MY CHILDHOOD IN A LABEL-HAPPY SOCIETY

SYDNEY OCTOBER 2013. 

“TELL SOMEONE WHO CARES” conference. Keynote Presentation

MY CHILDHOOD IN A LABEL-HAPPY SOCIETY

"GIVEN SUFFICIENT TIME AND REPETITION, A PERSON WILL BECOME WHAT THEY ARE TOLD THEY ARE" - Choose your criticisms and your labels wisely.

Over many years of working with children and their families it has become apparent to me that children are born into this world with a really suspect double legacy.  These can be seen to be the product of both 'nature' and 'nurture' - and this is the topic I wish to address today.

The first of these legacies is the simple fact that in order to be born, you have to have parents.  This, I think, is a most un-fortunate, and often even insidious situation.  I am convinced that life would be so much easier, so less complicated if at least a child could start this journey without having to have parents.

Typically parents have been around, have experienced life for at least a few years - and typically have experienced enough, just enough, to get their perspective of the world really screwed up.

Unfortunately, much of the time, they haven't been around long enough to sort themselves out again, and still manage to get their knickers in a knot over an infinite array of insignificant issues.

This great accumulation of knicker-knotting issues makes its impact as a range of unmet expectations.

- and this is where the second part of the double legacy comes in.

The first suspect legacy is that as children we have parents.  The second is that, by dint of 'nature' colluding with 'nurture' children are born WITH AN INNATE NEED TO PLEASE THEIR PARENTS.

Most unfortunate! Unfortunate in that the two legacies collude dangerously to the peril of the child.

The child is unwittingly inclined to constantly attempt to please the parent, whilst the parent is dominated by an insane compulsion to constantly MOVE THE GOALPOSTS.

We could summarise this as a statement from the parents to the children;

            "YOUR TASK AS A CHILD IS TO PLEASE ME.  BUT WHATEVER YOU DO WILL NOT BE GOOD ENOUGH, WE WILL ALWAYS WANT MORE."

And so right from the beginning of life a normal child is caught up in an ever-progressive, insidious and sanity-threatening battle to please the unpleaseable.  An endless, thankless, but compulsive battle where one constantly strives to perform, and the other constantly with-holds approval - which goes on and on, until both have finally departed.

But what does this look like in real life? - if we were watching this play out in real life what would we see?

Imagine this.  The baby infant is lying in his cot.  Mother approaches and peers down at the baby, dangling 'dinner' as she leans over.  Baby smells FOOD, and smiles in greedy anticipation.

Mother sees the smile, is delighted, picks the baby up and says "C'mon, give me another smile."

Baby is confused and thinks 'Hang on, I've already given you a smile, is one not enough, you want more?  Is your name Olivia Twist?'

Baby likes his own little joke, and so laughs.

Mother is ecstatic - so what does she do? - she demands more.  One is not enough, we want more.

Baby has already sensed a trap here, and says "Well, ummmm...."

To which mother responds  "Oh look, he said 'mum' - now say 'dad'".

Baby is very confused by this new demand and says "Duh???"

And predictably mum responds "He said Dad - now say your sister's name - Wendy".

Baby has now had enough of this silly game, burps, and goes to sleep.

Whatever the baby does delights the parent, who immediately shifts the goal-posts and demands more.

The same occurs when the child eventually crawls across the floor to the couch, draws himself up on two wobbly feet, and takes his first hesitant step - in life. (This is a terrible mistake, there is no going back now!)

The cry goes out "He took his first step!  Now see if you can take two!"  All they want is more.

So the child looks around the room, staggers across to where the car keys lie on the coffee table, scoops them up and makes a bolt for the door.  Get out while you still can!

One is never going to be good enough again.  Once achieved, the goal-posts are shifted, and they want more.

And it persists during the school years too.

Your ten year-old comes running in after school - "Mum, mum, I got 7 out of 10 for my spelling!

"Great, well done, now get your home-work out and we'll see if we can get 8 tomorrow."

