SMALL BIT OF GAS LIGHTING THAT IS A BIG DEAL

A child asks 'why aren't we changing the channel,' or 'why are we eating this and not that,' and is given a response like 'there are no other channels that post anything else' or 'there's no other kind of food available.' A few hours later, or at any later point, the kid passes by and you're eating that thing or have changed the channel to something different they were told didn't exist.

It seems harmless enough but it has massive effects on their reality testing, their ability to trust you and themselves, and what they see. They may not be able to challenge you on this discrepancy, but essentially they were given a 'nothing else exists' map, that cannot account for the reality. The effects may not show up from this one little white lie, but think of how several of these over the course of their development could lead to crossed wires in their nervous system circuitry, so to speak.

I remembered this type of coding today, when faced with a similar circumstance. Of course, as an adult, you know the other adult is exaggerating, doesn't have the energy to go through with the action, or is saying it from their own negative programming. In short, it's not always intentional. A child does not know that. I remembered several instances where internally, my gut was saying a different thing through a feeling of discomfort, but because what adults said was law, there was no rational way to dissent.

I remember that much of my development actually had this distorted shade thrown all over it. I felt like I could never get the truth about anything around me, and that something was constantly off, but I couldn't name it. To a kid it is most definitely a big deal, because in that stage they are critically in need of help to make associations in their observed world in order to navigate it. When faulty associations are made, they internalise them, either because they don't know any better about the factuality of the statement, or in spite of their own reality testing being triggered.

This does two things, first of all it gives them a faulty map of the world and how it operates. These false associations set the scene for future interactions with similar subject matter, and perhaps inappropriately, as an adult, making those same connections. And secondly, it dampens their internal responses and makes them distrust them, even though they feel that something is off. For instance, feeling uncomfortable when being forced to greet total strangers, but being enthusiastically pushed into it by an adult is such a case in which a child learns to suppress their own responses in favour of an adults' wishes.

Small thing, big effects. I know that it takes less energy to monitor our own thoughts and truthfulness of things we believe and say, but little children depend on us to pave the way for their development in this world. Not only can we benefit from untangling our own crossed wires, but we will pass on behaviours of integrity to children in sharing the truth, and protect them from distortions we may have grown up with.

References

image 1 How to Mind Map, Pietro Zanarini, IQ