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Hello and welcome. This is Mia Von Scha of Transformational Parenting and today we are going to be discussing what to do when children label the world in very black and white ways. Here is the email that I received…
Hi Mia I call this "the dichotomous categorization conundrum"... My son, 2 and 10 months, has heard from others (not me I should hope) about "goodies" and "baddies". I hate HATE HATE this way of talking to kids and hearing things like this. |
Transcript of the podcast...
To add to this, even though he had never seen a superhero thing on TV, his Dad is quite into superhero stuff. For example, Dad has a big chess set with all pieces being superheroes. Dad has superhero posters on the wall in his mancave etc. So my son knows about superheroes and "good" ones and "bad" ones and that good ones fight bad ones (awful, I dislike this so much). My son also has a superhero shirt or two. Dad's entire weekend wardrobe is superhero T-shirts! (Funny I know!) So, the superhero thing is a big-ish part of their bonding and conversations and so on - that part I like, it is something special for them to discuss.
So, now through all these influences he talks about "goodies" and "baddies" and categorises people or characters (like his stuffed animal toys) as "goodies" or "baddies". I don't like this at all. I feel it is unhealthy to think in a two dimensional way like this. My worst is when he says he himself is a "baddie".
When I have the strength or I feel the moment can handle it I say something like "you know what, I think that everyone can use their energy for good for bad" or "do you think the baddies are just having a bad day? I don't think anyone is a baddie, some people just do unkind things". I want to say something that is effective and gets him away from labelling good and bad like this and also to know everyone has good and bad but it is how we "use our energy" that matters.
Thank you so much for this question. It's the kind of problem that goes way beyond the surface issue to touch on the essential core nature of being human.
I can completely understand why you would want your son to go beyond such black and white thinking when there are so many beautiful shades of grey. However...
If you look at all stories from the beginning of time right through to our present day superheroes, there is always an element of goodies and baddies, light and dark, good and evil. Even every religious story is somehow battling with this dichotomy. This is not accidental. We live in a polarised universe. Everything relies on its opposite to exist or make sense... hot must have cold, up must have down, left must have right, and yes, good must have bad.
This is why, if you know me, you'll know that I always carry the yin and yang symbol with me. The actual name for this symbol is the Tai Chi and its essence is not the black and white shapes but the circle that contains them. This is what life is really about. .. the wholeness that we all so desperately want. But there is no wholeness without embracing both the black and the white. Together they make the whole. A story isn't complete without a hero and a villain.... whether that villain be an actual character or the dark internal element of the protagonist or perhaps a cancer or some other severe life challenge. We're always battling between health and illness, generosity and selfishness, fun and hard work. There is no escaping the darker elements of life. They make up half of it and half of us.
The hero’s journey really appeals to us because it speaks to the deep unconscious battle between the goodies and baddies within us all. We want the good to triumph but the truth is that without the bad there is no story. The hero and villain are interdependent, just like we all need our darker nature's to progress our own stories and keep us real and interesting.
Your son knows, as we all do, that we have very dark sides to us. And unless we can embrace these we will never be whole. Children naturally embrace their darker nature if we don't interfere. But what we tend to do is to make certain traits acceptable and others not. And then we attempt to mould our kids to be one sided. And this is the real split. Throwing out either the yin or yang breaks the circle.
He wants to experiment with both sides of himself. He wants to play with those darker impulses in a safe and accepting environment. He needs to know that he can have a side of him that is a baddie and still be loved. That's what we all want.
Is it too simplistic, too black and white? Maybe. But perhaps if we think if it as symbolic rather than simplistic we'll get a truer picture of what is going on.
Maybe he's heard that baddies do things like steal and hurt other people and cause destruction. And sometimes he does or feels like doing these same things. Does that make him a baddie and therefore unlovable? Can his internal superhero overcome these dark forces? What if he can't?
These stories help us to process these ongoing internal battles. They help us to have hope that the good in us can balance out the bad. That even though our lives feel chaotic at times that there are balancing elements of order.
The stories may seem simplistic but really they are eternal symbols of what it takes to be whole. And this is why they appeal to both adults and children alike. We resonate deeply with this striving for balance.
His games with his soft toys are a way of trying to make sense of this. Children's play is so important for them to figure out the world and themselves. It is natural and healthy for them to explore all manner of dark elements in their play. Sometimes even repetitively playing out tragic situations until they can make sense of them. A good example of this were the studies done on children's play in the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. We'd imagine these kids would play fantasy games to escape the horror of their lives but in fact they played things like prisoners and guards... replaying some of the horrors they had witnessed. Why? Because it's therapeutic.
Your son’s play is a healthy expression of a child coming to terms with his full psyche. I would leave it be. Having embraced all aspects of himself. .. both the good and the bad... he will be in a better position to embrace all kinds of people in the world. When he knows his own darkness he can have empathy for the dark acts of others. When he knows he is loved and lovable with both his goodie and baddie intact he will better be able to love unconditionally whoever comes into his life.
