to have fun, while encouraging children to dream about the future and its possibilities. Encouragement is necessary for children to grow up well-rounded, happy, and successful. Perhaps our own childhoods were not what we would have liked, but rewriting the script can mean we rewrite it for ourselves and future generations. Who can say how far such a gift as simply spending time with children and encouraging them will go?

What can you do today to encourage your children or grandchildren, to let them have fun as they explore the world and the possibilities that await them?

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Enabling Behavior

Many of us in recovery for codependency have been enablers, either actively or passively. We actively support the drug addict or alcoholic by participating in the activity with him, or giving her opportunities or resources for the addiction. We passively enable by denying a problem exists; we close our eyes to it so the person does not feel guilt or hostility from us in carrying out the behavior.

Enabling appears in many forms. It usually disguises itself as love, caretaking, protecting, or helping someone. We tell ourselves we are helping the other person, but we are actually hindering that person.

Enabling can be in large or small ways. It doesn’t have to be buying alcohol or drugs. It can be as simple as a parent helping an adult child with finances. For example, a mother has an adult son who makes enough money that he should be able to support himself. However, he has a spending problem. He has a lot of credit card debt, and he has had to borrow money from his parents for necessary items like car repairs. His parents help him out because he is their son and they love him. They worry about what will happen to him if they don’t help him.

It is fine to help your adult children when they need help. Everyone has times of financial difficulty, and if the person is making a concerted effort to improve his or her financial situation, helping is acceptable. In this case, however, the son spends his income on items like new clothes he does not need. He doesn’t buy groceries because his mother will buy them for him. He then gets angry when she buys him groceries; it makes him feel that his mother believes he cannot take care of himself, yet by her buying him groceries or loaning him money, he puts off becoming financially responsible because he knows his mother will cover his extra expenses.

A good rule of thumb is that if people ask you for help, go ahead and help them the first time if the request is reasonable and it’s a one-time situation, but the second time, tell them you cannot support their behavior. It isn’t easy, but in the long run, you will be doing them a bigger favor. Remember the old Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Detach yourself in love from helping the person. Detach yourself from the outcome of what will happen to that person if you don’t help him. You are not responsible for fixing the person’s problem, but by detaching, you may be the means to helping the person fix the problem on his or her own.

In the case of the mother above, she worries what will happen to her son if she doesn’t help him, but someday she won’t be alive to help him. It’s better she helps him prepare for that day by not helping him today.

Healthy Boundaries

In recovery, we may discover we have boundary issues. We have problems discerning between what is our problem and what is our friend, parent, child or spouse’s problem. We try to fix other people. We try to control other people. Or perhaps, we let other people try to fix and control us, not letting them know we need a boundary ourselves.

How do we set healthy boundaries? If people tell us “No,” we respect their wishes. Remember how your mother would never take “No” for an answer when you said you didn’t want dessert? She had a boundary issue. She may love her children, but she forgets they don’t have to want what she wants. If she respects a boundary, she doesn’t push food on us. We learn to respect people’s boundaries by taking “No” for an answer. We learn to respect people’s boundaries by not asking them questions about aspects of their lives they don’t want to talk about. We respect people’s boundaries by not gossiping about them.

How do we get other people to respect our boundaries? We learn what is safe and what is not safe to share. We feel people out. We figure out what we tell them that sets them off into trying to control us. If Dad tries to tell us how to fix our car, and we don’t want his advice, we don’t tell him we have car problems, and we don’t tell Mom either if she’s going to tell Dad. Sometimes we don’t even have to tell the other person we have set a boundary. We are simply showing self-respect by not putting ourselves in a position where other people can try to control us.

At times, we may need to tell people we are setting a boundary. For example, if we have a friend who demands attention, we are direct by telling her, “I don’t want you to call me six times a day.” If the friend doesn’t listen, we draw a line. “If you continue to call me constantly, I’m going to hang up on you.” If the friend doesn’t respect the line, we must be prepared to make good on our statement. In this case, we hang up on our friend and we don’t answer the phone until the friend learns her behavior is not acceptable.

Boundaries are important. We can give. We can let people into our lives. We also have a right to our privacy. Boundaries help separate us from others. They help us retain our sanity and give us room to learn who we really are.

It Takes a Village: Practical Acts of Kindness You Can Engage with Your Children

Previously in this series, I provided a foundation as to why it is so important to be an example to your children and the children around us.  As promised, the following is a list of things you can do today to begin engaging in acts of kindness with and as models for your children.

