Understanding and Managing the Difficult Child: Selected Adlerian Child Psychology Concepts and Ideas, Compiled, Summarized, Edited, Updated, and Supplemented for the 21st Century

By William Lyman Camp FACAPP

While working with parents and children for nearly half a century, it has become increasingly evident that the Adlerian child psychology methods as outlined in this book are effective when applied to family conflicts. They have been tested by numerous teachers, counselors, and others in many locations over many years. Many parents have discovered for themselves that these strategies engage their children and win their cooperation. Still, parents often do not know why children act as they do or why they succeed or fail.

The information and recommendations in this book are based on a philosophy of life and concept of human nature and behavior first presented by Alfred Adler, Rudolph Dreikurs, and others. The parenting methods they recommended have become increasingly accepted and used during recent decades in Europe and North America. They do not suggest either permissiveness or punishment but instead methods for use by parents, which emphasize wise guidance of children without either overcontrolling them or stifling their creative spirit.

With more secure knowledge of what to do, parents can improve their parenting using techniques and strategies that work. Parents are too often faced with child-raising challenges for which they are not prepared. Just as the child needs training, so do parents.

Ideas presented in the pages of this book suggest new ways to respond to a child’s provocations that can lead to new attitudes and parental behaviors. These can and often do lead, in turn, to new and productive approaches and methods that allow more harmonious relationships to develop. But why do children act as they do? And why do these methods enable parents to succeed?

The information included in this volume was designed to answer these and related questions as well as to present a set of principles in a form readily usable by parents in the home, teachers in the classroom, and other adults in other circumstances and situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098076559

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Understanding and Managing the Difficult Child

Selected Adlerian Child Psychology Concepts and Ideas, Compiled, Summarized, Edited, Updated, and Supplemented for the 21st Century

William Lyman Camp PhD, FACAPP

Copyright © 2021 by William Lyman Camp, PhD, FACAPP

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to the memory of Rudolph Dreikurs, MD, my teacher, whose ideas appear frequently throughout this volume along with those of Dr. Alfred Alder.

During the summer of 1970, Dr. Dreikurs and several psychologists met at Dr. Don Verger’s home in Platteville, Wisconsin.

At that time, Dr. Dreikurs stated that if he had our youth, he would write another book or books, the outlines of which he briefly discussed.

This is part of my attempt to create three of those books, of which this is one—my best effort to comply with the details of his long-remembered suggestions/request.

Also dedicated to my mother and father, Julia and William,

my wife and best friend Mildred, our children, Christine Lick and Jonathan Camp, and their spouses, Benjamin and Iwona, and our grandchildren, Katherine, Julia, Carolyn, Olivia, and Austin. All have enriched my life. I have learned a great deal from observing and interacting with each one.

Many thanks to Nancy Basile for the countless hours she has dedicated to typing and editing much of the manuscript for this book and others.

Upon reading some of the manuscript for this book, Julia Camp (WLC’s mother) said, Yes, but above all, be kind.

William Lyman Camp PhD

Preface

Richard E. O’Conner, M.D.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Adults ask how to manage children in a chaotic world. To respond to this question let me first say this. Historically, in the years after World War II innovations and changes in the field of psychology, particularly in areas of treatment, came almost too fast and in too great a number to follow. In psychoanalysis such workers as Karen Horney, Melanie Klein and Frieda Fromm-Reichman brought new insights into both theory and therapy. Such people as Carl Rogers and B.F. Skinner opened new approaches to therapy and new ways of dealing with human behavior. In many ways they have brought changes to the field of therapy which have produced a new look, which for people schooled in analytic approaches, make the field at times almost unrecognizable.

Then there were those who went back to earlier theorists in the area of psychoanalysis and brought the insights of some of their earlier analyses to an American scene which was changing and which required new approaches. Again, although the list is not exhaustive, one thinks of Frederick Allen applying the ideas of Otto Rank to the field of child guidance and child therapy, and of Rudolph Dreikurs applying Adlerian therapy to the area of child therapy and also to the entire field of parenting.