..... and on it goes.  How sad, and how disastrous for the child who can never be good enough for his or her parents.

Is this a matter of Power and Control?  It looks like it, but really it is something much more basic - it is a self-perpetuating cycle rationalised as being part of 'good parenting'.

But what is it, what insidious dynamic makes us as parents act in such a menacing manner?  And yes, the answer is that it is all those unmet expectations in our own lives that causes us to want our children to achieve, and have their expectations met - whatever this means.

However, the aspect that I want to focus on here today is the RATIONAL that we use to cover, to disguise our own behaviour here.

To me, this is 'thin edge-of-the-wedge labeling, and the single label that we use to make all this acceptable is  MOTIVATION.

We say that we are 'motivating' the child - motivating him to 'extend', to 'improve', and to 'succeed' in life.  (Remember our unmet expectations?)

This is the label we use to rationalise our behaviour as parents, and it is simultaneously the word that stops us from seeing what is really going on.

But most of us don't really understand the concept of motivation.  If truth be known, motivation is a personal, and internal thing.  It comes from inside a person, and belongs to them - it cannot come from any outside person.

You, as a parent, cannot 'motivate' your child.

Sure you can threaten a child in some way - with some fearful outcome - but what is motivating here is simply their desire to avoid whatever evil painful outcome you have dreamed up.

Similarly you can promise a potential outcome, a reward that perchance the child may be motivated to earn.

"I will give you $5 for every exam score over 60%"

A child from a very poor family may feel very motivated to achieve this small fortune - but a child who already gets $50 pocket-money per week is unlikely to find it motivating at all.

Similarly a child who regularly scores in the 50 - 55% range may be very motivated by this, but the child whose score level is in the low 40's may just dismiss it as being rediculous.

So the first point is that 'motivation' is internal. The second is that 'motivation' has two major elements, the second of which is seldom identified as such.  I will call on my own life experience to clarify these.

The first is the individual's desire to achieve, succeed, and to please the parents.

As a normal, obedient, compliant child I was dominated by this first element through my schooling - for about two years.

I tried, I applied, I sweated and I fretted, I persevered and did everything I could to achieve and please.  But as a bright UNDIAGNOSED DYSLEXIC child, I fell flat on my innocent 6 year-old face.

So, after two years the second major element of 'motivation' cut in.  It finally dawned on me, that despite all my efforts, I was not able to achieve as planned, and that all my efforts amounted to wasted energy.

(This incidentally is the essence of 'depression').

Element two of 'motivation' (what I call 'shadow motivation') cuts in with the realisation that the expectations are unrealistic - the task is not achievable.  It is simply 'self-preservation' based on avoidance of failure.

When 'success' was too difficult, irrespective of my desire and effort, I moved my emphasis to 'avoidance of failure'.

The actual techniques I used in this will be recognised by all of you, but I think it unlikely that you will have seen them as being a product of 'motivation'.

................................................................................................

Before I go any further in this, I want to take you on a small detour and explain a little about the power of LABELLING.

The impact of labeling can be life-threatening - and we know it.

You are all familiar with the old adage "Give a dog a bad name......."

But if you think that this only applies to the weak, perhaps a bit of direct personal experience will help.

Let's divide this auditorium full of people into two halves - those of you on the right of the mid-line will use the positive label, and those of you on the left will use a negative label - and if you can prove me wrong in this I want to hear from you!

After this conference, when you get home to your partner, and you're lying in the double bed with the lights out, those of you on the right here, I want you to roll over to your partner and whisper in their waiting ear - "Honey, you are the most amazingly sensitive lover that I could ever imagine" - and see what happens.

Now those of you on the left side of the room, remember that you have the negative aspect to whisper in that ear.......

Suffice to say that people tend to become what you tell them they already are.

But let's go further.

In 1963 two University teachers played some simple mischief on their first-year psychology students.  The students were doing experiments with rats, and the teachers simply said that all the rats from cage A. had been bred to be highly intelligent, and those from cage B. had been bred to be dull.  In fact all the rats were the same.

