Personal Growth
How Early Experience Shapes One’s Relationship With One’s Self
Children need their parents’ love, attention, acceptance, and guidance as a plant needs water. If they do not get it growing up, as an adult they may spend their whole lives trying to get it from their parents. They may also try to get it from bosses, friends, teachers, coaches, and neighbours as well.
Children tend to treat themselves how they are treated by their parents. If both parents treat them well, children are likely to internalize this style and treat themselves well. This is also true if their parents treated them badly; they are likely to internalize that style and treat themselves badly. Children’s self-esteem is also affected by how their parents treat each other.
It’s not that simple though. Families are complicated. There are so many factors influencing children’s self-esteem as they grow: birth order, extended family, religious affiliations, talents, energy level, school, and others. Sometimes parents and grandparents (even other family members and teachers) prefer one gender to another. Perhaps one parent prefers boys and the other prefers girls. How people treat each gender impacts the children’s self-esteem positively or negatively. Witnessing one’s siblings being favored or unflavored also influences his or her self-esteem.
My father was the eldest of 10. I don’t know why, but he did not like boys. Growing up I was unaware of this, so I did not notice how he treated my brothers. Perhaps it was because my father had 7 brothers and 2 sisters. I was lucky. I was born a girl in this family. I felt adored by my father and I enjoyed his attention. I liked being a girl.
It is common knowledge that parents, who treat their children badly, harm their children’s self-esteem. It is also possible to harm a child’s self-esteem by excessive and undeserved praise.
Scenario:
From the time Cercy was born, she was praised excessively by both parents, but mostly her mother. Her self-esteem was extremely high. She thought she was marvellous in every way. When she went to school, she got a reality check. She was not nearly as competent and capable as she had been led to believe. It shook her confidence to the core. She began to doubt herself. She would dismiss praise or any positive feedback she received.
At the core of self-esteem is one’s relationship to one’s self. What a child experience in their family of origin, extended family, neighbourhood, school, and other childhood experiences, heavily influences how a child treats themselves.
This pattern, established in childhood, goes into the subconscious and operates out of awareness. When the relationship with self is positive, no problem is created so it may work well for a lifetime. If it’s not, it needs to be revised.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea
Can I Please Have Another Helping of Self-Esteem? Understanding Self-Esteem and How It Develops
People tend to think of self-esteem almost as if it is a product you can buy. Perhaps it is because of all the advertising which shows people smiling and feeling good when they use the products. Or, they think of it as a condition, like needing more iron in their diet or getting more rest.
Self-esteem is the result or outcome of one’s relationship with one’s self. It is a by-product of how a person treats him or herself.
How do people develop a relationship with self?
Children are not born having a relationship with self. It starts with their relationship with others. Parents do things to them and with them. Babies and toddlers respond and react to how they are handled and cared for. Over time they develop a relationship with self from how they are treated by others. The quality of those interactions is a major factor in determining the quality of relationships a child develops with himself.
Children are not born loving themselves. They learn they are loveable (or not) by the experiences of being loved by those who look after them. At first, love comes externally. If they feel loveable, over time children internalize the love they experience and in this way, they learn to love themselves.
How do children determine whether they are loved and valued or not?
Scenario:
Billy knew he was loved. As a baby, his mother’s eyes lit up when she saw him. She talked to him a lot. She was always affectionate with him and took very good care of him.
His father smiled at him frequently. He spent time with him: playing roughhousing, sports, and games. He taught him many things about the world and the way it worked. If Billy had any questions or problems, he knew he could always go to either parent. They stood up for him whenever they thought he needed support and gave him constant guidance. His parents did not have much money, yet they created a safe fun environment.
Billy felt loved, valued, understood, protected, and accepted. He felt cherished, just because he existed. He felt he belonged in his family. He felt good about himself, and confident in himself and his abilities. To him, the world was an amazing place.
Scenario 2:
Sammy was not sure if he was loved or not. He had a sad mother. She took care of him, but she rarely smiled at him. She often did not look at him directly as she cared for him. She was impatient, yelling a lot. She was seldom affectionate, and she seemed to resent the time she spent with him. She read a lot. Sometimes she was okay, even telling him she loved him. But Sammy did not feel loved.
Dad was away half the time, and when he was home he was tired and distracted. He did not have time or energy for Sammy. When he heard his parents arguing, it was always about him. He felt like it was his fault, that he was bad, but he wasn’t sure how. The family had money, and it seemed to Sammy that money was what mattered, not him.
Sammy did not feel loved or valued. He felt he was a burden on his mother and father. He tried to be as good as he could to please his parents, but it rarely worked. He didn’t feel he belonged to this family, more like he was visiting and it would soon end. He did not feel good about himself. He was unsure of how to be and how to act. The world was a scary place that he had to figure out on his own.
Each child comes to conclusions about themselves from their experiences of interactions with parents and others in their childhood. These conclusions may be accurate or inaccurate. Children do not even realize they come to conclusions; they are just living their lives. Some adults report specific memories of decisions they deliberately made as young children. But most of the time, these conclusions are made without realizing it, get buried in the subconscious, and operate out of awareness.
