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1 How Children Learn from the Marriage
âI Wonder What You Will Remember When You Are Grown Upâ
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING that goes âChildren do as they see, not as they are told.â Iâm sure you have heard this before: If you want your child to read more, the best way to accomplish this is to read more yourself. When you want to improve your childâs manners or way of dealing with other people, you must first consider how you deal with others and what your child is learning through watching your behavior. Children imitate and become what they observe. While it is true that a child is influenced by the relationship he has with each parent on an individual basis, he also notices and draws conclusions about the relationship between his parents. In fact, that relationship becomes the blueprint for all his future intimate relationships.
Iâm Watching You
Children are keen observers of their parentsâ marriage. Whether or not you are aware of it, your children are noticing the large and the small details of your marital relationship. The truth is, most children are aware of many âprivateâ exchanges their parents assume are beyond their comprehensionâa small gesture of confort, a hostile glance. While your children may not be talking to you about what they are learning, they are drawing conclusions about âwhat happensâ to people who are married. These conclusions will become a permanent part of their beliefs and expectations, and will prepare them to form their own marital relationships when they are older.
Children turn to their parents in order to make sense of the world. They are also highly sensitive and reactive to the emotional climate around them, and are very attuned to conflicts and tensions that do not even directly involve them. Children want to be happy, and do best when their environment is peaceful and secure. In order to avoid being punished or creating a problem, children try to figure out the rulesâand then just how far they can bend them.
But psychologists have discovered that children do not need to learn everything from firsthand experience. They learn just as much from watching what happens to other people, and then applying the ârulesâ to themselves. Psychologist Alfred Bandura was able to demonstrate this in a process that has come to be known as âsocial learning.â1 Bandura had two groups of children go to a room that contained a variety of toysâincluding an inflated plastic âBoboâ doll that would sway when punched. The first group of children played freely with all the toys, including Bobo. Before entering the playroom the second group of children were shown a tape in which a child started to play with Bobo and then was sharply reprimanded by an adult who warned the child not to play with the doll anymore. After watching this tape, the children were led to the same toy-filled room. Bandura discovered that the children in his second group played freely with most of the toys, but that not one child would have anything to do with Bobo! Even though they had not been directly instructed to leave Bobo alone, they had learned through watching the tape and seeing what happened to others that it would be safer to choose a different toy.
In the same way, your children are keen observers of your marriage. They pay attention to when and how you disagree, notice how you and your partner react to each other, and in countless ways form impressions about the rules of married life. Some of what they learn has to do with roles, the activities that define what a mommy or a daddy does. You may have pleasant memories or current stories of your child pretending to be a mommy, and acting out the part with enough skill to earn an Emmy. However, children also tune in to the emotional climate and the sense of well-being between family members. Children watch how you and your partner interact and handle situations together. They then draw conclusions about how married people treat each other, for better or for worse.
If Monika watches her parents talk about buying a new car, she learns how married grown-ups work together in making decisions. When they are able to talk calmly and share ideas and different perspectives, Monika learns that both parents are respected, and that differences are okay and safe to express. If Monikaâs dad acts like his wifeâs ideas are stupid and that the decision is basically his to make, Monika learns a great deal about power and how people work out their differences. Mom and Dad may not even be aware that Monika has been listening and would probably be startled to realize that Monikaâs reaction to them as a couple will pave the way to her own beliefs about intimate relationships.
What Do You See?
Do you ever wonder what your children are thinking? Sometimes they amuse us with the explanations they construct. Sometimes they amaze us with their perception and intuition. What children notice, believe, and remember changes as they develop.
