Children Care Was Here

t’s traumatizing when something hurtful happens to you, and you can’t control it, you can’t stop it, you can’t predict how hurtful it’s going to be, and you can’t predict when or whether it’s going to happen. Children who grow up with a chronically defiant, oppositional sibling grow up in an environment of trauma and sibling abuse.

They don’t know when they’re going to be verbally abused. They don’t know when their things are going to be broken. They don’t know when there’s going to be a major breakdown in the kitchen, and someone’s going to be restrained as they’re yelling and screaming.

The Motive for Sibling Abuse

Often, acting out kids target their siblings as sources of power. It makes them feel powerful to say mean or abusive things or to hurt their siblings. They like that feeling of power, so they do it over and over again.

Several things happen in the mind of a child who lives with this kind of trauma. First, the siblings of acting out kids become used to witnessing outbursts, and it has a negative effect on them in the long run. These are people who grow up willing to accept higher levels of abuse in their marriages and their friendships.

They become desensitized to disrespect and abuse. They become numb to how it really feels to be called a name. They tolerate higher levels of disrespect and abuse in other areas of their life once they become adults. Their ability to be assertive also diminishes.

They learn not to assert themselves. They learn how to avoid people and situations, and it can hamper their social skills. In our world, a certain degree of assertiveness is necessary to communicate in a way that gets your needs met, and these kids don’t learn how to do that.

I’ve worked with the siblings of kids who act out in my practice, and they are, by and large, nice kids, but they have a lot of problems asserting what the problem is with their sibling and confronting it. They make a lot of excuses for their sibling’s behavior and abuse. They tend to defend him to outsiders, and it develops a very unhealthy social persona in them.

Q: The child with the behavior problem tends to get most, if not all of the attention in the family. What effect does this have on the other children?

James:
My experience is that this manifests itself in two ways. One is that the sibling becomes what is called a “lost child.” This is a child who avoids family situations. When a family discussion starts to get a little heated, this kid disappears into his room. As things get more complex and as he gets older, he stays in his room more. He avoids conflict and confrontation.

In emotionally charged situations such as dinnertime, the lost child will tend to avoid dinner because the acting out child uses it as a forum for his aggression. The lost child will tend to say he’s not hungry or his stomach hurts. Anything to get away from the tension and abuse.

On the other end of the spectrum, kids will develop higher levels of attention-seeking behavior that we call “adaptive responses.” For example, a child who’s adapted to a calamitous situation at home shows his adaptive response in school by hiding out. He doesn’t raise his hand.

He doesn’t get involved in group activities. He uses an avoidance adaptation in school that makes him stand out as if there’s something socially wrong with him, and it’s how he’s adapted at home. Some kids will act out even more than the hostile sibling, although this is rare.

An adaptive response to trauma means avoidance of anxiety and hyper arousal—in other words, watching out for trouble, listening very carefully to catch wind of tension, always remaining on high alert for hostility so that they can catch the pain before it comes.

Q: What should parents do to minimize the negative effects of the acting out child on the other children in the family?

James:
The first thing parents have to do is make every effort to make the sibling safe. And that leads to them not holding the acting out, abusive kid accountable. No matter what he does.

If parents are afraid of backtalk because it makes them feel powerless, it’s very likely that they’ll tell the defiant child to stop doing it, and the child will say, “I don’t have to listen to you.” The parent feels as though there’s nothing they can do about it, and that leads to them not hold the child accountable because they don’t want to be embarrassed and feel powerless.

Inevitably, parents stop setting the limits. The result is the other children in the family wonder who’s really in control, and they identify the acting out kid as the person in charge. As the defiant child acquires more power, the siblings challenge him less and give in to him more.

However, if a parent does tell a kid, “Stop that. It’s not acceptable” and turns around and walks away, and the kid says, “Screw you,” the siblings don’t see him as powerful; they see him as primitive. That’s the important thing. If the parent holds the child with the behavior problem accountable and takes away his “power,” the siblings see the parent as in control and see the kid as out of control.

Most important, the parent reduces the environment of trauma for the siblings. Instead of wondering when the pain and chaos will erupt next, they will know the parent is in control and nothing will erupt.

It’s also important to have a “safety plan.” Just as families are encouraged to have a plan of action if there’s a fire (where to meet, how to get out, what to do), I have always encouraged families to sit down and talk about how they can help the acting out child. Do this without the child being present.

I have taught parents to say this: “If Johnny starts acting out, I’m going to deal with him. I’d like you go to your room for five minutes. The best thing you can do to help Johnny when he’s acting out is to leave him alone. Don’t feed into him. Don’t fight with him. Just let me know.”

When parents set up this structure, the siblings have a plan for what to do when this kid starts to melt down. When they know what to do, it reduces their feeling of panic and helps them to ease the trauma.

The plan should be framed as how can we help Johnny. Parents should say openly, “We’re going to help Johnny by holding him responsible for his behavior and setting limits. But Johnny doesn’t always respond to that, and sometimes it takes us a while. The best way you can help Johnny is to stay out of it and go inside.”

Remember that trauma comes from not feeling that you have any control over the situation. If the children have a plan for what to do, then it’s not traumatizing because they have some control. The situation may be annoying and frustrating for them, but it’s not traumatizing.

When your child lies to you, it hurts. As parents, it makes us angry and we take it personally. We feel like we can never trust our child again. Why does lying cause such anger, pain and worry for parents?

James: Parents are understandably very afraid of their children getting hurt and getting into trouble, but they have very little protection against these things as they send their kids out into the world. Kids learn from other kids and from the media, and it makes parents feel unsafe because they can’t control the information and ideas that are being presented to their children.

