Parenting with psychosynthesis develops in you,not just the hope but also the capacity for real change. Perhaps for this reason you will find yourself asking WHY things are the way they are more and more often.
To answer that question,it will be helpful to deepen your understanding of the psychological processes involved. Thinking psychologically about yourself,about your child and about the overall story of what is happening will simply show you more of what is really going on. We call this kind of thinking reflective practice. *
Lots of people are put off by the word psychology and I think this stems from the fact that as a science it began with the study of mental illness. So by association psychology comes up against mistaken perceptions and judgments regarding mental health.
I hope that in time you will come to realize that everyone has a psychology just as we all have a physiology and it could be viewed in the same way. Just as the human body has set stages of development that can be assessed and monitored in the growth of the physical child,there are also stages of psychological development that need to be successfully completed for the establishment of a healthy sense of self.
Psy-chol-o-gy = the scientific study of the human mind and mental states of human and animal behaviour. A fair enough definition if somewhat limited when regarding the whole person. Our psychology is only one aspect of who we are and to really see the whole person,we need to include the body,feelings,mind,plus the Divine spark within us all. This is the view taken by all psychospiritual psychologies so our concern as parents is for the whole individual.
I use the word individual because psychology is primarily concerned with the sense of self. When asked the question,who are you? How many of us answer with a name,a title or an occupation. The sense of who we truly are is difficult to define and yet we all know it is more than any of these simple definitions. We say ‘I’and mean who we are right now but we also recognize that sense of self or ‘I’ remains constant throughout time
It is the aspect of our selves that is experienced IN time and OVER time. The ‘I’remains a central identity,so that sense of self is in some way OUTSIDE of time.
I would call this part the Divine within or the Essential Self.
When a baby arrives into the world he is physiologically adapted to survive his specific physical environment,he needs oxygen,food,a certain range of temperature etc. Similarly psychological survival requires a psychological environment,one that nurtures the psychological needs with perception and love.
An understanding of the psychological needs will create a more facilitating environment for the child’s growing sense of self to blossom. In her book,‘The drama of being a child’,Alice Miller states the psychological needs of the child beautifully when she says,
“Every child has a legitimate need to be noticed,understood,taken seriously and respected by his mother. In the first few weeks and months of life he needs to have the mother at his disposal,must be able to avail himself of her and be mirrored by her.” (Miller 1995)
Your child has a primary need to be respected as the person they are at any given time. By this I mean emotions,sensations and expression needs to be seen and heard in context with the stage of development the child is at. To do this you must first understand these stages of development to provide for them in an empathic way.
SELF-ESTEEM
As parents we hear the word SELF-ESTEEM in different contexts and many believe that this comes about by constant praise. To avoid this misperception and explain how we can truly help the child develop self-esteem I would like to take some time to break it down and firstly see what do we mean by SELF.
A sense of self is what makes us an individual separate from other individuals. The infant and young child has not developed this yet and it may be likely that you,as a parent play a vital role in helping the child establish a healthy sense of self.
“The biological birth of the human infant and the psychological birth of the individual are not coincident in time. The former is a dramatic,observable,and well-circumscribed event;the latter a slowly unfolding intrapsychic process.” Mahler 1987
‘The psychological birth of the human infant’,by Margaret Malher,breaks this process of separation from Mother into observable separate phases spread over the first three years of life. When s/he is first born the sense of self is still fused with the Mothers anchoring him in the world.
The child arrives with an undifferentiated core,where all the psychic elements are in a state of chaos and only through developmental processes becomes a separate self. Even then,the child’s sense of self is not completed but continues to develop and grow stronger right into young adulthood.
Just as with the physical birth,a successful separation requires collaboration from Mother and child. It is equally important for the Mother to be willing to allow the child become independent and separate as it is for the child to seek independence.
This is best achieved through an empathetic negotiation where Mum can sense when the child is ready for a bit more independence and is also able to see when he becomes frightened and needs reassurance.
This gives him a secure base where he can go for emotional refuelling when separation anxiety is experienced. It is an exciting time for the little explorer as he discovers the world around him but also a frightening time as he learns that he is a separate individual. The psychological groundwork for this takes place during the first three years of life.