Growing Up - When Does It Come?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Growing up for everyone is very individual, and, of course, there are psychological criteria for adulthood or emotional maturity. But the more I work, the more it seems to me to be the most important criterion for how much a person is ready to give up his expectations of his parents and see that a parent is an adult, a person independent of him, who has the right to be different from himself

Let's try to figure it out more carefully.

Initially, when a child develops consciousness and self-awareness, it is generally accepted that the child perceives the parent as a part of himself. This is the part that, when a child is in need of something, satisfies it - feeds him, gives him water, changes clothes, communicates, etc. And it seems to the child that he controls and controls this part.

Gradually, as the child grows, he learns that he cannot always force this part of him (the parents) to act as he needs; sometimes he has to wait to get what he wants, sometimes he gets something in return, and sometimes he gets nothing. It is interesting that it is precisely these moments that help him understand that his parents are something separate from him, that they are not at all a part of him that he easily controls (this does not mean that the number of such moments should be increased, this happens naturally).

This discovery comes in very simple things - we do not get food immediately, we are denied the desired toy, but nevertheless we do not stop waiting, waiting for our parents to satisfy our needs, even if not now, not immediately, but someday.

Gradually, we learn to serve our needs ourselves, at first just talk about them, then look for help, then cook our own food, for example, or clean up our space, and so on, up to the ability to earn money for ourselves and live separately. This means that we expect less and less from our parents, and more and more we act ourselves.

But it so happens that servicing the need for emotional contact and support remains the prerogative of parents for a very long time. This is especially true if the child at one time received little emotional contact with the parent. As if this is the area where it is very difficult to take responsibility for yourself and learn how to satisfy this need yourself.

Often I hear from clients - "But she is a mother, she must understand me", "I want them to understand that they were wrong", "She must help me."

We continue to wait for special contact, recognition, understanding, consent, while ignoring the parents' right not to meet our expectations (especially since we are no longer children).

Very often, some of the behavioral traits of our parents catch us, annoy, cause misunderstanding. For me, this is an indicator that those who come to me for help continue to expect “ideal” behavior, “correct” words from their parents. A parent for him is still an extension of himself, and when some part of him behaves "incorrectly", this of course can cause irritation and other reactions.

If this manifests itself in the process of therapy, then part of the work is returning responsibility to the client himself in serving his need for emotional contact and support, in developing the ability to take care of himself, and gradually abandoning expectations for help and support from parents. This does not mean at all that a person cannot seek help and support from a parent. He certainly can. But at the same time he accepts and realizes the right of his parents to deny him this, and then he has the strength and ability to cope with this refusal.

This refusal does not “destroy” the adult in the same way that he could “destroy” the child. An adult has alternative options for emotional support and help, he ceases to spend inner strength to maintain expectations of support from a parent or hope in acceptance and understanding. He uses these inner forces to shape his life.

This is not always an easy process - the process of giving up your expectations of your parents, and it can take place not at all quickly and at once. But after a while, there is relief and greater inner freedom, strength and energy for life appear, and surprisingly, contact with the parent becomes fuller and deeper.