I encourage you to continue your self-exploration while also taking responsibility for teaching self-worth, kindness and compassion to young children around you so that they might carry it on into their adult lives and pass it on to the next generation.

Set a good example. Children learn more than 90% of how to be in the world by the actions of the adults around them.  Behave and act exactly the way in which you expect your children to act and behave: do not have double standards.  You can have an impact on the children in the world even if you do not have children yourself.  It is an old saying, but a truthful saying:  Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Help others:  Involve children in acts of kindness by consistently helping a neighbor or friend or by giving canned goods or blankets to a shelter or local food bank.  By this, you not only truly help out others in need, but can also demonstrate your concern for others and how to take action based on your concerns.  Actively helping others in need can instill confidence, self-worth and good feelings about self and others. 

Explain about kindness:  Take the time to explain to children, in an age-appropriate way, why engaging in acts of kindness is important to others and the world and to themselves.  Ask you children directly how it felt to be a part of giving and making others feel good.  If children have a basic understanding of a task, they are far more reasonable and likely quite willing to engage in whatever the task may be. 

Expressing your appreciation: Openly express appreciation when someone, or your child, shows kind and thoughtful behavior towards others.  This is an excellent example to children that reinforces their kind behavior while helping them understand that they can make a positive difference.

Bottom line:  An effective adult role model will practice acts of kindness in a way that children can witness and engage with similar acts of kindness, while also holding the same ideal across their own social interactions in preschool, elementary and on throughout their lives.

Irene Watson is the author of "The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference. She lives with her husband of 43 years in Austin, TX.

The Foundation of Raising Kindness: By Example with Consistency and Guidance

By Example:  It starts at the beginning, with our babies.  The quality of care that we provide our infants can have a significant impact on their later development.  Babies need to know that the adults around them are kind, caring, and dependable.   If babies are provided a foundation of consistent quality care, they will learn self-worth and be capable of trusting the world around them.  When babies are responded to consistently and with sensitivity to their needs, they learn that they are valued and important, which is the foundation of being able to be kind and caring towards others.

With Consistency:  Be consistent in expectations and consistent in how you express your expectations.  Children need to know what to expect from the world around them, which supports their developing views of the world as well as their own self-awareness.  They learn to appropriately predict social situations and how to respond.

Being consistent and clear also provides a feeling of safety to children.  When they feel safe in their world, they will engage in exploration of the world around them as well as feel safe and confident to try new things.  When parents are inconsistent, it creates confusion and children are too busy trying to figure out what is expected of them instead of exploring and experimenting with the world around them.  

Providing positive guidance:  Children need to feel safe.  If they feel confused or frightened, they are at a disadvantage for learning about the world.  Positive guidance that is based on love and respect will promote a young child’s awareness of the how their behavior affects others and the consequences of that affect. Research has demonstrated many times over that says that harsh critical, verbal or physical punishment can weaken a child’s trust in adults and the world around them. This kind of punishment does not empower a child’s self-control, it does create feeling of anger as well as feelings of self-shame; exactly the opposite of what a parent might be trying to impart to their child. 

Bottom line:  Be an example to your children of what you expect from them.  Children who are provided consistent boundaries and feedback and positive guidance by example are far more likely to have a strong sense of self and act kindly toward others.

Stay tuned for the last in this series where I will provide practical acts of kindness that you can start today with your children.

Irene Watson is the author of "The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference."  She lives with her husband of 43 years in Austin, Texas.

The Nation’s Trends in Mothers Losing Custody of Their Children: A Tragic Discrimination by our Family Court System of Good Mothers While our Children Pay the Price

Part 1 of 3: Do good mothers really lose custody?

 

Yes, there has been a tragic trend in our family court system to take parental rights away from good mothers and give it to sociopathic abusive fathers.  Throughout history, when Mother’s were given physical custody by default, father’s regularly retained legal custody of their children, even if they were “deadbeat dads,” they retained parental rights.  Today, good Mother’s are put on trial daily in this country just to retain parental rights of their children and children are caught up in this horrific trend.

 

Research shows us that children of single parent or divorced families do far better by knowing both parents, regardless of the parents’ life situation.  This has been a defense of the court system to allow abusive and dangerous father’s to at minimum, still have parental rights over their children.  It has been, throughout history, extremely difficult to lose parental rights; this is not so for Mother’s today, yet it is still fiercely upheld for bad fathers.