What Monika learns about her parentsâ marriage is partially based on her age, but it is also based on what she has come to expect because of earlier observations of her parentsâ marriage. Psychologists have learned that children, from a very early age, create a mental road map to help them make sense of the world around them. This is necessary in order to put new situations in a context that makes them understandable so that information can be processed more efficiently. Even as adults, we use what we already know to interpret new events. The underlying structure, which is called a âschema,â is occasionally modified to absorb new information, but most of our interpretations and conclusions reflect the belief system that is already in place. Research studies on children and adults have shown that people select or focus on information that will confirm their beliefs, and disregard or minimize evidence to the contrary.2
The research of Jean Piaget illustrates this very well.3 I remember watching a fascinating tape that showed the experiment in which preschool children were shown two beakers that had been placed on a small table. The first beaker, tall and very thin, was filled with water. One at a time, each child watched as the water was poured into the second container, which was short but wide in circumference. When the children were asked âWhich vase has more water?,â they all agreed that the tall vase held more. Even though they had watched the same amount of water repeatedly being poured from one vase to the other, the children explained that the water level in the first vase was higher, and therefore it had âmore.â The children had developed a schema of size that showed a grasp of height but not of diameter. Despite the evidence that it was exactly the same amount of water, the schema that âtaller means moreâ led them to draw specific conclusions. The concept of diameter is too sophisticated for young children to grasp. Eventually the children will be able to modify their schemas of dimension, but even then their first instinct will be to expect height to predict size. The original beliefs stay with us and continue to influence our thinking for many years.
But how do children learn about relationships? While psychologists know a great deal about how children learn right from wrong in their friendships and in social situations, there is very little research on how children make sense of family relationships. One of the few studies I have come across on this area was a research project about stepfamilies.4 Although this was not the main purpose of the study, by talking with children, psychologist Ann Bernstein noticed that children of different ages define âfamilyâ quite differently. Preschool children are self-centered, and think mainly about which adults provide caretaking for them. School-age children are more factual, and define the family according to history and living arrangements. Adolescents, who have developed the capacity to think abstractly, use more complex concepts such as reciprocity and the nature of the relationship between parent and child. Children slowly develop the ability to understand things in a multidimensional way. Thus, her parentsâ discussion about a new car will be understood and reacted to differently depending on whether Monika is five or fifteen. Children who are young are more vulnerable to blaming themselves when their parents quarrel; older children can allow that their parents have a relationship that does not directly involve them. The final product or schema of the parentsâ marriage probably contains elements from all of the developmental phases.
How Accurate Can This Be?
The childâs schema is based on the observed relationship, but it is very much a belief that is constructed by the child, and open to the childâs interpretations and emotional reactions. The schema consists of memories, but it is much more than the sum of the memories it holds. In fact, memories have been found to be extremely inconsistent, while schemas persist. For example, psychologists have studied how frequently people embellish or change, without any awareness of this, the details of major events from the past.5 In one study, college students were asked how they learned that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded. When they were asked the same question several years later, their answers had changed dramatically. None the less, all swore that their most recent answers were true, and were shocked to read their earlier responses. However, when adults were asked different questions about their parentsâ marriage and then given the same questionnaire four years later, their answers were almost identical. Time had not altered their evaluations. Unlike memories of single events, the schema of a parentsâ marriage is persistent, almost, as some have suggested, a part of our identity.6
But it is never too late to change the marital blueprint that we are handing to our children. Even though our children have witnessed things that we may regret, adult children are able to discriminate between different phases of their family during the time they were growing up. Studies have shown that adults can describe the differences between their parentsâ early marriage and the way things were years later.7 Somehow, multiple aspects become integrated to create an overall schema.
It should also be emphasized that the child actively constructs this inner picture. Each child is sensitive or receptive to different issues, and experiences family events in a unique manner.8 If you want to test this idea, ask your brothers and sisters questions about various aspects of your childhood family. Even though you all come from the same family, each sibling will evaluate their family life quite differently and will come up with their own âprivate reality.â While you may agree about the number of bedrooms in your childhood home, there will probably be a wide variety of responses to questions about family humor, or decision making. So rather than search for âthe truthâ of what happened, it is more important to accept the subjective realities that were produced.
