Helping Kids Thrive - Teaching Values vs. How To Be
Kegan's stages of adult development, straddling the line between structure vs. teaching identity, and values vs. how to be
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If you have talked to me about kids at all you know I worry about not messing mine up when I eventually have them.
Helping Kids Thrive Seems Hard
I mean it just seems hard. You’re helping a human grow up to be healthy, to be happy, and to ultimately flourish. How do you do that?
The thing I find particularly frustrating about this topic is for some reason I've found it tough to talk about with other people. I think there is this notion that we're doing things well generally already as parents and that your instincts will naturally kick in when you're a parent.
I know there is a lot involved here, but anecdotally it's not always clear how to build a life of meaning and enduring joy. There's also not a lot in our current education system that is geared towards helping kids figure out how to build lives in which they will thrive and develop into whole humans (although there are some awesome things happening in the positive education space - check out PE & PERMAH if you’re interested).
In this newsletter, I'll explore one lesson I discussed recently with my mother that helped clarify some things for me.
*I want to put a disclaimer here that I have generally loved how I was raised, have fond memories of my childhood, and am extremely grateful to both my parents.
Kids Need Help To Grow Up Into Healthy Adults
Kegan's theory of adult development does a fantastic job of covering the different stages we move through as we grow up (FYI - Kegan says we are not guaranteed to move through these stages and the majority of the adult population stops developing once they hit stage 3).
A Primer on Kegan's Stage 1 and Stage 2 Of Adult Development
I'll briefly cover stages 1 and 2 (the imperial and adolescent mind) as a quick primer on how Kegan thinks about development from early childhood through adolescence (I've directly quoted a Stanford article here that describes stages 1 and 2 well).
Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (early childhood) - Children develop meaning making at about age two, when they realize that they have control over their reflexes (Kegan, 1982) and become aware of objects in their environment as independent from themselves (Kegan, 1994). Their thinking tends to be "fantastic and illogical, their feelings impulsive and fluid, [and] their social-relating egocentric" (p. 29) in that they are attached to whatever or whoever is present at the moment. Parents should support their children's fantasies while challenging them to take responsibility for themselves and their feelings as they begin to perceive the world realistically and differentiate themselves from others while moving into order 2.
Stage 2 — Imperial mind (adolescence, 6% of adult population) - The emphasis on one’s own needs, interests and agendas is primary. Relationships are transactional. Stage 2 individuals view people as a means to get their own needs met, as opposed to a shared internal experience (how we feel about each other). They care about how others perceive them, but only because those perceptions may have concrete consequences for them. For example, when Stage 2 friends do not lie to each other, it is because of a fear of the consequences or retaliation, not because they value honesty and transparency in a relationship. Moreover, individuals follow along with rules, philosophies, movements or ideologies because of external rewards or punishments, not because they truly believe in them. For example, a person in Stage 2 won’t cheat because they’re scared of the consequences, not because it goes against their personal values.
I won't go deeper into this, but if you're interested you can read about Kegan's full theory in my newsletter How To Be An Adult. The point is we have multiple stages of development as kids and parents have a primary role to play in supporting kids in moving from stage to stage.
What feels true about Kegan's theory is the further you go down the path of development, the more likely you are to build enduring joy in life as a lot of the learnings are compatible with what you hear in many wisdom traditions. Namely:
Cultivating a positive sense of self and positive emotions
Establishing strong relationships
Developing a seat of judgment
Dis-attachment and becoming more fluid in our identities, beliefs, etc.
So a key part of flourishing is creating a strong foundation in early childhood where it becomes natural to move from stage to stage as we grow up.
Moving To New Stages of Development
Here are some takeaways from Kegan’s theory on what moving from stage to stage can look like (oversimplifying a lot here).
Stage 1 to Stage 2 → Learning to develop a sense of self
Stage 2 → Stage 3 → Learning to care about others
Stage 3 → Stage 4 → Learning to develop an independent seat of judgement (i.e. caring about others while holding onto your own identy)
Stage 4 → Stage 5 → Learning to understand, share, and transcend ourselves
Supporting Without Stifling Identidy
Throughout our development, a common thread that appears to be a constant is that we are learning to develop and to evolve into more complete and whole human beings. Specifically, we are developing the ability to have a positive relationship with ourselves, with others, and we are setting ourselves up to thrive through the transience and uncertainty of life.
Most Adults Are Never Advancing From Stage 3 - Our parents serve a primary role in helping us develop (oftentimes) through these various stages. However, most of the adult population stops developing at stage 3. Developing our own seat of judgment and developing a more fluid identity is still out of reach for many of us.
Kids Need Structure & Education From Parents To Thrive - So what role do parents play in preparing us to reach stages 4 and 5 and how do they go about preparing us effectively? I don't think one newsletter will do this topic justice, nor do I think I’ve got the answers to those questions, but one thing I've thought about a lot is kids thrive with strong structure early in life and need it to thrive.
Like kids can be total ##$%# or they can take candy from strangers. They need help to survive and thrive. They are not just born ready to go.