 

There are several reasons good Mothers lose custody and the top of the list is the unfortunate reality of financial status.  Fathers that have the money to take a custody battle into the family court system for several years, usually (approximately 80% of the time), wins full custody and the Mother, not only loses her 50% physical custody, but loses her parental rights, as well.  This is a devastating and difficult situation for the mother as well as the children.

 

If you or a mother you know is caught up in this system, get out as fast as you can so the damage is minimal.  If you try to fight him and you think telling the truth about his abusive and terrorizing behavior means anything in family court, except that you are exaggerating, over-protective and trying to keep your children from their father, you will lose your children. 

 

Playleadership: Nature of Play, Nature of Children, and the Role of Leadership in Children's Play

Play - what is it?  I had the opportunity to find out as I spent several hours "watching" children at "play".  The first thing I found out is that play is not an activity, as is commonly thought!  Instead, I found out that it is most definitely a state of being, an attitude, a state of mind.  People can be at play any time of the day, anywhere, and under almost any circumstances.  People can be at play on a sports field, on a playground, in a classroom, at a movie, while listening to a lecture, while walking through a park, or even while carrying out the duties of their daily jobs.  As far as a human's mind can wander, there the limits of play extend.

     To some people, throwing a ball back and forth or drawing a freeform picture or singing a song is definitely not play.  Some people find these "recreational" activities difficult, time-consuming, and boring.  To them they are far more strenuous tasks than digging ditches and far from being considered as "play".  To others, tasks such as writing a profound essay, or developing a computer program, or hand-digging a foundation for a house are sufficiently enjoyable that they are considered as play.  Obviously, with such a wide range of interpretations about what play "really" is, it will be very difficult to establish a common definition for the purpose of discussing play and playleadership.  Therefore, the definition I suggest is "Play: an unobligated, undirected, spontaneous, free experience which is considered enjoyable by the individual who experiences it".

     Although play is indulged in by people of all ages and of all types, I will center this paper on the play experiences of children and specifically on the encouragement and assistance we can provide to enhance children's opportunities to engage in more and merrier play experiences.

     Often, when people talk about children's play, they tend to categorize the type of play according to the location in which it is carried out.  However, instead of talking about indoor play or athletic field play, or water play or playground play, I want to talk about children's play in general and the role of leadership in this type of play.  But first, before I discuss the nature of children's play, I must surely consider the nature of children.

     Children - what are they?  Are they small, unkempt, noisy, inconsiderate, impolite hellions?  Are they dangerous, scheming, cunning, crafty con‑artists?  Are they innocent, cuddly, warmhearted, loveable teddy bears?  Are they naive, misguided, misunderstood, misinterpreted waifs?  Or are they delightful, lively, evil, unnecessary, miserable, nuisances?  Or are they the most important end-product of existence?

     All these adjectives have been applied to children by people who have been very serious in their designations.  However, any and all of these descriptions, when taken by themselves, can only be inaccurate.  For the truth is that children are every one of these things and more.  Children are surely composites of all of the qualities and characteristics that are possessed by homo sapiens in general.  In fact, I believe what children really are is nothing more, nothing less than people.

     "What's that?" you say, "People?"

     Yes, you read correctly.  Children are indeed people, just like you and me and the senior citizens and the hippies.  Children are people!  And as people they are not to be stereotyped and disregarded and shunned.   They, just as much as anyone else, have the right to be thought of as individuals not as members of some minority group which is sometimes feared, sometimes pampered, and usually discriminated against.  Therefore, I must begin my opinion by discarding our views of children as underlings or subhumans or animals who must earn the right to be "people".  Instead, we must see children as part-owners of the universe who, just as much as anyone else, have a "right to be here" and deserve to be treated with the same degree of respect as all others, from kings to beggars.

     Although this idea (the child as a human) is foreign to probably 80% of our population (maybe not foreign in theory but certainly in practice), it is a concept which I must accept and truly incorporate in order to continue this view of children's play.  At this stage of "thinking" for this paper, I wanted to know more about the wisdom of children and acquaint myself with one of the creatures.  I watched how they moved, listened to their speech, watched the expressions on faces, felt the skin on their hands, and learned what they really are.  I looked at them not from the point of view of "what can I teach them about life" or "how can I help to mold, shape, and discipline them so that they can become a mature, productive, part of society?"   Instead, I looked at them as equals, as someone who is (certainly biologically) almost an exact carbon-copy of ourselves.  And knowing that they are so close to us in makeup, I tried to remember that we, too, were once children as well.  Reflecting, I remembered my feelings, my thoughts, my fears, and my perceptions of being a second-class citizen in a grown-up's world.  I tried, as though my life depended upon it, to feel some genuine respect for and empathy with that child as a fellow human being.  We must commit ourselves to take a second look at something which has become so commonplace to us and so well‑understood (at least on the surface) that we have possibly stopped trying to learn more about it.

