How are your beliefs in being a not good enough parent and fatherhood formed? I would like to share some knowledge to help any man whom is a parent to understand whether they can relate to their past and parenting styles passed down to them! I’m Genovieve Feasey a Clinical Executive Coach, working with men whom could benefit at addressing and improving #emotionalintelligence #relationships #workethics #workprocedures #businessculture #mentalhealthawareness
Beliefs of Parenting and Fathers
Some history: Erik Erikson (1902-1994) used Freud’s work as a starting place to develop a theory about human stage development from birth to death. Erikson focused on how peoples’ sense of identity develops; how people develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to become productive, satisfied members of society.
Erikson’s stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair. Each stage is associated with a time of life and a general age span. For each stage, Erikson’s theory explains what types of stimulation children need to master that stage and become productive and well-adjusted members of society and explains the types of problems and developmental delays that can result when this stimulation does not occur.
As a result, the 1st psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrust, and it extends from birth to about age one year. Through this phase, if children are steadily provided all their basic needs such as food, clean nappies, warmth, and loving affection and soothing from caregivers, they will learn that they can trust other people in their setting to love them and to take care of them, and they will believe the world is good. If infants are neglected and not given these things reliably or if they are taken care of incompletely and randomly, they will learn to question their caretakers and to believe that others will not always be there to support them when it’s needed. Learning to trust others is the first necessary step to learning how to have loving, supportive relationships with others and to have a positive self-image.
Moving onto the 2nd stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt, extends to ages 1 to 3 years old. When children are autonomous, they feel confident that they can make their own choices and decisions and that they will have positive experiences. Young children become autonomous when caregivers are supportive and give children the safe space to allow them their own choices and to experiment with their bodies and problem-solving skills without shaming or ridiculing the child. When children feel shame and doubt, they believe that they are not skilled of making valid decisions and not proficient of doing everyday tasks. This will begin restricting positive self-esteem as these small children start seeing themselves as “stupid.”
So there is the 3rd stage, initiative versus guilt, extends to ages 3 to 6 years. When children develop initiative, they continue to develop their self-concept, gain a craving to try new things and to learn new things while being responsible for their actions to some extent. If caregivers continue to give children a safe space to experiment and suitable stimuli to learn, the children will continue to find their purpose. However, if caregivers attempt to create too many strict boundaries around what children can do and to force too much responsibility on kids, they will feel extreme guilt for their helplessness to complete tasks perfectly.