It's one of the key things Kegan highlights - parents have roles to play in helping kids move from stage to stage. So it’s clear (and maybe obvious) parents have an instrumental role to play in educating kids and kids need some type of structure to form themselves around. So, what exactly should that structure look like?
How Do You Educate, But Still Let Kids Be Who They Are? - One thing that has been difficult to wrap my head around is how to do you provide structure and educate your kids without stifling their identity?
Let me start by saying I think one of the biggest reasons adults struggle to advance from stage three is as humans we are constantly told how to act and how to be by the world around us (oftentimes our parents included). Without the right support that can mess kids up (I explore this at greater length in my newsletter Wholeness - How To Live As Yourself).
With that said, how do you do it? How do you provide structure without telling kids who they should be? Questions for me come up that include:
What day-to-day routine will benefit them?
What behaviors are positive and what behaviors are harmful?
What hobbies & interests are nourishing, which ones are draining?
What habits are healthy and what habits are unhealthy?
What thought patterns are constructive and what thought patterns are destructive?
There is so much to explore with them and it's not always clear what is supportive vs. what might just be the way you would do something.
What qualifies as good structure & education? And when do you cross over into defining for kids who they are in the world? What kind of lessons are supportive and help kids flourish? And what kinds of lessons are restrictive and end up dividing kids from how they act and who they are inside.
I Think We Can Sometimes Confuse Educating With Telling Kids How To Be - One thing I've noticed is that the structure parents want to give their children (mostly with great intentions) can sometimes bleed into trying to change who kids are at the core of their being.
What if you're an extrovert and your kid is a complete introvert? What if you're more assertive and your child is more passive? What if you have insane amounts of energy and your kid is more relaxed? Are those things bad or are they just different? When does education and structure cross over into a commentary on who people are as humans and when does that become destructive to a child's ability to thrive?
One idea I find interesting is focusing on values vs. ways of being
Values vs. Ways of Being
I think values are a flexible educational approach that can help kids learn to move through Kegan’s stages while giving them the freedom to be who they are at heart.
Teaching Values Is About Sharing What You Think Is Important In Life
When you look up values you find a lot of different definitions, the one I like in particular is quite simple:
Values are, to put it simply, the things that are important to you. They are literally what you value. - Ray Dalio
When I think about having kids, I think about how it will be fun to support them as they explore the world and who they are in it. As they begin to develop a sense of self in early childhood I think what can help them through some of those processes are learning different values such as:
Curiosity
Courage
Self-Awareness
Mindfulness
Values Are Powerful and Flexible Toolkits
I think values are part of a toolkit kids can carry with them, but apply in a way that is unique to who they are in the world. The values they learn, I think, will prepare them to discover who they are and all of the other adventures that come with development. For example, as they start to build relationships with others, values that come to mind include:
Compassion
Empathy
Generosity
Humility
Teamwork
Values can help them navigate what is important in relationships. How they go about building those relationships and who they choose to form them with is up to them.
There Is A Fine Line Between Values-Based Education & Telling Kids How To Be
To me, educating based on values is distinct from telling kids who they should be and how they should act. I think it’s very likely an extremely tough line to walk but one that I think is probably important to pay attention to. I'm going to make up some generic examples:
Let's say a kid runs and knocks a glass cup off the table onto the ground and it shatters while everyone was having lunch. What do you do?
Values: Talk through being thoughtful and respectful of others. It's not your stuff and these are other people's things. How would you feel if someone broke your stuff? Also, people are eating, how would you feel if someone was jumping up and down on your bed while you were trying to read? (also depends on context here of course, but if your child is beating themselves up about breaking the cup you probably go a different route I think).
Ways of Being: Talking through how you should not run while other people are at the dinner table. Or talking through how you should not be loud while grown-ups are talking.
I think there is a distinct difference between working through values with kids vs. telling them to behave a certain way. I think with the former you help kids create a core set of guideposts they use to inform how they want to be as humans. I think with the latter you are telling kids who they need to be in the world.
The Risk The Latter Approach Poses I Think Is High To A Human’s Ability To Thrive
I think the latter is potentially extremely destructive because we are who we are and when we tell kids it's not okay to be ourselves, we create divided adults, who live one internal reality, which is very different from how they live externally (i.e. what they feel is worlds apart from what they express).
One Idea, Not Exhaustive
This is one idea in what is a long-studied field and frankly, having never done it, I'm sure it's just hard and there is a ton I need to personally experience to have a better opinion on the subject.
I Think We Arrive As Who We Are - That said, I think kids come into the world as who they are and as parents (and future parents) it's our role to help them explore those identities and give them the tools to continue figuring that out for themselves throughout the course of their lives.
Values, Not Ways Of Being - I think when we educate kids by telling them how they should be we run the risk of confusing them and hamstring their ability to develop into whole humans. I think values are a powerful way of communicating to kids what we think is important to be whole and healthy adults without asking them to change who they are.
Until next time,
Alvaro
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