     Now that I have observed an actual child, my next step is to develop some theoretical understanding of the makeup of the child.  I chose developmental psychology in order to gain some understanding of the physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development of children as they progress through the years.  I reminded myself of the experiences that all children must pass through as they grow up, and I recalled the significant effect that childhood experiences can have on adult life.  I explored the more basic characteristics of the child - those which are innate and instinctual, those which prove the very basic animal nature of the child.  I also studied the loftier, more "noble" side of this charming brand of creature, and then I looked at all of the characteristics which lie between these two extremes.  When I finally completed the study of the descriptive aspects of these children, I tested my understanding of the "child" again on other real examples of this delightful form of life.  Finally, I was really able to "feel" what it is to be a child when we can truly "experience" with them their deepest and most subtle emotions.  I am now more ready to talk about what the child needs, what play experiences are right for them,  and what, if any, are the values of playleadership to them.

     To continue, and to say in terms of what play means to children, I will simply state that play is an extremely important aspect of a child's life.  Play for the child can invlove intense, violent, exhuberant action.  It can involve serious, emotion-packed role-playing.  It can involve tight and close personal interactions with others, and it can involve, on the whole, every aspect of life which grownups live.  Viewed in this light, play is seen as one of the most important determinants of what our children (and, therefore, our society) will be like.  The combined facts that children are important individuals and that play is a highly significant part of their lives point out again the truth that the kind of play experiences that children have are perhaps equally as significant as the unemployment rates, the gross national product, the level of national health care and the health of our economy.  Play is a serious matter and the opportunities that we provide for it are far more worthy of our consideration than we have allowed ourselves to realize.

     Almost everything that children learn during their first six years is learned through play.  Only personal habits - eating, sleeping, going to the toilet - are, as a rule, deliberately taught.  A child's appreciation of this world and the reactions to it, the ability to coordinate muscles, to build and create, to live with other people and to become a citizen of the community are all the outgrowths of the hours spent at play.  In these early years, play is almost the whole life, and the child works very hard at it.

     I observed that a child plays whole-heartedly; putting heart and soul into play, and becoming completely absorbed in it.  The child plays spontaneously and is a self-starter.  It is very rare that a preschooler will ask his Mommie "What shall I do now?".  I also observed that the child plays purposefully: trying to achieve something, and based on the results of his/her efforts develops personal reactions which will become part of the personality.  The child plays buoyantly, and is always hopeful, easily encouraged, and delighted with praise.   The child always plays happily, having supreme satisfaction in doing so, and is of course, very proud of the results.

     In my observation I found that these are some principles on which successful play can be built.   Successful play is play which teaches the child as much as he/she can comfortably learn about things, people, him/herself, and human behaviour.  The personality pattern is formed by the child's and other people's reactions.  A child who gets everything he/she wants by crying is laying the foundation for a lifetime of whining.  The child who is encouraged to make his/her own decisions freely and happily and accept the results is learning emotional stability.

     I believe that physical vitality, creative activity and emotional growth are achieved through play.  In each child the balance of these factors will vary from that in all other children, and will vary within him/herself own at different periods of life.  One of the most challenging problems to a parent, I believe, is to gauge the fluctuating place of the child's physical, mental, and emotional growth.  The toy the child loves most this week may be discarded next week.  The activity the child starts with great enthusisam may be abandoned because it is too difficult or fails to challenge with adventure.  Even the words the child learned so rapidly over the last few months may be half forgotten and learning to talk may lag for weeks at a time because the child has discovered something else more interesting.  These seemingly pointless fluctuations, I believe, have good reasons behind them.  The wise playleader who observes, accepts and contributes to a child's play development is likely to be rewarded with a well-adjusted child.

