Many tortures that adults experience track back to trying too hard as children because the love we needed, wanted, and expected from one or both parents wasn’t forthcoming. However, when you read this article, take it to heart, and absorb the effect of childhood grief and trauma, there is no reason to ransom the rest of your life to the past. Burn-out and mental illness often result from parents and teachers who reward children for pretending to be what they are not, cookies, created by cookie cutters. Instead, we can love children for their unique gifts and gently encourage them to individual success.
Babies cannot be “well-behaved” but when they become toddlers and youngsters, they begin to sense how to please their parents to receive more attention. Most older children instinctively want to be “good” to encourage more care and support from their parents, but millions of adults still hate their mothers and fathers and spend a lifetime in therapy, trying to recuperate from failed attempts to be the perfect child and the favorite sibling.
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The greatest book that explains these dangers in depth and that created a revolution twenty-five years ago is “Punished by Rewards” by Alfi Kohn, and includes such gems as:
“Do this and you’ll get that. We dangle goodies in front of people in the same way that we train the family pet”.
“Promising goodies to children for good behavior, meanwhile, can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. Even praise can become a verbal bribe that gets kids hooked on our approval.”
We train dogs with treats, but do we want to train our children that way? Once a dog is used to rewards, then like the American Kennel Club contestants, they only perform for treats. With children, what is the terrible downside of this?
Favorite children and teachers’ pets are punished for the rest of their lives once parenting and schooling are completed because as “People Pleasers”, they don’t know who they are, and being raised like trained seals, they are habitually doing tricks on demand for an audience that expands to include employers, coworkers, intimate partners and tragically, their own children.
6 struggles people who were the favorite child in their families may face as adults
1. They pay the cost of a carrot-and-stick mentality
Kohn’s book states, “The most notable aspect of a positive judgment is not that it is positive but that it is a judgment.” While the easiest way to become the favorite child is to do what parents want, the cost is best described by countless adults who did what they describe as “selling their souls for a parent’s smile”. As adults, they will please their partners even when some of the behaviors cause emotional and even physical suffering.
Resentment of Authority often Leads to Addiction: It’s no coincidence that the adult children of punitive parents often suffer from alcoholism and drug addiction etc,
Inability to be self-motivated: After a life of pleasing others, enslaved by positive and negative judgments how can they know what is the right behavior for them?
Blind obedience to leaders: Punitive educational systems lead to punitive parents and authoritarian government leadership while respect for individuality has been proven to create self-respect, respect for others, and democracy.
2. They don't know how to self-soothe or truly forgive others
The reason everyone must forgive is to avoid living in anger that can fester and become an illness. My mother often reminded me that as an only child, I was so lucky which said everything about her resentment of competition with her siblings.
Learning to self-soothe with my Brain-breathing© tool: This tool has helped thousands of people regain their inner peace after decades of living in fear, anger, and grief and it is based on neuroscience and yogic breathing.
Please request this and additional video trainings from me here- just let me know what you’re struggling with right now susan@susanallan.org
3. They struggle to come to terms with things that hurt
Learning The 4 Questions of Inquiry, allows you to put the past in the past where it belongs, have emotional freedom, and acquire the ability to create their future.
Think of a situation about parents or teachers that triggers painful thoughts.
Simplify this “Story” into a few words:
My parents should have loved me unconditionally
My parents shouldn’t have made me be like them
No one loves me for myself
Then, ask the 4 questions:
Is it true? Yes/No/Maybe and limit your answer to 1 word
What evidence do you have that it’s true? Think of yourself testifying in court. What facts do you possess and remember that feelings are not facts?
How do you feel when you have that thought? Use 3 “feeling words” for this answer. You may feel frightened, angry, sad, or some version of these, the three key negative feelings that we have.
How would you feel without that thought? Use only 3 “feeling words”, such as relieved, hopeful, and peaceful.
TURNAROUND: Transforming your “Story” into a more peaceful, true, and powerful one is the key to reclaiming your life.
You can add a “not”, “isn’t”, “doesn’t” or other “negative” word to your original story.
Example: “My parents were wrong to control me with rewards” to “My parents learned to control me with rewards from their parents”.
Switch the subject of the sentence with the object of the sentence.
Example: “My parents didn’t love me unless I behaved, I didn’t love my parents when I was forced to behave.
4. They have to teach themselves who they are
To find ways to move on and reclaim their true natures, they need to learn how to know themselves.
Once they unhook themselves from the naturally resentful and painful stories about their childhood they need to do their inner work to discover their true self. Meditation is a marvelous habit to quiet the mind where programmed behaviors live.
Just as college students begin with a varied curriculum, adults who want to de-program themselves can find groups that seem interesting to them so they can discover what is real and truly of value to them.
5. They repeat the judgment of their parents
Many partnered people who have been raised by judgmental parents automatically try to do the same to their partners. However, when they force their parents to obey by making similar demands to what they recall from their parents,
Their partner may smile for a while and behave.
But eventually, anger begins, and the pushback can be very dangerous. Because trying to control an adult partner is very different from what parents did when they were small children.
Husbands who were controlled by their fathers or mothers often end up with domestic violence arrests and they often feel shocked because they are only repeating what their parents did to them.
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