Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / The Child Who Learned Not To Need

Transcript

The Child Who Learned Not To Need · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Before I start on this second episode in the series, The Avoidant Parent and the Effects Upon Their Children, I want to apologize for yet another technical glitch, which resulted in something like a half of the preceding episode being recorded and uploaded, but I've corrected this with part, well, it's still the intro episode, but the part that didn't get uploaded, I've done that, and so both of those are now accessible.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is about the child who learned not to need.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's interesting actually to consider how children who are parented by someone who is an avoidant or dismissive avoidant how they adapt.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes children develop what's called compulsive self-reliance.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Other times, and they they appear to be very capable.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And some children, you know alternatively, make their distress impossible to miss.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But others become very good at hiding it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to talk about that, what it looks like.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because such children appear calm, capable, and often unusually independent.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't make many demands and they occupy themselves, although sometimes they drop into pockets of demanding behavior, which seems to be out of sync.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But largely speaking, they solve their own problems and rarely ask for help.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they give the impression of being mature.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some may say she's always been very independent, or he doesn't need much reassurance, or she prefers to sort things out for herself.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, maybe that's true.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some children are naturally more self-contained than others.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes apparent independence isn't simply a feature of temperament, it's an adaptation to a relationship in which needing another person has repeatedly led to disappointment.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the child has learned basically that they don't, they they don't need to have needs.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've learned that showing those needs is unlikely to help.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And gradually the child arrives at a position like this.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen quickly.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps they've repeatedly approached a parent when they are frightened only to be told there's nothing to worry about, or perhaps they've they've cried and been met with irritation or anger.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps they've tried to talk about a difficulty, but the parent has become uh uncomfortable with it, distracted or distracting, or just simply unavailable.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps the parent has helped in a practical way while remaining emotionally distant.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The child may have received an answer, but may not have felt understood.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, none of these experiences needs to be especially dramatic.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the repetition that matters.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the child begins to recognize and adapt to the pattern.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And basically it becomes when I show distress, the parent moves away.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'm taking a risk because the parent could become angry or anxious or take up more of the relational space.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They may have learned when I ask for comfort, the you know the parent becomes uncomfortable.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I express disappointment, the parent experiences it as criticism.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the child really faces an impossible problem.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: They depend upon the parent and therefore they must preserve that relationship.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: But some of their most ordinary emotional needs appear to threaten it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The solution is to reduce the visibility of the need.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't have needs, then I'm not going to upset anybody and I won't get disappointed.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that's not a conscious decision, it's a developed position.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, attachment theory describes ways in which children may deactivate their attachment behavior when expressions of distress aren't reliably met with comfort.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the child turns down the external signal, they may stop crying in front of the parent, they may avoid seeking physical comfort, they may insist that they are fine.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: They may become dismissive when somebody talks about their feelings, or they may become acutely aware of the feelings of others.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the reduction of the signal shouldn't be mistaken for the disappearance of the feeling.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The child may look less distressed without actually being less distressed.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this distinction is extremely important because adults naturally respond to what they can see.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the quiet child might appear to be coping while attention is directed towards the child whose difficulties are more visible.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've spoken about this before, I call it counterbalancing.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you have one child in the family who is taking up a considerable amount of attention because their behavior requires it, the other child may be may go into a counterbalancing mode where they suppress their own needs, their own voice, because they read the fact that the expression of films creates conflict.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that expression may be behavioral, and therefore to relieve the parents, and once again, this is not a conscious decision, the child suppresses their own need, but they do it in a way which is disproportionate.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So such children may very well may very well be even praised for requiring so little.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost as if yes, you're doing you're doing the right thing by by not making demands or having needs.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the child learns from that people like me best when I don't need them.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where healthy independence and defensive self-sufficiency begin to separate.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because paradoxically, healthy independence grows from secure dependency.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the child explores because and they explore relationships, the world play, etc., because they know they can return to safe attachment.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they can then tolerate separation because that relationship remains psychologically secure.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But defensive self-sufficiency is organized around a different expectation.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I must manage because nobody will help me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, I make the point this is not a conscious thought.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I must remain in control because vulnerability is unsafe.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I've seen this so many times that the the behavior of the other child, which may be the very uh reverse of being in control, causes the other child, the sibling, to take a position of a complete or seemingly complete control of themselves.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, from the outside, those two forms of independence, the seemingly what the securely attached child who becomes independent, and the child who isn't securely attached, but who has had to become independent, though they could look remarkably similar positions.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the difference lies in what happens when that child can no longer cope.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The securely independent child can ask for help.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: The defensively independent child may experience asking for help as failure, humiliation, or danger.