Most of the core things that you know you learned from your family of origin, mostly from your parents. From infancy to early childhood, you were observing how to do things and, being curious, you tried to do what you observed. For example, your parents reached and grabbed things and handed them to you. You probably tried to grasp those things, but as any parent knows, the floor beneath the infant becomes littered with cheerios, crackers, etc. because they get dropped. This shouldn’t be surprising because the infant is still learning how to use and control their hands. But it can be frustrating to a tired parent. On the one hand, this creates a mess that must be cleaned up; on the other hand, it is practice for the infant. This scene typically unfolds one of two ways. The parent continues to supply Cheerios and crackers and the infant continues to practice OR the parent takes the cheerios and crackers away to avoid a bigger mess. Realize the former route allows the infant to get more practice and the child becomes proficient more quickly. The latter route delays practice making the infant dependent upon the parent. These small interactions in which the parent perpetuates dependency lay the foundation for becoming less independent as adults.
I have seen this many times with parents and their children. For example, a child might be having difficulty while zipping up a jacket, the kid tries to do it, but not fast enough for the parent. So what does the parent do? Well, they zip up the jacket for the child and the child fails to learn to do it faster. The parent stays capable— the child continues to be dependent. But life requires practice and when someone jumps in to do it for us we fail to learn. This issue isn’t just about a skill like zipping up a jacket, but also things like decision-making.
Decision-making is a skill. It requires that we practice throughout life. For example, a child might start by picking between two pairs of socks. But what happens if the child picks a particular pair of socks and the parent immediately asks, “Are you sure you want THAT pair of socks?” A sense of doubt in the choice is inserted into the child’s decision-making practice. Now multiply this by everyday and every decision made by the child and having doubt inserted into the process. This often leads to adults who have difficulty in making decisions. In contrast, a parent who reinforces that child for actually making a decision is likely to develop an adult who is willing to make decisions. The quality of the decisions can be tuned over time, but the willingness to make decisions starts early in life.
Now compound this with other activities like deciding whether or not to eat peas and carrots. The parent might see that the child has left peas, but eaten carrots. A typical parent response is to tell the child to eat their peas. But psychologically, the child did make a decision not to eat peas, but now the parent is telling the child that their decision is not a good one. The experiences we have while learning to make decisions as a child form the foundation of how we will make decisions as adults. Fast forward 35 years.
Knowing a little bit about how we learned to make decisions growing up might help explain why you are either good or bad at making decisions. Are you an individual who is decisive in making a decision, or do you waffle? Do you worry over the decisions you make at work? Do you have trouble making a choice from a menu? Understanding how you learned to make decisions gives you the possibility of changing how you make decisions moving forward. If you deem yourself as needing to get better at decision-making, then knowing the things you have to overcome allows you to practice new behaviors and address the doubt in your head that is carried over from childhood. An adult looking to be more decisive in making decisions can reach that goal, but it requires understanding the things that need to be changed.