Silent Beliefs
People rarely stop to question what they believe to be true and how they have come to these conclusions. Schema are not fully recognizable, and often operate in silent ways. After a schema has been formed, it usually becomes âtacitâ knowledgeâthat is, a belief that is accepted as being universally true. These kinds of beliefs lead us to assume that what worked for us is true for everyone. For example, a child who grows up in a typical American family would notice that people eat with forks and knives. He would probably take this for granted, and would assume that everyone eats this way. Imagine his surprise when he is first taken to a Chinese restaurant and discovers that people also eat with chopsticks! Perhaps he has been exposed to European friends or relatives who hold their forks in the same hand throughout a meal. Before the chopstick experience, the child may not have noticed this. The schema of how people eat may not have been sufficiently jolted to register the more subtle differences. However, once the child has acknowledged that people eat in different ways, he may be more attuned to noticing the variations that exist.
Much of what children observe about their parentsâ marriage becomes âtacitâ information, beliefs that are apparent only through the way in which events are interpreted and reacted to. However, the beliefs of what marriage should be like can be traced to what a person was exposed to in his childhood family. Frequently, partners are surprised when they compare their backgrounds and discover just how different two families can be. Each spouse is convinced that the way things were done in their own family is the ârightâ way. I once worked with a couple who, after ten years, continued to fight about the ârightâ thing to serve for Thanksgiving dinner!
What needs to be emphasized is the power of these early beliefs. The tacit knowledge that is absorbed in childhood forms the beliefs that help explain how culture is passed from one generation to another. Even when a person is exposed to a different environment in adulthood, he or she continues to hold on to the beliefs, values, and expectations acquired in the childhood home.9
I Am My Motherâs Daughter; I Am My Fatherâs Son
Another way of understanding how your child is affected by your marriage is through the psychological process of identificationâthe way she models herself after those adults who are important in her day-to-day life. It is easy to notice when your child is imitating you or your partner by âborrowingâ a way of speaking, a mannerism, or a way of walking. But unlike role-playing, identifications are not temporary imitations that are abandoned as the child moves on to the next play event. Initially, identifications are borrowed, but they eventually become characteristics or attributes that the child experiences as part of herself. Whenever a part of the childâs psyche becomes âlikeâ a parent, the process of identification is at work.10
It is misleading to think that children identify only with the same-sex parent. Children are not fully aware of sexual differences and their own sexual identity until the age of three or four. Until that time, they freely model both parents. Even after that time, they may continue to identify with aspects of both parents, although the way they view the same-sex parent definitely has a role in shaping identity.â11
Children do not necessarily like all the characteristics of their parents, and do not always accept the role models they have been given. This becomes more evident as children get older and attempt to distinguish themselves from their parents by becoming more like their peers, media stars, or sports heroes. One way to think about this is as a process called âdisidentification,â which is the part of identity that is built from a dislike of certain aspects of a parent, and the intent to not be like that parent.12 People can decide to disown certain characteristics, and âdo battleâ with these identifications. However, even the aspects that have been rejected become part of the personâs identity and will remain a source of emotional vulnerability. As psychologist Ruthellen Josselson says, âWe are as closely tied to people when we cannot bear finding them in ourselves as when that is what we most wish to do.â13
What this means is that as your children notice how you interact with your partner, they absorb or adopt certain aspects of each of you within their own identities. If your child feels proud or positive about any given characteristic, it is likely to produce a positive identification. He will âownâ that part of you, and will be strongly motivated to become that way in his own marriage. However, when your child feels disgusted or ashamed about how the two of you are behaving, he may try to disidentify with your behavior. Even at an early age, a child can vow to never do or tolerate something he has witnessed in his parentsâ marriage. A negative identification may cause your child to take a defensive posture when he is older in order to avoid becoming too similar or repeating something he has found to be offensive (for example, a daughter who believes that her mother is selfish because she spends little time with her children yet is constantly socializing may vow to devote herself to taking better care of her own children; a son who watches his father gamble away the rent money may become determined to financially provide for those he loves). This applies to values and ways of treating other family members as well as individual characteristics.14
In this way, identification can serve as a source of strength or of tension. Positive identifications can inspire us as we draw upon the parts of ourselves that are most connected to the strengths of our parents. Negative identifi...