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they may continue to say that they are fine long after it's become clear that they really are not.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this adaptation can appear very, very early.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: A young child may fall over and look towards the parent before deciding to cry.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: If the parent habitually responds with impatience or dismissal, the child may get up quickly and behave as though nothing has happened.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting here is that parallels the behavior of the avoidant personality or the avoidant person because they will actually find it incredibly difficult to acknowledge the distress of others.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They will maybe try and fix the situation or they may just avoid the situation, leaving the other person in learning that it's not a good idea to show yourself to this person because uh you you won't get seen.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, an adolescent may retreat into their bedroom and disclose nothing of importance, and the parent might describe them as private or secretive without recognizing that privacy has become a form of protection.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I use the word privacy, but this is more like withdrawal.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: The child may also become highly competent.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Achievement offers a way of being noticed without it becoming emotionally exposing.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh success, good results, helpfulness, and responsible behavior are generally safe forms of communication.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're being good, if you're seen to be working hard, you're not making demands, and you will get some kind of acknowledgement.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially they invite approval without requiring the parent to engage with their vulnerability.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's as if only a part of the child can relate to the parent because the other parts are deemed unacceptable or they are uh they are they are simply denied, they're pushed down.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pushing down emotions, pushing down needs as a survival mechanism actually can result in depression.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if we think about the word depress, it means too push down.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with emotions, if those have to be pushed down as a survival mechanism, well, the feelings are going to come out the side in some form or other.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they do that with depressive mood.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, you know, I've seen children, young people who are presenting with depressive symptoms.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look more deeply into the case history, when I look at the parenting styles, I can I can sometimes, it's not always because of this, but you know, often it is, I can see that something's been pushed down, a lot of things have been pushed down because it hasn't been safe or or beneficial to allow them to be expressed.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they push down, they become depressed.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But often they become the child who does well, causes no trouble, and makes the parent proud.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often you see parents saying, I wish I had two children like this.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one's an absolute monster, but the other one is perfect.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, no, they're not.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are role-playing being a perfect child because they don't have a choice.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, where does the imperfection go?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what then happens is that, you know, beneath their apparent competence, there may be a deeply conditional belief, and that is I'm valued for what I do, not for what I feel and who I am.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So failure for them then becomes especially threatening because a disappointing result isn't merely a disappointing result, it threatens the child's established way of obtaining recognition.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what if imagine a child who has been preparing for an event of some kind, maybe a competition or some kind of uh award.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It could be educational, whatever it might be, and they have a parent who has been focusing hard on that child achieving for for whatever reason.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's an expectation, and such children can do well, but it does start to break down.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens if instead of doing doing as well as the parent expected, they actually fall below the expectation?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: How does the parent manage that?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there are some parents who will become very animated.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they may say, you didn't work hard enough, you did you didn't, you know, you forgot to do this, you forgot to do that, or the parent might become attacking towards those who didn't recognize the child's brilliance.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm using that word in a very elastic kind of way.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what does the child, what does the what's the sense that the child makes of that?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't do as well as I'm expected to do, then upset will occur.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I I I better do well.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And such children will work or be pushed to work harder than is reasonable.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But these children also are very observant, they notice what needs doing, they become helpers, they try not to add to the parent's burden, they become attentive to the emotional atmosphere and may begin uh caring for the parent and and they ask, are you all right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need anything?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Have I done something wrong?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they will seek comfort and reassurance through comforting the parent.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the direction of care has begun to reverse.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the child becomes skilled at recognizing the parent's needs while remaining disconnected from their own.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: This child may receive considerable approval for being kind and thoughtful, but their kindness may carry an unspoken anxiety.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like if I'm useful, perhaps you will stay emotionally available.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: If I take care of you, perhaps I won't be a burden.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost as if I keep if I keep doing the right things for you, maybe there won't be a problem and I'll get what I need.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you see this actually in the adult extension of this, where you see the the adult who is avoidant and who who creates relationships where the other person is constantly trying to demonstrate their care, will do things, will be responsive and become preoccupied, but never acknowledged.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's never appreciated and it's never reciprocated.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it creates a kind of lock for the person who is trying so hard.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why this is important is because with adults it's different.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, an adult can walk away.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: An adult, when they come to realize this is the nature of the relationship, it's not going to change, and it's costing them considerably.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: They can walk away.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: They can confront it, they can say, this is a complete waste of my time, and I'm not doing this anymore.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But children can't.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They just can't.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for some children, what we see is not compliance, we see um hostility, anger, violence, um, deviant behaviour.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: When I say that, I mean that the the child may become involved in with a peer group where anger and hostility and uh uh other forms of behavior that are concerning are the norm.