     In this light, I want to look at the needs of the child which might be expressed through play and could potentially be met by a playleader.  First, what is a playleader?  I suggest that most of all, a playleader must be a warm and understanding humanitarian and, secondly, the playleader must "be" a child in the ability to experience situations and to understand where others are in their experience.  The leader could be a parent, caregiver, or teacher.  The leader must not be a "judge" but a guide, one who walks along beside the children and shows them the possibilities, paths, and alternatives.  The leader must be content to stay in the background, confident that by doing so he/she is helping to provide the best opportunity for the child to broaden horizons, to experience, to grow, and to become more complete.  In many ways, the playleader must have goals in the development of the child.  The playleader must relate to the real needs of the children as people, not as the behaviour-shaping parent.  The playleader I observed was a parent, and I thought she served as a very healthy example of one that provides a framework for the child, one who allows the children to experience their humanness, and she certainly is obligated to contribute to a sound society.

    

The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference - Irene Watson

Parenting Style - How it Influences Personality Development - Part 3

Bailey found that research on parental involvement indicated that care giving is usually provided by the mother, however, surprisingly the mothers did not indicate interest in establishing guiding for the next generation.  Bailey also found that the father and mother are equally the child's playmates.  In bonded-pair arrangements, children are usually raised by their parents in a relatively narrow kinship network, whereas, in a non-bonded arrangement, the children know their mothers and fathers but are reared by caretakers consequently developing a variety of relationships with others.  Infants exposed to extensive non-maternal care in their first year have a risk of developing insecure attachment relationships which relate to subsequent aggression and compliance in the toddler, preschool, and early elementary school years.   In a "father-absent" arrangement there is a reduction of parental care and more association with alloparental care.  In a "father present" situation, there is more heightened bi-parental care.

     Socialization practices and the effects contribute consistent evidence that parental warmth, acknowledged punishment, noninflicting punishment practices, and consistency in child rearing obviously discharges positive personality development.  How young children relate to and are related to by others is conceptualized by the end of the first year.  "Internal working models" of self, others, and relationships, which bias attention to social experiences, form subsequent relationships with others.  If the environment and interpersonal experiences change, particularly with parents, the expectations regarding self, others, and relationships also change.  P. Draper & J. Belsky also report that if there is an insecure attachment bond in infancy, there is then a low level of empathy, compliance, cooperation, and self-control, as well as high levels of negativity during toddler, preschool, and early elementary school years.  It is clear that attachment security is related to children's early child-rearing experiences and their subsequent psychological, behavioral, and personality development.

     Attitudinal independence from the mother combined with a modest degree of attachment is associated invertedly with diffusion and foreclosure statuses, however, differentiated relationships with the mother allows attitudinal independence and attachment avoiding diffusion and foreclosure statuses.  Consequently, a strong role of the attitudinal domain of psychological separation is required whereby children are given the opportunity to develop a consolidated attitude structure in their identity formation. 

     Importance lies in parents paying attention to events in early childhood, namely, knowing that it takes years to acquire and to consolidate learning necessary to produce a competent adult, and that personality structure is highly dependent on the family or social setting into which a person is born.   However, parental values and attitudes, and parental practices are also distinctioned.  Furthermore, parental goals, informational assumptions, and evaluative judgments are basis for the different parenting styles and behaviors.  It seems evident that the authoritative rearing approach combined with positive parental behaviors, is critical in developing a functional personality.

Parenting Style - How it Influences Personality Development - Part 2

     Permissive parenting behaviors can promote autonomy in adolescents, however, the parents may have a perplexing time ascertaining how much freedom the child should be given, while still securing the child's safety.  This style could cause the child, especially in adolescence, to direct their attention to peer influence.  In a longitudinal study by L.Steinberg it was revealed that adolescents from permissive homes continued to exhibit a psychological and behavioral characterization as becoming more positive in their academic self-conceptions and reported less somatic distress, however, simultaneously showed significant increases in school misconduct.  This study further displays that neglectfully raised children show continued declines with sharp drops in work and school orientation, and large increases in delinquency and alcohol and drug use.  In permissive homes, adolescents often have greater tolerance in situations that is explained by their own childhood experiences (e.g., left alone for long periods of time. Interestingly enough, B. Roscoe further discovers that this experience may result in success in sexual and housekeeping practices while attending school away from home. 

     J. G. Smetana found that authoritarian parents differed from others whereas they did not differentiate between moral and conventional issues and handled both as obligatory and

legitimately conditional.   They also are more restrictive in awarding the child jurisdiction over multifaceted issues and tend to moralize traditional issues.  Smetana further found that only authoritative parents appear to be clear in their judgments and justifications on the boundaries between moral, conventional, and personal issues. 