At the end of the session they were stunned to find that the students with the supposedly 'intelligent' rats achieved high performances in the experiments, while those that were supposedly low intelligence generally performed lower.  And nobody had told the rats!

Labeling had affected the expectations of the observers, and somehow the performance of the rats!

So Rosenthal and Jacobson went on to conduct an experiment that they would probably not get away with these days.  They conducted what later came to be known as the PYGMALION EXPERIMENT.

They took 18 classes of primary-age children and ran a mock test of 'academic potential' - whilst actually just measuring the current achievement of each child to date.

They then randomly ascribed labels of 'high potential' and 'low potential' to the children, and gave this information to the next year's teacher at the beginning of the school year.

At the end of that next school year they reassessed each child, and measured the gains made.  The achievements gains made over that 12 month period were frightenly aligned to the mock 'potential' labels given to the teachers, but not the children!

When we label somebody we stand to dramatically impact both on them, and the perception of others around them.

                                    ..................................................

So lets come back to my experience as an undiagnosed dyslexic child in the NZ 1950's school environment.

But first, another small deviation; just quickly, a few insights into how the dyslexic brain ticks.  (I will go into this more in my workshops).

1. - Most dyslexic people are of at least average intelligence - they are therefore 'seen' to be intelligent, but observed to underperform in class.

2. - Dyslexia involves a difficulty with language - and although I could hear what people said to me, and could even repeat those words back to them, I was not sure what those words meant.

3. - Having trouble with what words meant, I would often use the wrong words, and say things that I did not mean at all.

4. - Not only did I have trouble with spoken words, but I also did not have the capacity to use 'inner dialogue', or 'self-talk' - so couldn't formulate or ask questions, or process information using normal 'thinking'.

5. - Rather than thinking in words inside my head I processed information by thinking in pictures. 

........................................................................................................

So, although I was seen to be intelligent, I wasn't producing the goods at school - and I earned my first label    LAZY

I gave up on trying to perform and succeed, and now put my energy into avoiding failure.  To do this I memorised information, and copied others work. 

Thus I earned my second label   CHEAT.

I couldn't understand the teacher's instruction - so my third and fourth labels were   NOT LISTENING  and    NOT PAYING ATTENTION.

Without 'inner dialogue' I couldn't formulate questions, nor compare, contrast, extrapolate, nor process information, and this was the source of labels five and six    WILL NOT APPLY HIMSELF   and  NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH.

Because I couldn't find the right words, and often used the wrong words, my subsequent label was   STUPID   and one teacher used to beat me over the head with a maths book whilst proclaiming to the class "King you are stupid!"

My picture-orientated brain got me into constant trouble with instructions like 'No splashing', 'No diving', and 'No running around the pool', and the labels came flying   DISOBEDIENT.    WILLFUL.    BEHAVIOUR PROBLEM.  and NAUGHTY LITTLE BOY.

                        ......................................................................

A question for you;  what happens when you take an intelligent, deeply sensitive, highly motivated, and confused child, and give them all these labels?

The obvious answer is that you create ANXIETY  and STRESS.  and this doesn't help.

The tummy aches that sent me running to the sick-bay (imaginary, they said), are still with me today as stomach ulcers, but earned me yet another label   AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR.

And so as the years went on, so did the labeling, and so also the sadness, the lonliness and the depression - eventually leading to huge anger and intermittent suicidal behaviour.

But there was one spark of hope.

Another common characteristic of Dyslexic people is that we have a heightened spiritual sensitivity - and one day my God said to me,

"Here, hold my hand - together we can achieve anything"

and at that point I dedicated my life to working with other kids in the same predicament.

So, finally, in defence of myself, a long history of being told that I am not good enough, and multiple thousands of other similar children, I want to emphatically state,

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ‘A NAUGHTY LITTLE BOY’.

I explore these issues in detail in my three books, and will do so in my workshops tomorrow.

Thank you.

THE VW GOLF

THE VW GOLF

Bruce was holding the fort on his own.  With his wife Kathy down south for a
few weeks, he decided to give her little VW Golf a bit of a leg-stretch by
driving the 20 kilometers into town to have lunch with the boys.