When a child has felt loved, valued, and connected to the significant people in his life, he is more likely to love and value himself, that is, he is more likely to have high self-esteem. Conversely, when a child experiences a lack of love and belonging, he is less likely to love and value himself, that is, he is more likely to have low self-esteem.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea
Anything that Can Be Done, Can Be Overdone
How to Stop Your Good Intentions from Going Bad
You can love too much. You can be too generous. You can be too helpful. You can try too hard. You can be too responsible. You can be too kind. You can work too much. You can be too considerate. You can give too much. You can be too loyal. You can be too truthful. You can over-function. You can compromise too much. You can be too affectionate. You can sacrifice too much. And more. There are books written about this problem, Too Good for Your Own Good by Claudio Bebko and Jo-Ann Krestan, and Too Nice for Your Own Good by Duke Robinson.
All of these behaviors are positive—loving, generous, trying, responsible, kind, working, considerate, giving, loyal, truthful, affectionate, etc. There is a continuum along which these ways of being can be carried out and be positive- up to a point! Beyond that point they are counterproductive. Loving someone too much can be smothering and stifling for the loved one. Working too much can make you sick and less effective. Giving too much can make others feel obligated or uncomfortable in other ways. Being too truthful can impact relationships in negative ways. Helping too much can make others do less for themselves—it’s called enabling.
No manual tells you where that point is—that point where what you’re doing turns from positive to ineffectual, or even harmful. To find that point you need to…
Pay attention to how your behavior/attitude impacts others.
Mary’s daughter Melissa was shy, so Mary would help her by doing things for her that Melissa couldn’t or wouldn’t do for herself. Mary would talk to her teacher for her; she would phone her friends’ mothers to arrange playdates for her; she would talk to her friends for her; she would shop for her and take back items to the store for her; she would lie for her saying Melissa was sick when she wasn’t.
Mary saw her daughter withdrawing more and more. She realized that what she was doing was making Melissa’s shyness worse. So, Mary changed what she was doing. She stopped doing things for her and started expressing her belief that Melissa could do things herself even though it was difficult. Sometimes Mary would role-play how to handle situations and then let Melissa handle them, (or not handle them) herself. Melissa was angry with her mother for not doing things for her anymore. Mary found it hard to handle the pain of watching her daughter struggle. She did not like Melissa to be mad at her; she missed their close relationship.
Gradually, Melissa’s desire to fit in and belong motivated her to try things herself. As she learned how to do things and got more practice doing them, she felt better about herself. Her increased confidence helped her to attempt more things. Even though she was angry with her mother, on some level she knew that what her mother was doing was in her own best interests.
If what you intend to make happen is not happening, either stop doing it or change what you are doing so it does happen.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea
What Goes on During Repeated Relationship Breakups and Reconciliations?
Often when couples are in a troubled relationship they break up and get back together again many times. There are good aspects of the relationship that keep couples coming back to each other. Once they are reconciled the issues or problems of the relationship come to the foreground and the couple, still unable to resolve them, breaks up again. In the April 2008 issue of Psychology Today, the article On-again, Off-Again states the reason for this pattern stems from relationships that deep down are probably not right. Fundamentally, there are differences in standards and values that the couple cannot resolve such as dishonesty, irresponsibility, unfaithfulness, abuse, and lifestyle. Or, there are differences in wants and needs such as sex, intimacy, companionship, comfort, and security.
Temporary separations are not necessarily a bad thing. Many couples have separated throughout their relationship at some time or another. Sometimes the separations are overt and other times they are disguised as holidays (sometimes as short as a couple of days), visits to extended family, or work-related. A temporary separation can help a couple reorganize their relationship.
Couples develop dynamics between each other over time. When that dynamic is troubled separating can throw the dynamic into chaos. Out of the chaos partners, who still care about each other, can develop a new dynamic that works for them. This means that each partner changes permanently. For example, A couple breaks up because their fighting escalates to the point where an incident of physical abuse occurs. Then they reconcile with the agreed premise that physical abuse is crossing the line that neither wants to ever cross again. Each changes in how they fight and resolve issues.
Most couples in troubled relationships break up and reconcile one or more times before the final break up. This stems from the emotional pain caused by breaking up. Often, each is in such pain that they reconcile to stop the pain. Then once they are back in the relationship the intolerable problems of the relationship push them to separate again. The emotional pain of ending a relationship and breaking up a family unit can be excruciating. Some couples stay together to avoid this pain.
Some couples love each other passionately yet cannot live together. They cannot find a way to resolve their differences. There are celebrity couples who demonstrate this. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married and divorced twice. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee also married and divorced twice.
Reconciliation often occurs because starting over is difficult and uncomfortable. Very few relationships are all bad. Partners often hang on to the good aspects of the relationship because they cannot face starting over or they cannot tolerate being alone.
Often partners confuse the emotional pain of separation for love. One or both partners may think, “If I am in so much emotional pain it must mean I still love my partner”. This can be true and a separation may make this realization possible. If it is mutual, the couple reconcile with renewed commitment to each other. However, often it is grief, not love, that is experienced when couples break up. Grief for the loss of the bond that forms when partners live together and marry as well as when they form family units. Grief for the loss of the good parts of the relationship that they may never find again with anyone else. Grief for the loss of the hopes and dreams that once were a part of the relationship.
It is healthy to grieve the losses. They are significant. It is important to grieve because individuals who grieve recover fully and can engage in life again.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea Mackay