What Dreikurs saw in post-war America were children growing up in a society without traditions. Not only were the old world traditions, which often shaped identity and sometimes shaped lives completely not a feature of American society, but in addition, the mobility which, prior to the war, had really been restricted to a small portion of American society now involved everybody. This mobility insisted that each person must somehow become his own creation and that parents, with their own childhood experiences contributing very little, would have to somehow help their children to create themselves in this way.

In addition to the lack of traditions, there was general weakening of extensive family ties so that families tended to become very much nuclear families and identification of children was with a very small group of family people, and a larger group of community people, including teachers, peers, and public heroes such as athletes and television stars. Here again, the parents, whose own childhood had perhaps prefigured some of this change, were often at a loss to have methods to deal with the demands of society on them and on their children.

Into this state of confusion Dreikurs introduced the work Children: the Challenge in 1964. He offered principles, and in addition, suggestions, for helping children to achieve their own sense of identity and the sense of respect, of being loved, and of optimism about themselves and their own futures which is so necessary to healthy growth. However, Dreikurs was well aware that principles are not prescriptions. Although he was sometimes quite specific in his suggestions, he knew that the love, the respect, the optimism had to be within the parents before it could be sincerely expressed and transmitted to the child. Dreikurs did not offer a new way to write on the tabula rasa but rather offered ways in which firm, positive, parental identity and parental feeling could be consistently made manifest to the child. At no point did he mean the book to be a cookbook, nor a guarantee that actions A, B, and C would always result in desirable situation D.

If Dr. Dreikurs wrote an excellent book for parents in 1964, is there reason for Dr. Camp to write this book and its two companion books, Parenting Our Children in a Changing World and Understanding the Adult-Child Relationship, which in a sense do cover some of the same ground? To answer this question, one has only to consider the changes which have occurred in American society from 1964 until the present day. 1964 represented, perhaps, a culmination of some sixty years of change which had not been slow, but had had something in it of gradual change, with the war bringing a somewhat faster pace. The changes since 1964 have been anything but gradual and they have been monumental. The role of the child in our society has changed. There is now an emphasis on children’s rights which often seem to put parents and their children, supported by social forces, in adversarial positions. The protest movements of the late sixties and since that time not only created suspicion in youth regarding their parents’ values, but left many parents unsure of their own beliefs and values. The intrusion of the world outside the family, especially through the mediums of television and computer/information technology, has become almost total. As has been pointed out by a recent President, the great historical events of the era have left Americans feeling unsure, pessimistic about their future, and not in control of their own destinies. How then can parents be helped to help a child create himself?

Adlerian and related principles continue to have meaning and they need to be stated in the vernacular of today, and within the perspective of American society of today. This Dr. Camp has undertaken to do and I think in large measure with success. However, we must again return to the point that there are principles. The methods and the behaviors which are sometimes quite specifically drawn in Dr. Camp’s work are still not infallible formulae for the successful raising of children. They can help to deal with a parent’s sense of unsureness. They can bring to the parent a skill in expressing to the child what is positive and important in the relationship. However, we must all remenber that much of parenting is intuitive. Much of children’s security comes from a feeling that the parents are in control and do know best. Much of their growth comes with parents who can limit, restrict and discipline when children need that type of help in dealing with their impulses; who can support when the child is unsure and feels a need to be supported; and who can give freedom when freedom is what the child wants and really needs. Dr. Camp’s contribution is important. It will not simply help to make us good parents. It will offer a means to convey to children our hope and our love in a way which will promote their own self-respect, their own growth and their ability to create themselves. How did the difficult or challenging child become as he is? And what can be done to help him? The answers are in this volume.

Introduction

While working with parents and children for nearly half a century, it has become increasingly evident that the Adlerian child psychology methods as outlined in these pages are effective when applied to family conflicts. They have been tested by numerous parents, teachers, counselors, and others in many locations over many years. Many parents have discovered for themselves that these strategies engage their children and win their cooperation. Still, parents often do not know why children act as they do or why they succeed or fail.

The information and recommendations in this book are based on a philosophy of life and concept of human nature and behavior first presented by Alfred Adler and others. The parenting methods they recommended have become increasingly accepted and used during recent decades in Europe and North America. They do not suggest either permissiveness or punishment but instead methods for use by parents which emphasize wise guidance of children without either overcontrolling them or stifling their creative spirit.