He wasn't very familiar with the car but was disappointed in its lack of
power, refusal to rev out, and general sluggishness on the road. It was
surprising that Kathy put up with such poor performance.  He should have
checked her vehicle more regularly but no doubt the boys would have a few
suggestions over lunch as to possible  causes of the poor performance.

They did. Paul thought any check should start with the simple replacement of
the spark-plugs as once these get tired, both performance and fuel-economy
drop right away.  Ian thought the high-tension leads to and from the
distributor should be checked as well because they break down over time,
resulting in the same symptoms.   In his experience the discharge capacitor
was often overlooked in problem-solving exercises of this nature.  He added
knowledgably that the contact-breaker points in the distributor were a
likely weakness but really Bruce should be looking at blocked jets in the
carburettor as the most probable culprit.

Bruce, not being much of a mechanic, was profoundly impressed with such
depth of knowledge.  Obviously this trouble-shooting task was way beyond his
limited capabilities so armed with a list of the boys' suggestions, he
dropped the car into the VW workshop.

On his return at 5 p.m. he found the car and the mechanic waiting for him.
The mechanic returned Bruce's list, thanked him for his helpful hints and
said the list had put them right onto the cause of the lack of performance,
saving valuable time and money.

Bruce hoped that of the five or six possibilities identified by the boys,
the specific culprit had also been the cheapest to fix.

The mechanic started at the bottom of the list.

"Well, for a start, these days very few cars have distributors as this is
old technology and has been replaced by electronic ignition systems, so we
didn't need to check that.  And as there is no distributor there are no
points to check.  This vehicle has no high-tension leads so we saved a whole
lot of time not checking those. Discharge capacitors are virtually history
now-days so we didn't have to go there either.  It's pretty much the same
thing for carburetors too.  I'm picking that your mates who helped you with
this list are all over retirement age and perhaps a bit out of touch with
modern vehicle engineering."

"Got it" said Bruce "So the problem obviously lay in the spark-plugs,
right?"

'Well," the mechanic began, "actually we couldn't find any spark-plugs."

"But it must have.  All cars have spark-plugs... don't they?"

"Marvelous motoring technology in this little German beauty" smiled the
mechanic.  "No spark-plugs and it goes like a charm - just as long as some
mechanically-challenged nitwit doesn't go putting petrol in its diesel tank.
It's a bit like a mathematical equation - Petrol into Diesel doesn't go".

                         ................................

Diesel kids, otherwise labelled as Dyslexic, head off to school with their 

perfectly intact pictorial thinking style, but find the school-based 

education system is like petrol in their tank.  Unfortunately, when it doesn't 

work for them, they get the blame, irrespective of whether or not they have

been identified as being dyslexic - or in my books as being Diesels.

Laughton King

October 2013

KELVIN TAKES A WALK

-- KELVIN TAKES A WALK

 "Fridge isn't going".

 "Didn't know it was invited".

 "Nah man, fridge hasn't gone for a couple of days".

 "Yeah, I noticed it was still sulking in its corner".

 "Think I should call a vet - or maybe a counselor?"

 Karen, new to the flat, to this sort of carry-on, stood bewildered.

 "Nah, I'll talk to it, I've done a counseling paper" - and Matty sidled up to the fridge, rested one hand supportively on the door.
 "Now c'mon Kelvin old chap, you can open up to me. I didn't really mean it when I told you to chill-out. We do love you really - it's just wierd the way you stand there humming in the corner. Makes me think you're up to something".

"Will you guys just cut it out!" Karen's voice was sharp and loud, with an element of panic.

Matty stopped, turned back to the fridge. "Well Kelvin, there you have it, somebody does care about you".

 "Knock it off Matty". Ron could see that Karen wasn't handling their carry-on, their humour. She was a good addition to the flat and he didn't want to frighten her away.

 "Are you guys always like this?" she asked with that same anxious tone still evident.

