Eternal children, dependent and naive, avoiding responsibility – all these are the characteristics of the infant. Infantilism is the result of destructive family upbringing. What exactly are the actions of educating infantile individuals, who are the infants, how do they live and those around them? Let’s understand.
What is infantilism
Infantilism – personal immaturity, developmental delay, stuck in previous stages of development. An infant is an adult or adolescent with childish traits in behavior or appearance.
The infants lag behind in the development of emotional and volitional sphere, they are not able to make serious life decisions, avoid responsibility, react childishly to difficulties (whims, tears, screams, insults).
What attitudes and stereotypes about the relationship between adults and children exist? First, they are aware of the social difference in the situation, which means that children are pity, forgiven a lot, not beaten, do not wait for a constructive solution to the conflict, do not demand anything important and do not expect – “a child to take from him.” Here and the infant puts on this mask that it was not touched, didn’t offend, didn’t clarify relations, defended, conceded.
Infantilism is prone to both men and women, but in the former it is more common. Is there a “child” aged 30-40 (or 20) among your acquaintances who live with mom and dad sitting on their necks? This is a real infant. Adult children rarely have families, often tired parents begin to offer their children certain options, but they are so good: fed, washed dishes, washed clothes and bought. If the marriage is successful, the role of mother falls on the shoulders of the wife. The man plays the computer, eats, sleeps, sometimes works, but in family relationships plays the role of a child.
Female infantilism is more often manifested in burning life, going to clubs, karaoke, casinos. Adult girls avoid having children, getting married, and running a household. They are kept by either parents or “sponsors”.
An infant or a creative person?
Infantilism is often confused with the creative composition of the individual. Infantile are called non-standard, direct people who adore everything bright, unusual, new. However, this is far from the case. Creative individuals have infantile traits (otherwise a person would not be able to so actively use the imagination and create), but they are not infants, if it does not interfere with them in life and relationships.
How to distinguish a creative personality from an infantile one? The first, no matter what she looks like and what she admires, is responsible for herself and other people, earns a living on time, pays her bills on time, does not forget to eat and take care of her appearance, knows how to resolve conflicts and discuss problems. Behind pink hair, a unicorn jacket and a cartoon fan can hide the most responsible and executive person you knew. And for others it is the best support.
The infant always needs a guardian. He does not know how to keep track of time, their needs, appearance, life. The infant is not able to speak openly about their needs (let them guess), to provide for themselves. He tries to remake people and refuses to work on himself and relationships. By the way, his wardrobe and hairstyle can be the most conservative.
Signs of an infant It is
Easy to recognize an infantile person, because everyone knows how children behave. Here is an infant like an adult, and himself:
- egocentric (there is only his opinion and wrong, only his feelings, needs and interests; the world revolves around his personality);
- playful (game – the leading type of activity in childhood, it remains predominant in the infant, by which we mean not only games or cyberspace, but also clubs, bars, entertainment, shopping);
- dependent (will is poorly developed in the infant, he follows the path of the least resistance and life in pleasures, avoids solving problems);
- irresponsible (categorically denies responsibility for their actions and lives, transfers to others (usually these people are easy to find),
- incapable (lives one day, does not think about the future, health and material well-being),
- unable to assess and know themselves (infant do not know how the events that occurred draw conclusions and gain experience)
- tends to dependents (inability or unwillingness to serve themselves).
The causes of Infantilism
Infantilism laid in childhood, when parents,
- prohibiting child to exercise independence, especially in times of crisis 3 years,
- do not trust a child overly controlling and shall take care,
- severely punished for insubordination (manifestation of independence) than reflect a desire to try to do something very,
- suppress the will, feelings and personality of the child (to convince her to failure, criticized, compared with others in a negative way)
- is not willing to accept adulthood child, let go,
- forcing the child to realize the unrealizable dreams and ambitions of parents,
- cultivate the child’s personality, indulge her, bring up as an idol of the family (formed a belief in superiority over others, permissiveness).
In addition, getting stuck in childhood can be a protective reaction, a way to survive a trauma. For example, parental divorce or domestic violence, lost for another reason childhood can provoke infantilism.
In each person, according to transactional analysis, live a child, an adult and a father. The infant has a conflict between parents and children, which results in childish reactions of the opposition.
How to get rid
To get rid of infantilism, it is not necessary to consult a psychologist. Sometimes his help is needed, but these are special cases caused by severe trauma. Elsewhere, you can adjust your behavior yourself:
- Learn rationality. An infantile person lives with feelings. Make it a rule not to make a decision right away. Set a time limit (for example, 5 minutes) during which you are required to analyze the situation.
- Learn empathy, understanding other people’s feelings. Make yourself interested in other people’s opinions every day, especially in controversial situations. You don’t have to look at anyone, but you have to be able to hear and understand them.
- Get rid of egocentrism. You are not the only person on the planet. You do not need to sacrifice yourself, but you need to develop healthy selfishness and altruism. All social relationships are based on mutual respect and concessions.
- Go from the position of “want or not want”, get acquainted with the terms “should” and “should”. Everyone has not only desires and rights, but also responsibilities. Ask your family what your responsibilities are.
- Before talking about yourself, ask the other person’s business, ask if he is tired after work, how his day went. Infants talk more than they listen.
- Learn to make decisions. It will help not only your life, but also the events of movies or articles, world current topics. Every day, analyze a case about yourself.
- Learn to plan your day, week, month, coming years. Make a to-do list right now.
- Learn to set near and far goals, determine their capabilities and ways to achieve these goals.
- Prioritize with long-term prospects. Who do you want to be? What do you need for this? What do you need to sacrifice? Each time a question arises between “want” and “need”, make a list of gains and losses for both items. What ultimately outweighs the value, then choose.
- Provide yourself with a stable source of income, rent a house, think about buying your own house (apartment). If you live with someone, then make your contribution every day: clean up, cook, help financially, etc.
- Ask family and friends to help you grow up: trust, do not rush to the rescue without asking, do not make decisions for you. You need to be alone to learn to take responsibility for your life. People close to you need support to keep the infant from getting drunk or dying in another way, but you need to stop living life for him. Toothache? The infant must make an appointment with a doctor and go to the reception. Not going? So, the tooth does not hurt so much. Prolonged treatment and the tooth needs to be removed? This is an experience. The main thing in such moments is not to attack others (“Here you see what he brought himself to again”), but to support (“Yes, it turned out badly, but now you know what to do, and will not allow it next time”) .
- Get rid of romanticism, nihilism and cynicism. Realism is necessary for a productive life, but you can become a realist only in practice, through personal experience.
Forget old insults, get rid of the fear of failure and criticism. Your parents offended you because they were deeply unhappy and insecure. All people are wrong. Ask acquaintances about their mistakes and the lessons they have learned. Mistakes are a very useful thing. They help to develop, become smarter and more interesting.
The infantilism of the child is the fruit of the parents’ efforts. To recover, you need to separate from your mother and (or) father, in addition, not so much physically (move) and financially (find a job), as psychologically. Infantile people always hear in their heads the voice of a criticizing or caring father, even if the father himself is not alive. As long as the inner father is preserved, the tension is preserved, which means the desire to go to their world or to reproduce old children’s patterns of behavior.
Головний видавець і засновник сайту healthapple.info з 31 травня 2017 року. Редактор статей на сайті.