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Have you known a minor child who was unusually sober, serious, and responsible? Such kids may (a) come from low-nurturance families, and (b) feel they must protect their (wounded) caregivers and siblings be-cause no one else will. With caregiver encouragement, such kids de-velop a strong "Little Adult" personality subself which feels responsi-ble for other family members' welfare and comfort, and "keeping the fa-mily together." This hinders the child from experiencing normal child-hood development. David Elkind's book The Hurried Child describes this, tho it doesn't acknowledge personality subselves. Such kids can grow into over-responsible, controlling, codependent adults, who feel excessive guilt if they don't ignore their own needs (self neglect) to prevent and reduce other people's problems. By definition, adults strongly influenced by Little-Adult and related subselves are wounded and have a disabled true Self. They may become increasingly frustrated and unhappy at not achieving balanced, interdependent pri-mary relationships. They may also unconsciously shame their own kids for "being selfish," "immature," not "taking care of other people." Lesson 1 in this nonprofit Web site offers a framework of ideas, op-tions, and resources to help reduce psychological wounds and harmonize personality subselves over time under their true Self's guidance. |
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