When we react to a child's play like this it means that the child not only has to process his own darkness, but then also has to process our reaction. When I say I'm a baddie my mom can't accept that… why? What is going on here? He'll need to test that over and over until either you or he or both come to terms with it. In effect he's helping both of you to grow beyond these labels. But if you keep resisting it he must keep at it. He needs to make sense of the world. Dad embraces goodies and baddies but mom doesn't. What's going on here? He wants to understand what it is that's making you uncomfortable.
It may help both you and him if you spend some time exploring your own dark side. Look at things you have done that were less than desirable. And go and see how these contributed to the richness of your life. How your darker traits have saved you from dodgy situations. How the expression of your ugliest emotions has protected you or helped you to put essential boundaries in place. How people you have wronged have grown and flourished from those situations. When you can see how your own internal baddie has contributed to your life and growth you will be better able to accept this in your son.
Suppressing our inner villains can get us into a lot of trouble... unable to defend ourselves and our loved ones, unable to bring the hammer down when it is needed. It can leave us naive and vulnerable to the real dark forces at play in the world. It lulls us into believing that we're not capable of despicable acts which makes us less likely to engage our inner goodie to balance this out. We need to know what we're capable of, or we allocate that to some evil segment of society and then risk slipping unknowingly into these situations. This is why soldiers returning from war suffer more PTSD from things they did than things they saw. They can't reconcile their bad acts with the good person they believed themselves to be.
This is exactly why I think that every parent should have a sign above the baby’s crib saying “If I kill the baby I will go to jail.” It's partly dark humour but actually it isn't funny at all. It's real. Because if we're out of touch with our dark side we think that only evil people hurt children. But they aren't evil. They're depressed or financially stretched or extremely sleep deprived. It could be any of us. That line between regular folk and child abusers is very very thin and we all balance on that line sometimes. If we know this we can use our inner superheroes to take measures to stop us from falling over the line.
So is your son a baddie? Yes, absolutely he is. As are you and I and everyone else listening here. And we’re also goodies. Breaking it down into these separate and simple categories or characters is how humans have coped with this conundrum since the beginning of time. It’s ok. Being a baddie isn’t a judgement, it’s a statement of fact and one that we can love and embrace as much as we do the other side. Let him play it out and find his own ways to complete the circle, as have hundreds of thousands of story tellers and philosophers and religious leaders and regular folk before him.
If you're looking for a story to help your children to integrate these two sides of themselves that is exactly what my children's book Tao in the Box is all about... how the world is made up of opposites and through embracing both sides we find who we truly are and how magnificent that is.
Thank you for listening. I hope that your own hero’s journey brings you much insight and fulfillment along the way.
If you have any further questions please feel free to send them to me at [email protected] or in our Facebook group for Present Moment Parenting.
To add to this, even though he had never seen a superhero thing on TV, his Dad is quite into superhero stuff. For example, Dad has a big chess set with all pieces being superheroes. Dad has superhero posters on the wall in his mancave etc. So my son knows about superheroes and "good" ones and "bad" ones and that good ones fight bad ones (awful, I dislike this so much). My son also has a superhero shirt or two. Dad's entire weekend wardrobe is superhero T-shirts! (Funny I know!) So, the superhero thing is a big-ish part of their bonding and conversations and so on - that part I like, it is something special for them to discuss.
So, now through all these influences he talks about "goodies" and "baddies" and categorises people or characters (like his stuffed animal toys) as "goodies" or "baddies". I don't like this at all. I feel it is unhealthy to think in a two dimensional way like this. My worst is when he says he himself is a "baddie".
When I have the strength or I feel the moment can handle it I say something like "you know what, I think that everyone can use their energy for good for bad" or "do you think the baddies are just having a bad day? I don't think anyone is a baddie, some people just do unkind things". I want to say something that is effective and gets him away from labelling good and bad like this and also to know everyone has good and bad but it is how we "use our energy" that matters.
Thank you so much for this question. It's the kind of problem that goes way beyond the surface issue to touch on the essential core nature of being human.
I can completely understand why you would want your son to go beyond such black and white thinking when there are so many beautiful shades of grey. However...
If you look at all stories from the beginning of time right through to our present day superheroes, there is always an element of goodies and baddies, light and dark, good and evil. Even every religious story is somehow battling with this dichotomy. This is not accidental. We live in a polarised universe. Everything relies on its opposite to exist or make sense... hot must have cold, up must have down, left must have right, and yes, good must have bad.
This is why, if you know me, you'll know that I always carry the yin and yang symbol with me. The actual name for this symbol is the Tai Chi and its essence is not the black and white shapes but the circle that contains them. This is what life is really about. .. the wholeness that we all so desperately want. But there is no wholeness without embracing both the black and the white. Together they make the whole. A story isn't complete without a hero and a villain.... whether that villain be an actual character or the dark internal element of the protagonist or perhaps a cancer or some other severe life challenge. We're always battling between health and illness, generosity and selfishness, fun and hard work. There is no escaping the darker elements of life. They make up half of it and half of us.