     Consequences of authoritarian parenting behaviors can result in dependence and antisocial activities, often repressing independence and internal growth.  Findings in a study by Smetana also suggest that adolescent-parent conflict would be greater among families with authoritarian parents because of rigid boundary issues.  Behavior problems and psychological symptoms also appear more prevalent in many cases with an increase of internalized distress.  Children in over rigid home environments often do not develop a wide range of effective or appropriate strategies in coping with everyday stresses.

     Based on research, it is realized that parenting orientations affect judgments of parental authority regarding issues between legitimate parental authority and adolescents' personal jurisdiction. There is an expected difference between authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parents regarding the boundaries of the child's prerogatives as the child increases in age, however, there is very little indicated in gender difference as to parental judgment. Also, there are no consistent differences between mothers and fathers advocating the same parenting philosophy.

 

More tomorrow....

Parenting Style - How it Influences Personality Development - Part I

Research on parenting during childhood and adolescence has focused primarily on the effects of parenting behaviors and styles.  A crucial element of parenting is the way in which the parents attempt to control the child.  Numerous consequential factors that seem to be significant have been isolated.  Of course, the degree and kind of control that the parent exercises over the child has portentous ramification for the development of personality.

     Studies and theories show that genetic analyses do not contribute to the framework as much as does the within-family environment in effecting personality constructs. Furthermore, investigations have pointed out that there are relations between parent-adolescent relationships and the identity formation process).  Although differences occur in ego identity status, most are associated with the conjoint influence of parental attachment, particularly for females.  Also, this same study revealed that in sex difference the relations between parent-adolescent relationships and the identity formation process parental attachment plays a considerably more important role in the identity formation for females than it does for males.

     Model research on the field of parental control is by D. Baumrind, who implies that there are three types of global and content-free parenting styles that influence the development in children and adolescents.  These include:  (1) authoritarian (the parent values obedience and believes in restricting the child's autonomy, (2) permissive (the parent provides as much freedom as is congruous with the child's physical survival, and (3) authoritative (the parent attempts to direct the child's activities in a rational, issue-oriented manner.  These parenting styles occur when the dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness are crossed

     Baumrind, proposes that authoritative and authoritarian parents, both highly demanding, often view themselves as having a legitimate right to regulate their child's behavior than would permissive parents.    Furthermore, authoritative parents encourage individuality and independence, and because of this,  one would think that they should be highly responsive to their children's needs and recognize that, as adolescents, their children do have legitimate jurisdiction over prototype issues.  It is also expected that authoritative parents can cope better with their children's demands for autonomy than other parents

    Authoritative parents perceive moral rules as more obligatory than conventional rules, granting adolescents' autonomy over limited confines of personal issues, however, do not grant them autonomy over multifaceted, friendship, and sensitive issues.  They seem to focus more on conventional, psychological, or emotional elements of these issues Authoritative parents, articulating the societal concerns, often facilitate adolescents' understanding of boundaries of personal jurisdiction, and, as research reports, rigid boundaries may deprive both of the opportunity to negotiate these boundaries, which in turn, may be detrimental to personality development.

     Research has shown that children who are raised in authoritative homes score higher in competence, achievement, social development, self-perceptions and mental health than  their peers raised in other parenting styles.  In fact, further studies show that academic achievement and psychosocial development is more prevalent in authoritative raised students has discovered that parental support, predictable and organized, including ways mothers listen to, comfort, and approve of their child is correlated with a child's effective coping patterns.  Parents who become involved in guiding and shaping the behavior of their child provides a parenting dimension that is important for child development.

     Authoritative parenting behaviors seem to be the most effective way for generating social responsibility and independence.  Limits are set by parents, however, the child is encouraged to have input into the decision-making process.  Positive adolescent outcomes, including better academic performance. Adolescents from authoritative homes scored highest in terms of adjustment abilities and had advantages on measures of psychosocial and academic competence.

     On the other hand, it appears that permissive parents, who are defined as non-controlling are ones that allow their children considerable self-regulation.  They treat issues as adolescents' personal prerogatives and are less likely to treat moral events as moral compared to authoritative parents. However, this same study showed that permissive parents were not any more lenient in their judgments of issues pertaining to the child's health and safety than any other parents.  Furthermore, studies show that adolescents from indulgent homes score poorly concerning school engagement, drug and alcohol use, and school misconduct. 

 

More tomorrow.....