One of my favorite websites is one called Zero to Three. It’s a website dedicated purely to the research and development of children from conception through the age of three years.
My first inclination that I wanted to be in the helping profession was in Middle School. I grew up in a small town in West Texas that had basically only two groups of people: popular and not popular. I suppose a third group would be those teetering between those two – some days your “in” and some days you’re very “out”. I was that person. I teetered.
The problem with teetering though, is that all people want to belong somewhere. It’s human nature to want to be part of a group. To have comradere. To have people looking out for you and being your support system. Growing up, I’m not sure I felt like I had that. I lived in an “unsure” world.
My middle school experience I had was inherited from my early childhood development. How I learned to trust, be independent, and take up for myself against bullies was part of my foundational learned style. Couple that learned development with my personality trait of being very emotional and it led to some ill-equipped coping skills at a young age.
Understanding what is developmentally appropriate at any age is essential to parenting. In later years, it’s essential to change.
We all want to know why we do some of the crazy stuff we do. And, in order to know, we must look back in time at those early years. Robert Karen wrote a great book on the topic of relationships. He says, and others said before him, that early relationships shape our capacity to love.
Let’s think about this… ALL early relationships shape how we enter into any relationship – friendship, spousal, work – in the future. That’s huge!
We’re born with a temperament style (cranky, happy-go-lucky, easy). Environment acts on that temperament, adding to what we’re born with and creating layers upon layers of learned behavior.
It’s important that early caregivers understand their baby and child’s temperament because this dramatically affects parenting style. We’ve all heard parents who say, “I parenting my children exactly the same, so I don’t know why Jason ended up so different and in trouble all the time!” Well, that’s why. Jason isn’t like Jill. They must be parented differently.
As we move through life and have difficulties in certain areas, we have to take a look back in time and ask ourselves where we got stuck. What did we learn about ourselves and the world around us, even if by accident?
A good friend tells the story set on a hot summer day in South Texas, a small house with had no air conditioning (think 110 degrees!). She recalls lying her her head in her mother’s lap, resting there a minute and feeling so warm, snug, and secure. But within a few seconds her mother said, “You’re making me hot!” and made her move.
As an adult, we can understand this scenario, right? Extremely hot, child in lap, mom MERELY saying she’s hot. But as a child, what she took away from this transaction was, “I don’t want to be close to you!” One small translation, with no follow-up from Mom (this is key), and a message looms 20 years later: ”You’re a burden.”
This may all sound simplistic on the surface, sure. But digging deeper helps us realize WHY we inherit our learned messages. And when we understand those, we can begin to unravel and relearn.
What is your first childhood memory? What experiences do you feel shaped you most? Do those core messages haunt you? Let’s talk about it in the “comment” section below…
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photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar (not much online)
Reader’s Question : I am tired of feeling inferior to others, and would like to increase my self esteem. My husband, whom I love a great deal, also has very low self esteem. The only thing he is confident about is his worthlessness. I find that part of him unattractive and even more worse, that he plays the role of victim rather than working on improving himself. Furthermore, I find myself attracted to confident men, and even though I’d never betray my husband, I’m wondering why I am so attracted to them. Is it so I can get my “fix” from them, or am I leaning on them because it’s something I lack in myself?
My Take: This is a great question. Most of us want to know why we pick the partners we do, and later, we want to know we why find ourselves then attracted to someone who is totally opposite from our mate. This is very common, and also very frustrating!
Many clues are hidden in our past. One theory says our earliest relationships creates a “blueprint” for all subsequent relationships in our lives. “Earliest” means before the age of 3 years old – a time most of us don’t even remember!
Low self-esteem and being drawn to those who are confident and strong-willed can be clues into those early relationships with primary caregivers. In fact, adults give clues into their childhood all the time. The theory is called: Attachment. The question to ask is, “Was I securely attached to my primary caregiver?”
Secure versus Insecure Attachment
This theory is highly debated, but it’s also extensively researched and hard to dispute. When a child is born, how parents choose to interact with the child (and the child’s temperment) sets the stage for success or failure in many relationships to come. There are three types of attachment:
1. Secure Attachment. The child who is securely attached seeks comfort and reassurance from their primary caregiver, and they get it. Children feel secure knowing they can explore the world around them, and when they become frightened, they will always have their primary caregiver to take care of them – sometimes called a “secure base”. Securely attached children develop trust in their environment and primary caregiver, and as an adult they trust their partners and people they get into relationships with. Securely attached children have secure relationships as a general rule.