The hero’s journey really appeals to us because it speaks to the deep unconscious battle between the goodies and baddies within us all. We want the good to triumph but the truth is that without the bad there is no story. The hero and villain are interdependent, just like we all need our darker nature's to progress our own stories and keep us real and interesting.
Your son knows, as we all do, that we have very dark sides to us. And unless we can embrace these we will never be whole. Children naturally embrace their darker nature if we don't interfere. But what we tend to do is to make certain traits acceptable and others not. And then we attempt to mould our kids to be one sided. And this is the real split. Throwing out either the yin or yang breaks the circle.
He wants to experiment with both sides of himself. He wants to play with those darker impulses in a safe and accepting environment. He needs to know that he can have a side of him that is a baddie and still be loved. That's what we all want.
Is it too simplistic, too black and white? Maybe. But perhaps if we think if it as symbolic rather than simplistic we'll get a truer picture of what is going on.
Maybe he's heard that baddies do things like steal and hurt other people and cause destruction. And sometimes he does or feels like doing these same things. Does that make him a baddie and therefore unlovable? Can his internal superhero overcome these dark forces? What if he can't?
These stories help us to process these ongoing internal battles. They help us to have hope that the good in us can balance out the bad. That even though our lives feel chaotic at times that there are balancing elements of order.
The stories may seem simplistic but really they are eternal symbols of what it takes to be whole. And this is why they appeal to both adults and children alike. We resonate deeply with this striving for balance.
His games with his soft toys are a way of trying to make sense of this. Children's play is so important for them to figure out the world and themselves. It is natural and healthy for them to explore all manner of dark elements in their play. Sometimes even repetitively playing out tragic situations until they can make sense of them. A good example of this were the studies done on children's play in the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. We'd imagine these kids would play fantasy games to escape the horror of their lives but in fact they played things like prisoners and guards... replaying some of the horrors they had witnessed. Why? Because it's therapeutic.
Your son’s play is a healthy expression of a child coming to terms with his full psyche. I would leave it be. Having embraced all aspects of himself. .. both the good and the bad... he will be in a better position to embrace all kinds of people in the world. When he knows his own darkness he can have empathy for the dark acts of others. When he knows he is loved and lovable with both his goodie and baddie intact he will better be able to love unconditionally whoever comes into his life.
When we react to a child's play like this it means that the child not only has to process his own darkness, but then also has to process our reaction. When I say I'm a baddie my mom can't accept that… why? What is going on here? He'll need to test that over and over until either you or he or both come to terms with it. In effect he's helping both of you to grow beyond these labels. But if you keep resisting it he must keep at it. He needs to make sense of the world. Dad embraces goodies and baddies but mom doesn't. What's going on here? He wants to understand what it is that's making you uncomfortable.
It may help both you and him if you spend some time exploring your own dark side. Look at things you have done that were less than desirable. And go and see how these contributed to the richness of your life. How your darker traits have saved you from dodgy situations. How the expression of your ugliest emotions has protected you or helped you to put essential boundaries in place. How people you have wronged have grown and flourished from those situations. When you can see how your own internal baddie has contributed to your life and growth you will be better able to accept this in your son.
Suppressing our inner villains can get us into a lot of trouble... unable to defend ourselves and our loved ones, unable to bring the hammer down when it is needed. It can leave us naive and vulnerable to the real dark forces at play in the world. It lulls us into believing that we're not capable of despicable acts which makes us less likely to engage our inner goodie to balance this out. We need to know what we're capable of, or we allocate that to some evil segment of society and then risk slipping unknowingly into these situations. This is why soldiers returning from war suffer more PTSD from things they did than things they saw. They can't reconcile their bad acts with the good person they believed themselves to be.
This is exactly why I think that every parent should have a sign above the baby’s crib saying “If I kill the baby I will go to jail.” It's partly dark humour but actually it isn't funny at all. It's real. Because if we're out of touch with our dark side we think that only evil people hurt children. But they aren't evil. They're depressed or financially stretched or extremely sleep deprived. It could be any of us. That line between regular folk and child abusers is very very thin and we all balance on that line sometimes. If we know this we can use our inner superheroes to take measures to stop us from falling over the line.
So is your son a baddie? Yes, absolutely he is. As are you and I and everyone else listening here. And we’re also goodies. Breaking it down into these separate and simple categories or characters is how humans have coped with this conundrum since the beginning of time. It’s ok. Being a baddie isn’t a judgement, it’s a statement of fact and one that we can love and embrace as much as we do the other side. Let him play it out and find his own ways to complete the circle, as have hundreds of thousands of story tellers and philosophers and religious leaders and regular folk before him.
If you're looking for a story to help your children to integrate these two sides of themselves that is exactly what my children's book Tao in the Box is all about... how the world is made up of opposites and through embracing both sides we find who we truly are and how magnificent that is.
Thank you for listening. I hope that your own hero’s journey brings you much insight and fulfillment along the way.
If you have any further questions please feel free to send them to me at [email protected] or in our Facebook group for Present Moment Parenting.
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