Basic Training

Basic Training for Life

This month’s New Yorker had a cartoon of a hippie teacher explaining to parents, “We’ve created a safe nonjudgmental environment that will leave your child ill prepared for real life.” How tragically true! I look at child rearing as somewhat akin to basic training in the army. We know damn well that our kids will face the combat of coping in a world that will be judgmental and full of risks. Children will have to deal with irrational people, selfish people, and an endless array of unpredictable frustrations. To a large extent, a great deal of life is spent dealing with the endless barrage of garbage that constantly streams down a chute on top of us. It ain’t glamorous, but if we stop shoveling the garbage, we’ll drown in it. And the overprotection that the cartoon teacher referred to, won’t prepare our kids to shovel garbage.

As previously mentioned, the hardest patients for me to see in therapy are those who have been overprotected. They have been deprived the opportunity to learn key coping skills. They have been taught that life is easy and that the world exists for their gratification. They have been taught a sense of entitlements so that they don’t have to earn what they want. I have seen a number of patients who were inadvertently trained that whining was an effective skill to get what they want. They could not understand why people didn’t like them and avoided them. After being placed in that cartoon class, or having parents who shelter them from the real underside of life, how could they learn vital skills of adult coping?

Although it is oft repeated that kids are spoiled, it is not often repeated who spoils them. Kids are born the same as they always have been—as helpless infants. It is the experiences that we adults provide that mold the skills that heredity gave our children. In my first week of graduate school, I critically questioned Bruno Bettleheim—a very famous psychologist. This little man got red in the face and started yelling at me. I had an image of my hot-tempered father who could, and did, hit. I pounded the table too and asked him if he wanted to yell or discuss, and that I could do either. He needed limits and became reasonable and even warm after that. He even offered me a job. I smiled to myself about how my father’s training helped.

Frequently, patients blame teachers for their youngster’s problems. Teachers, being people, differ in competency. Some are exceptional, while others are not skilled. When my kids had poor teachers, I told them that they will have to deal with a wide variety of people in life, and that the poor teacher is providing training in dealing with semi-competent people. We know damn well that is a necessary life skill. Although inequity sticks to the ribs, it is an unavoidable part of life and we must be prepared for it.

Parents are also people and we become irritable. We have constraints of time and money and we just can’t get our youngsters everything they want. Sometimes we have other pressing priorities and can’t meet their expectations. Although for most of us, we really try to help and support our kids, we should not feel guilty when we don’t exist for their gratification. It will help prepare them for real life.