 "Nah, sometimes we sleep".

 "Or sometimes we drink beer, and get silly", Max added.

 Ron met Karen's eye, flicked his head towards the deck, and walked out of the room into the sunshine, Karen close behind.

 "Will you guys ever grow up?"

 "We work on it from time to time, but personally I think I might have missed my chance". He couldn't help himself, the style just kept on coming. Looking up he saw a cold glaze draw across her face, and he backed off.

 "It's just the way we talk - its our style of humour. It doesn't hurt anybody, it keeps us entertained, and it keeps us sharp. We all do it - its fun."

 "You're just a bunch of wannabe stand-up comics if you ask me." She paused. "I have a brother like that. Younger brother, and he's at it all the time - except when he is with strangers - then he is super shy."

 "All of us are too" agreed Ron. "Until we met at Uni, and started flatting together. It's a real relief to find that there are other people as weird as I am. It can be lonely out there."

 "Yeah, but it's also lonely for me meeting up with you three guys. You're all lovely, sensitive intelligent guys, but you carry on like this. When I can't get a straight answer, or a straight conversation with any of you I feel like an outsider - like you are locking me out."

 "That's 'cause you are a girl" he began, then stopped recognising he was starting to do it again.
 "Look, you don't know any of us very well yet - nor we you. I can only speak for myself, but all my life I have been the odd one out. Different in some way. My mind constantly twists things that it hears. I hear something and get a picture in my brain, but it has several options, and my brain picks up the least likely option and runs with it. Yeah you're right, its what stand-up comics do - well, good stand-up comics. Most just seem to rely on swearing and smut."

"Well for me its too reminiscent of years of pain trapped in an unhappy childhood home, with a brother who wouldn't let up. If he wasn't being smart, he was being silly, stupid, sad or suicidal. He played the class-clown at school until he was kicked out at fourteen and told never to come back."
She paused, then continued. "Our father wasn't that much different. Thought it was really clever to name him Sean. Nothing really wrong with that, until you realise that our surname is Lamb. He calls himself Syd now. Sells cars for one of the second-hand importers. Makes a killing, but can't keep a girlfriend."

"Is that a wee warning I hear?" he checked.

 "No, but you do have to know how tiring it can be".

 Matty and Max briefly appeared at the door.

 "Hey, you guys want anything from the supermarket? We're taking the fridge out for a walk".

 "Hope you've got a long lead" It was Karen this time, but not recognising what she was opening up.

 "Nah, the dog laws don't apply to electric lawn-mowers, toasters or fridges - and anyway Kelvin is in denial, he doesn't think he is a fridge." - and they were gone.

 "See, that's the way it happens. You say one thing, but it can be taken two, or even three ways, and off it goes".

 "But how do you all do that so quickly - and follow what each other is saying? It's almost as if you have rehearsed it".

"It's the pictures the words put in my head. You said 'lead', and I get a picture of an electric lead, which is probably what you meant. But 'lead' can mean several things, and I also get a picture of a dog-lead, and another of a clue, sort-of lead. So my brain comes up with a stupid picture of a fridge on a dog-lead. Warped, but fun. And the other guys brains are doing exactly the same, so the conversation can go anywhere."

 She wasn't convinced; "Only fun if you are part of the action though".

 "So what's stopping you?"

 " I don't get those pictures. Well, not the deviant ones you get".

 "Well that just proves that you're a woman. The pictorial thinking thing is predominantly a male domain, and women have less pictorial processing potential than blokes. See, there is some value in doing Psychology 101. Women are the language predominant ones, the talky talky stuff, lots of words. Apparently they have eight separate brain sites for language, and that gives you linear, straight-line thinking. Us blokes, especially ones like your bro, who is probably dyslexic like me, are wired for pictures, but not so much for words. It makes us parallel, or divergent thinkers, which is why we are such great problem-solvers - and possibly a pain in the bottomless pit".

 'Thank goodness for a moment of almost serious conversation' she thought.

"C'mon, lets go and see if the fridge wanted to go for that walk".