Let’s face it. Information isn’t just available to our kids; it’s injected into them. Bad ideas are pushed down our kid’s throats by their peers, by some adults, by the media. It’s hard for a parent to keep control of their kids when this is happening, and protect them from their own harmful impulses and dangerous outside influences.

Your Child and Honesty
Your kid’s honesty becomes the connector between what’s happening to him on the outside world and what happens at home. You need him to tell you honestly what happened today, so that you can honestly decide if that’s best for him.

You need to hear that information in order to decide if that’s going to help him meet his responsibilities now –and in the future. When parents don’t get the right information, they’re afraid they’ll make the wrong choices for their kids.

When your kid lies, you start to see him as “sneaky,” especially if he continues to lie to you. You feel that he’s going behind your back, that he’s undermining you. We begin to think that our kids are “bad.” We make the connection that if lying is bad, liars are bad. It’s just that simple.

Parents should hold their kids responsible for lying. But the mistake parents make is when they start to blame the kid for lying. It’s considered immoral to lie. But when you look at your kid like he’s a sneak and an operator who’s undermining your authority, it’s a slippery slope that starts with “You lie” and ends up at “You’re a bad person.”

I think that perception of your kid promotes more lying. If your child thinks you think he’s “bad,” he’s going to hide the truth from you even more, because he doesn’t want be bad. Even though they are lying, kids don’t want to disappoint their parents.

Q: Let’s look at it from the child’s perspective. What’s going in on a child’s mind when they lie to their parents?

James: Say you’re driving on the interstate and the speed limit is 65 mph. You know that if you drive 65 mph on the interstate, that’s the slowest anyone drives, and people fly by you, honk at you and call you names.

So you go 75 miles an hour…and a policeman stops you. He says, “Ms. Jones, how fast were you driving?” And most people say, “Sixty five.” Or, “I thought I was doing sixty five, officer, or maybe a little over sixty five.”

Why are people dishonest like that? Because they understand that driving fast is forbidden. But they don’t understand that it’s hurtful. We understand that it’s wrong to drive that fast and there are consequences. But we don’t understand that it really hurts anybody and that it puts people at risk.

It’s the same with kids. They know lying is forbidden. But they don’t see it as hurtful. Not the way that parents see it as hurtful.

So a kid will say, “I know it’s wrong that I ate a sugar snack when I’m not supposed to. But who does it hurt?” “I know it’s wrong that I traded my dried fruit for a Twinkie. But it doesn’t really hurt anybody. I can handle it. What’s the big deal?” That’s what the kid sees.

When they don’t see it as hurtful, there are two different value systems operating: the family’s value system that says this is forbidden and the kid’s value system that says if it’s not hurting anybody, what do you care? The kid rationalizes his actions and justifies his behavior with the idea that it doesn’t hurt anybody. The outcome is a dishonest

The personality of a person can be defined as a set of qualities, beliefs, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, emotions and ideas that distinguish him from others. Since very many years social scientists have been trying to find the reasons why people behave the way they do and how the personalities shape up. There is a wide spread belief that if the factors responsible for shaping up a person’s personality are controlled, right in the childhood itself, a person can have a desired, well rounded personality. The following Buzzle article discusses some beliefs similar to these by looking at how personality development in children takes place.

Social and Personality Development in Children

There are some theories which say that the personality of an individual is directly linked to genes. However, then why do siblings develop a completely different personality? No one has yet found an answer to this question. Then there is another theory which says that it is the environment to which a child is subjected that makes up his personality. A child’s parents, teachers, friends, acquaintances, his home environment, his school environment – all these have a great influence in shaping his personality. Lastly, the kind of experiences a person has, as a child, teen or a young adult, play a major role in determining his reactions, his feelings, his emotional make-up and the way he behaves.

Parental Influence…
Out of all the factors responsible for personality development in children, parental influence is the most important one. The way the parents behave with the child, how much he is allowed to socialize, the kind of culture he is subjected to by them, and the emotional make-up of his parents, all these have a great bearing on the child’s mental growth. In early childhood, all children ape their parent’s mannerisms. Children learn a lot about socialization from the way their parents interact with their friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. If the parents are social, the same traits will most probably be imbibed in the children. Thus, parents should take care to become good role models and provide the child with the best environment, where he gets ample opportunities to develop his personality.

Home Environment…
The first time a child begins to understand his emotions, is through his mother. A child learns about love, care, support and help, through her. Thereafter, he develops various kinds of emotions, both positive as well as negative. Happiness, fear, anxiety, jealousy, anger and shyness – a child starts displaying all these. Again, it is up to the parents to make sure that the child incorporates the positive emotions in his personality and stays away from the negative ones. A child needs both his parents, mother as well as father to develop his personality. An absentee father or someone who stays away from home for a long time, can have a negative influence on the child. To ensure that a child turns out to be a confident, positive person, there are some other things that parents should avoid, such as being too authoritative, trying to discipline the child in excess, scolding the child often, punishing him severely, criticizing the child, discouraging him, comparing him with others and giving preference to one child over the other one.

School Environment…
Besides the home environment, a child’s school environment too plays a major role in shaping a child’s personality. Once a child starts going to school, he learns how to interact and deal with his peers. He comes to know how to engage in “playing” according to the rules and regulations. He gets educated, learns how to read, write and communicate effectively. A child’s personality is greatly influenced by the way he is treated at school, both by his teachers as well as his peers.

Culture…
Influence of culture in personality and social development cannot be ignored too. For instance, a child brought up in western countries is taught to be individualistic and competitive, while children brought up in Asian, African and South American countries are taught to be cooperative.

According to psychiatrist Erik Erikson, there are various phases that a child passes through such as infancy, toddlerhood, preschool and school age. Each of these stages has it’s own share of problems and challenges, which a child has to overcome, with his parent’s assistance, to turn out to be a well developed personality.