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But let's return to uh the more compliant child, because uh they may offer affection, loyalty, achievement or practical care, but actually receive very little recognition in return.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the the parent may take the child's helpfulness for granted.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: They may even demand it.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: They may assume that the child is coping because the child has always coped.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: They may fail to notice the emotional cost of that competence, and the child then learns another lesson.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: What I give is expected, but what I need is excessive.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And some children respond by giving more, and they keep trying to earn the recognition that it remains just beyond reach.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Others eventually stop trying, they become emotionally attached and convince themselves that neither appreciation nor closeness matters.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in both cases, the child is protecting themselves from disappointment in a curious kind of way.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't dissimilar to the adult who walks away who says enough.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the child doesn't say that because they can't walk away in a literal sense, so they walk away in another way, in another sense.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: They walk away by dropping expectations and disconnecting.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty is that a defense develops within a relationship, and it but then it becomes a way of approaching all relationships.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is called the internal working model, a principle uh that was identified by John Bowlby.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what this means is it's like a blueprint because our attachment style is essentially a blueprint that emerges from experience in relationship and in emotional environments.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But just because it happens within the family home and in the formative years doesn't mean that it goes away.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: The very reverse is true.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It remains and it informs the expectations and the outcomes of subsequent relationships.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what you tend to find is that that such children in their self-reliance become uncomfortable when somebody takes care of them, or they become overtly absorptive.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of shows just how hungry they are.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen this many times as well.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: They may immediately try to repay the gesture so that they do not remain in a position of dependency.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they have to level up the score, otherwise they they're indebted.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or they may suspect that generosity from someone else carries or creates an obligation in them.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the child may also struggle to identify what they feel, what they experience.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Emotions become easier to suppress when they remain unnamed.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you ask a child like that what whether they're sad, frightened, or angry, they may simply say, I don't know.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is happening internally.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: It may mean that the child has had too few experiences of an adult helping them to recognize and think about their emotional life.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Feelings that can't be spoken find other forms of expression: headaches, stomach aches, difficulty sleeping, anxiety about performance, withdrawal, a state of emotional flatness, or the distress may remain contained until adolescent.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that, as we all know, is when the fun starts.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are increasing demands, the child's method of of self-management comes under pressure, and then you might start to see uh things, things emerging.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: The family may then say, Oh, we had no idea anything was wrong.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in one sense, that may be true, because the child's adaptation has become extremely successful.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: They've been protecting the parent from their distress and protecting themselves.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: But successful adaptation isn't necessarily healthy development.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: The cost may be lonely loneliness, difficulty forming and maintaining friendships, emotional inhibition, and a profound difficulty that another person or in believing that another person can be depended on.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also a danger that the child's independence becomes part of their identity.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not simply someone who m who manages alone, they become somebody who believes they should manage alone.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Need is then associated with weakness, and vulnerability becomes shameful.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in this way the child may begin to reproduce aspects of their the very avoidance that they had to originally adapted.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not inevitable, uh, but it's highly likely.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We should say children's relationships and their development is influenced by by many uh relationships.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: An emotionally available other parent, grandparent, teacher, therapist, or a friend can offer a different experience.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think one of the things that children do, and people might not realize this, is they observe other children, they observe other families, they observe what happens in in those situations, and they make comparisons, which they might not voice, but they make them.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what they then do is say, well, if that child has parents who behave in in a very different kind of way, and and and that other other other children seem happy and don't have to work as hard as me and feel more relaxed in social situations and are freer, there must be something wrong with me.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's what children do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: They quietly start to believe there's something wrong with them.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this whole dynamic of the dismissive, I've introduced a new word here, but the avoidant parent has quite far-reaching consequences.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's invisible.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because on the surface, those parents maybe seem to be people who are doing all the right things from a practical point of view.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look beneath the surface and when you see more, that same parent may be the person who becomes highly distressed themselves, highly chaotic.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: They may have real difficulties with relational boundaries where parenting and other relationships are concerned.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: The child internalizes every bit of this.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think what's what's important here is there are some very simple things.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I often use the phrase, what can't I see?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just because something bad isn't happening, or just because expressions are contained, doesn't mean there's there's nothing else beneath it that isn't being voiced, but is in fact being suppressed because it has to be.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it will find expression.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And adolescence is that time where so many different factors converge, and a person who has learned to be self-contained then finds that they are under very different kinds of pressures, put all those things together, and it's what I call the glorious developmental cocktail.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, I'm going to look at the avoidance system itself, the repeating cycle in which one person withdraws, another adapts, and in and an entire family gradually becomes organized around what can't be felt, discussed, or resolved.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Families where there are plenty of ruptures but no repair.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.