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The Crucial Cs in life

Early experiences define one's personality, says Adlerian psychologist Betty Lou Bettner

Photo: R. RAGU

WISE COUNSEL Betty Lou Bettner: `When you tie a child's shoelaces when he can do it himself, you are cheating him out of his resources'

Adlerian psychologist Betty Lou Bettner encourages her patients to talk about conflicts that took place in their childhood. Because she swears by the Adlerian tenet — "Causes for present problems often lie in what we call the distant past." She says early experiences define the contours of personality — "The child is the canvas and the artist and the paint." Even birth order contributes to personality. "Often, the kid is always the kid. The last-born behaves like a kid even when he is well into adulthood. I know a man who still ties his wife's shoelaces. He is the first-born, she is the last-born of five siblings."

Negative behaviour

Although negative behaviour can be arrested by tracing it back to its roots, a lot of trouble would be saved if it is nipped in the bud. Betty Lou, therefore, emphasises the need to educate parents and a lot of her work involves working with children and parents and teachers — she is the director of the Family Education Center of the Springfield School District, the guidance director for the Chester Charter School and is on the advisory board of the Children and Youth Services of Delaware County. She has authored two books on parenting — Raising Kids Who Can and A Parent's Guide To Understanding and Motivating Children — and one of which details the teacher's role — "Responsibility in the Classroom: A Teacher's Guide to Understanding and Motivating Students".

She says attention has to be paid to what she calls the Crucial Cs — the need to connect ("I belong"), to see oneself as capable ("I can do it"), to count ("I can make a difference") and to have courage ("I can handle what comes"). When these needs are not met, the child adopts negative behaviour patterns that give him a false sense of importance and superiority. For example, a boy who harbours a sense of inadequacy may choose to mask this sinking feeling with intimidating behaviour.

How do you bring such a child back on the rails of acceptable behaviour that leads to fruitful results? Betty Lou has never been able to digest the wisdom behind `Spare the rod and spoil the child'.

"Punishment does not teach a child to stop a behaviour. It teaches him to do it when you are not looking." She advocates "democratic parenting which gives the child freedom within limits, taking the best of what autocratic parenting (limits without freedom) and permissive parenting (freedom without limits) offer."

Mollycoddling the child can cause great harm. "When you tie a child's shoelaces when he can do it himself, you are cheating him out of his resources. What's more, at a subliminal level you are sending a message that you don't trust him to do it." Those who always look up to their spouse to do the simplest of tasks were children who were waited upon hand and foot.

Counselling for couples

Betty Lou specialises in counselling for couples. She says almost any conflict in marriage can be resolved if the Crucial Cs are kept in sight — "I urge couples to have the Crucial Cs printed on their cards so that they are constantly reminded of them." She says when they are open to the Crucial Cs' philosophy, they will not criticise each other and will learn to solve conflicts as equals.

Primer on Adler

Betty Lou says Adlerian psychology has four basic tents. "One, the human being is an undivided whole and beneath the seemingly conflicting interests, he is moving in one direction. Two, he can't survive on his own. He is an inseparable strand in the social fabric. An `indivisible whole' himself, he is part of `larger wholes' such as the family, community, humanity, planet earth and the cosmos. How he relates to his family will decide how he relates to the other systems. All problems are social problems. Three, each human being has a creative force that propels him towards a goal. Depending on the largeness of the goal and his ability to achieve it, the individual develops feelings of inferiority or superiority. Four, a human being's goal is unique just as he is unique. Because he sets his goal after observing the world through his own filter. Although hereditary and cultural factors shape this goal to an extent, it is basically a child of the creative force that's unique to every individual."

PRINCE FREDERICK

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