Discovering Your Child's Essence

Word count: 900 - Estimated read time: 5 minutes

While relaxing and enjoying the entertainment at an outdoor music festival, I had the pleasure of observing a toddler interacting with the world. He had discovered an uncovered drain hole, about one-inch in diameter, and was dropping tiny pebbles into the hole, one pebble at a time. As the game continued, he traveled further and further from the hole to find his next pebble.

Upon noticing my watching him, his mother joined him on the ground to show him how he could fill the hole more quickly by gathering the pebbles that were closer to the hole and by dropping them into the hole in handfuls. The toddler watched the demonstration patiently then went back to what he had been doing. His mother shook her head in frustration and apologized to me (a stranger) for her son’s inefficient behavior.

This story is a classic example of behavior modification, a normal and accepted practice in our culture today. All of our systems of reward and punishment are based on the principle that human behavior can, and should be, modified. But, while behavior modification is necessary for successful social integration, it can also have the side effect of limiting and/or suppressing individual core personalities, or essences as I prefer to call them.

Even before a child is born, it asserts its essence. I remember how, when I was carrying my son, Matthew, after about the seventh month, it seemed he never stopped moving. Except, of course, for the time when his movement was necessary to get an accurate stress-test reading. Then he slept, quite literally, like a baby. I should have known then that cooperation and coercion were going to be important and enduring concepts in both our lives. Today, he is a healthy, happy, productive 28-year old chef and musician, still in constant motion, cooperative only when it suits his plans, and who still needs to be coerced to call his mother. 

Every parent wants to raise healthy, happy, productive children. Learning to identify, and then nurture, each child’s essence is the first step toward achieving that goal.

So where does human behavior come from?

Instinct and biology
Natural human development
Environmental conditions
Individual essence

Instinct and biology are at the base of all human behavior. Babies are born “knowing” to cry when they are in distress. The human body “knows” it needs food, and it “knows” how to eliminate waste. But beyond instinct and biology, the source of human behavior becomes less clear.

Many behaviors are simply a natural part of human development. For instance, two-year olds tend to be combative, so they hit people and throw things at them. Five-year olds generally have vivid imaginations, so they see monsters and are afraid of the dark. Ten-year olds discover human mortality and become obsessed with death, mostly their own, and may suffer from insomnia. And so on. This is not to say that we should ignore these behaviors and just wait until they outgrow them. But understanding that these behaviors are a normal part of human development will help us eliminate them as keys to individual essence.

Behaviors in response to environmental conditions are, realistically, the only behaviors that can be successfully modified. For instance, as parents, we have some control over where our children live, who raises them, where they go to school, what things they see, who they talk to, who they play with, what they watch on television, what activities they participate in, what things they own, etc. But while interaction with the outside world will substantially influence who and what they become as adults, none of these factors will be more influential than their individual essence.

An individual’s essence is that part of their personality that drives them. It’s what makes them who they are. It is their core sense of their self in the world. We, as parents, have no control over what it is. We can’t make it. We can’t take it away. We can only hope to identify it, nurture it, and help our children find positive ways to channel it.

Easier said than done? Not really.

The key to identifying your child’s essence is to listen and observe without participation.

While I watched the toddler with the pebbles, I had no vested interest in his success or failure. This made it easy for me to observe what intrigued him most—watching a single pebble disappear. His mother, on the other hand, felt compelled to modify his behavior to a more socially accepted standard—that of efficiency. Thus, she missed an important part of her child’s interaction with the world.

So was the toddler’s interest in the disappearing pebble a key to his essence? Perhaps, but, probably not—wanting to understand basic physics is a normal part of human development. To know for sure, his mother will have the opportunity to observe him over time and in various situations. And if she pays attention, she will begin to notice emerging patterns—patterns that will help her differentiate between behavior sources, which in turn will help her shed light on her little one’s essence.

Written in April 2008; revised March 2009