Parents

“All parents damage their children,” as Mitch Albom observed in The Five People You Meet in Heaven.  Parents play the most vital role in the formation of their children’s character.  Right from the hug in infancy to every word uttered to them or in their presence later on, everything makes certain impressions – many of them indelible – on the child’s mind.  Everything influences the child’s character.

Image courtesy ocduk

Psychologist Erik Erikson divided an individual’s life into eight stages and identified the psychological crisis that dominates in each stage.  From birth to about the age of 18 months, the crisis is trust versus mistrust.  The human infant is an utterly helpless creature unlike the infants of other animals.  It needs a tremendous lot of tender care and attention.  An infant that receives the necessary care and attention develops a sense of trust.  It helps the child is to grow up into a person who will trust other people.  On the other hand, an infant that is deprived of such attention will be a timid and suspicious individual.  Such a person will suffer from anxiety, feelings of insecurity and mistrust of the world around him.

From 18 months to three years of age, the child is learning to be independent in its own ways.  It demands a lot of patience from parents or the care-takers as the child will play with whatever comes to its hands.  Proper upbringing will develop the child’s sense of autonomy.  Otherwise the child grows up acquiring a sense of shame and doubts.  Lack of self-esteem is a serious problem that many people develop because of the improper care given to the child in this stage.

Well, I took Erikson as a model.  There are other complex issues at work.  For example, the family environment, the parents’ behaviour towards each other, their presence or absence, their temperament and attitudes and a whole lot of other things come into play in the formation of the child’s character. 

Erikson goes on to say that from the age of three to five, children begin to plan activities, make up games, and initiate activities with others.  Nowadays children of this age group go to school and hence the role of parents in the character formation become slightly less compared to the previous two stages.  Nevertheless, parents remain the most important persons for the child.  A child whose initiatives are not attended to properly will develop a sense of guilt.  They may feel like a nuisance to others and, therefore, remain followers who won’t venture anything new on their own. 

A lot more can be said on this matter.  The purpose of this post is not to teach psychology, however.  It is just to say that parents make or break their children.

PS. Written for IndiSpire Edition 204: #parentsresponsibility