Parents are always wondering what’s going on inside their child’s brain. They wonder how their child thinks—how his mind actually works—because it’s clearly not working logically!
For example, when you tell him that dogs are friendly and not scary—and you show him by petting the super affectionate, wagging, face-licking neighbor’s dog—he screams and runs away. Yes, he had a bad experience once with another dog, but the neighbor’s dog is obviously different. All the logic and gentle persuading has no effect: your kid is still terrified of any dog.
So, what is actually going on inside his young mind? How is he thinking about dogs?
There is a logic here, but it’s a very primitive logic. It’s a logic that is based on generalizing—or actually, over-generalizing. And this over-generalizing hugely influences how young children learn about their world.
Think of it this way: we make generalizations based on our earliest experiences because this helps us survive. For instance, when a two-year-old tries petting a dog as it eats, the dog snarls and nips the child’s hand. The child can’t understand why this dog at this moment is wanting to bite him, so he protects himself from future dogs by making an over-generalized rule that all dogs, all the time, are scary and unsafe. Yes, it’s an over-reaction, but it will keep the child safe.
The big concern: generalizing can form new, unhealthy narratives
This is where generalizing can cause serious problems for young kids:
Their inaccurate over-generalizations form the basis of new narratives which are not only inaccurate but potentially limiting and unhealthy.
We see this in the young child who is bitten by the dog. If his parents don’t address the experience and his fears, he may form the narrative that all dogs are scary and dangerous.
How then does this happen?
As described in the post, “Childhood Narratives: How They Impact Kids for a Lifetime,” children form narratives based on their feelings and perceptions in response to an event. We could diagram it like this:
For the boy who is bitten, it could look like this:
By their very nature, narratives take specific situations and generalize them into rules that we follow. This is what young children are constantly doing; they are learning from their experiences—especially the intense ones—and creating narratives that help them cope in their large, overwhelming world.
The catch, however, is that when we’re young, we often misperceive things. (For more on this, check out the key post, “(mis)Perceptions: The Reason Young Kids Have So Much Trouble.”) As a result, we develop narratives such as all dogs are dangerous, being silly gets lots of attention, good big brothers don’t get mad at the baby, boys can’t be princesses but girls can be presidents. And so on.
While these narratives help us as children, they stay active and influential throughout our life, often creating problems for us down the road.
The take away: what parents need to know
Young kids tend to generalize from their experiences, both good and bad. If the experience—or the feelings from the experience—is intense, they’re more likely to create narratives about what happened. This is where inaccurate and harmful narratives can form.
If you suspect your child might be forming an unhealthy narrative, you can undo this narrative by talking to your child about what happened. (There are extensive examples of what this looks like in the three “Medical Trauma” posts, Parts 7, 8, and 9.)
She’ll need to know both the facts around the experience as well as have her feelings brought into the open.
Continuing with the dog-bite example, here’s what a parent could say. (And notice the parent first talks about the emotions before appealing to the intellect, which is always a good approach.)
“You were really scared when the dog nipped your hand. I bet you were surprised by how fast it happened. That dog had seemed so friendly, and then it suddenly wanted to bite you. I’m glad it was only a nip, but I know it was super scary.
“I think you learned something: dogs can be very friendly and loving, but not while they’re eating. Many dogs don’t like sharing their food, and this dog thought you were going to take his. Next time, we’ll wait until the dog is done eating, and then we can pet him, because I know he’ll be friendly then.”
The parent here is helping the child gain a more complicated understanding of dogs. It might be hard for the child to grasp, especially if he’s young. If he’s, say, under four, he’ll need to hear this re-narrating of his experience many times for it to sink in, whereas a six-year-old may adopt the parent’s narrative after just a few re-tellings.
The parent can also give the child ongoing, good experiences with dogs, as in this photo here (just to end on a more uplifting note—and image!)
Generalizing is just one way kids naturally misinterpret their world. For more on how kids misperceive experiences, check out the post, “(mis)Perceptions: The Reason Young Kids Have So Much Trouble.”
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