The Myth of Normal 112
Is it, though? Notice the assumption: anger in a young child is neither
normal nor acceptable. Contra her inborn need for unconditional warmth, any
positive response to the child is to be distinctly conditional. She is not to be
accepted for who she is, only for how she is. Here’s the problem: even if the
parent wins the behavior-modification game, the child loses. We have
instilled in her the anxiety of being rejected if her emotional self were to
surface. This exacts a heavy toll on both physical and mental health. While
the expression of an emotion can be inhibited, or even its conscious
experience blocked, the emotion itself is energy that cannot be obliterated. By
banishing feelings from awareness, we merely send them underground, a
locked cellar of emotions that will continue to haunt many lives.
I know for myself that the early hardening of my heart to my own pain
shielded me not only from grief but also from joy. Rediscovering joy—or
better yet, discovering it newly—remains part of my life’s journey to this
day.
- The experience of free play in order to mature.
Rather than a frivolous, childish activity to “grow out of,” play is a
requirement for the healthy development of all mammalian species. Jaak
Panksepp coined a name for the neural system governing true recreation, to
go with PANIC/GRIEF and CARE. “The PLAY system,” he wrote, “may be
especially important in the epigenetic development and maturation of the
neocortex.” A lack of secure infant bonding and a lack of early play, he
asserted, can be contributory factors in the genesis of conditions such as
ADHD, as well as of adult irritability and aggression.[11] Authentic play—
agenda-free, interactive, engaging joy and imagination, and, rarer than ever
these days, person-to-person—is easily compromised when children are
under conditions of stress or deprivation. (Nor is it compatible with being
distracted and mesmerized by digital technology, a vexing issue we will
revisit in chapter 13.)
If the overall goal of development is to foster in children a felt sense of
being alive in a nurturing world—“how it feels to be human,” in Raffi’s
wonderful phrase—then we have utterly lost the plot. It takes a culture in
good running order, with societal structures that take their cue from Nature’s dictates, to support parents in ensuring the child’s irreducible needs. How and
why so many of our children’s needs are going unmet will be the subject of
our next chapters.