2. Avoidant Attachment. This child has an environment that is unstable. Meaning, they can’t be sure if mom will reassure and comfort them when in need or not. Sometimes Mom will be there, sometimes she won’t. Sometimes she’ll “blow up” when frustrated and angry, and not tend to her child’s needs, and sometimes she is calm, cool, collected and picks up the child when in distress. The child learns that he can’t trust his primary caregiver. He never knows if Mom will be available to him or not, and soon he simply stops trying. As an adult, this person can have very low expectations and learn not to seek assistance from those around them. Or in the extreme opposite, this person may have expectations of others that are too high and they develop a grandiose “I don’t need help, I can do it all!” mentality.
3. Ambivalant Attachment. This child had a parent that was passive and who failed to understand the importance of emotional connection. Mom may have provided basic needs – food, shelter, clothing – but the closeness needed that builds trust in a child isn’t there. As an adult, this person is extremely lonely. They are afraid to get close to others, and they worry the people in their lives won’t stay with them because they don’t really love them. The adult that is insecurely attached becomes too obsessive and depended on key people in their lives, deathly afraid of them leaving.
As we try to ask hard questions in our life like, “Why am I like this?, Why did I choose this partner?, Why is my partner like that?, and How can I change so I feel better?” it might be a good exercise to examine those early attachments.
As humans, we never outgrow the need for unconditional love, respect, and positive regard. There is never a time that we don’t need to be “parented”, and for those who missed out on these key emotional needs as a baby and young child, it’s a lifelong struggle to try to achieve just that – it looks very much like low self-esttem (as the above reader questions), depression, hopelessness, anxiety and fear.
This reader, wondering why she is so attracted to “confident and secure” men might get her question answered as she thinks back to her early parental relationship.
- Did she feel she could depend on her mom?
- Did mom instill confidence and security, allowing her to freely explore her surroundings, or did she get shamed when she did so?
- Does my longing for confidence and security in my current partner suggest I didn’t have it growing up?
Being securely attached has strong implications as an adult, but even stronger for a parent. Our children are the adults of the future, and we want them to feel unconditional love, security, respect, and nurturing. As an adult, as yourself how you can now get that (especially if it was missed in childhood). And if you’re a parent, ask yourself, “How can I most instill this in my child?” Or better yet… “How can I give this to my inner child, now?”
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When relationships are at their best we are like teenagers on a rollercoaster ride. We are excited, our heart is racing, we are anticipating, “the ride of a lifetime.”
Every moment of a “relationship roller coaster” ride is filled with a new rush. As we do with the rollercoaster, so do we with relationships in that we are in position to take a risk. Granted it, it might be something you like and want to continue to do or not, and once you have had enough you want off or out. We trust the rollercoaster ride to keep us safe, secure, and not hurt us. In spite of all the twists and turns when the ride evens back out we are still intact.
Sometimes in life we have fastened out seat beats for a relationship rollercoaster ride that is meant to last forever and it goes wrong. As exciting as it was on the way up, the trip down takes on its own personality. Once the descent starts, it often times feels like it will never end.
When we are able to catch our breath we think, “What was I thinking getting on this ride?”
Now throughout the ride, between the twists and turns we reconsider staying in the relationship. The ride operator gives us just those couple of seconds that is takes to rebuild the confidence to take that next hill. In a relationship gone bad we continue to experience the disappointment of the downward spiral the relationship has taken. At what point do you get off? At what point do you decide that you don’t have to go through this? When do you notice that the people around you are having fun and you are not? What has happened in our lives that allow us to settle in relationships?
Here are signs it is time to get off your “relationship rollercoaster”:
- When you feel your emotional needs are never being met
- The relationship becomes physically or emotionally abusive
- The “warm fuzzy” feelings you had are gone
- You find your self disconnected from friends and family
- You feel like an empty shell of your former self and have lost all of yourself esteem
- You notice you have compromised your beliefs, ambitions, and core values.
Relationships take on many forms. We have relationships with parents, children, friends, significant others and even the clerk at the grocery store. There is a saying that “friendships are meant for a reason, season, or a lifetime.” The tough part is figuring out which is which. Managing the change that relationships produce can be challenging and one that counseling can prove helpful.
Patrice Dunn M.Ed., LPC is the presenter of the “Relationship Rollercoaster” workshop. For additional information on upcoming workshops feel free to contact her at patrice@ichoosechange.com.
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