Even the best of parenting skills will not eliminate all difficulties and/or mistakes. However, with more secure knowledge of what to do, parents can improve their parenting using techniques and strategies that work. Parents are too often faced with child-raising challenges for which they are not prepared. As has often been said, children don’t come with a book of instructions. Just as the child needs training, so do parents. Ideas presented in the pages that follow suggest new ways to respond to the child’s provocations, which can lead to new attitudes and parental behaviors. These can, and often do, lead in turn to new and productive approaches and methods that allow more harmonious relationships to develop.

As outlined in a companion book, Parenting Our Children in a Changing World, during the last several generations developments in the fields of education and child guidance have begun to corroborate the set of ideas and observations presented here, which were first presented in Europe during the first third of the last century and refined during the last third. Many of these concepts, which were controversial when first suggested, are now being further refined and are becoming generally accepted by modern psychologists and educators. Those who study childhood development and behavior are now less inclined to regard certain restrictions imposed on the child as repressive and therefore damaging. The tendency in recent decades for parents to be over-permissive is now being recognized as detrimental.

The focal point for corrective procedures has shifted toward changing the interaction between parent and child as the fact that parents often need specific instruction in child-raising has found wider acceptance. This shift in attitude has evolved as more has been learned during the last few decades about the effects of cultural changes as they influence human behavior. Today, we need and are developing new traditions for raising children, which will better conform to the democratic principles for family living that now define and give meaning to the location we all now occupy in the process of democratic evolution in our society.

Modern parents need to learn to become a match for their children and to become both wise in their ways and capable of guiding each individual without either letting them run wild or stifling their development. But age-old child-rearing problems continue to arise and continue to exist. In fact, the problems that our children present are increasing in frequency and intensity, and many parents simply do not know how to cope with them.

Although many parents may realize that children cannot be treated as they were in the past, they do not know what else to do when children misbehave. And although a variety of new methods for dealing with children do exist and have been tested, the variety of conflicting suggestions available to parents seem to negate claims of validity made for any specific approach. Much of the flood of information that has been presented concerning this issue during the last few decades seems only to have produced additional confusion rather than the direction that now seems so badly needed. Why, then, should anyone trust the approach advocated in this volume?

Following the specific suggestions that are summarized in the pages that follow, many parents have discovered for themselves that these ways to reach children and win their cooperation do indeed work well. As this information, which includes specific methods, has been used and tested by parents for the solution of family problems, it has become evident that the system and procedures are effective. But why do children act as they do, and why do these methods enable parents to succeed? The chapters included in this volume were designed to answer these and related questions as well as to present a set of principles in a form readily usable by parents in the home, teachers in the classroom, and other adults in other circumstances and situations. This book further develops and applies principles outlined in two companion volumes entitled Parenting Our Children in a Changing World and Understanding the Parent-Child Relationship.

1

Typical Child-Rearing Situations, Circumstances, and Problems

It is important that we as parents acquire sufficient knowledge of the needs of our children at successive stages in their growth and development to allow understanding of appropriate responses to problems that arise from certain important situations and that occur at generally predictable times. Experience has shown that parents who (1) acquire such basic information, (2) maintain the proper attitude toward their child or children, and (3) observe basic principles of conduct usually have very little trouble in determining what to do when new situations arise in the training process.

Parental attitudes and anticipation, even before the birth of the baby, establish an important relationship, which develops long before the child actually arrives. During this period fears, excessive expectations, overanxiety, and overactivity are possible and sometimes are frequent hazards of which both the mother and father should be aware. The period of pregnancy should be utilized deliberately to build courage, morale, and self-confidence—perhaps through books or classes on infant care and child psychology.

As expectant parents engage in such preparation, however, they should be careful of the effects of the new information they receive since they may derive little or no benefit from their studies if they allow themselves to become apprehensive or discouraged in response to the voluminous amounts of information and advice available to them. Parents who mistakenly permit themselves to become afraid as they anticipate their performance in child-rearing will succeed only in undermining their own strengths and resourcefulness on which they will later need to rely for adequate functioning.

The First Months of Life

The child responds to his social environment and senses human relationships long before he can understand words. For this reason, the early experiences of the infant as he interacts with other human beings are of real significance. Wrong impressions received during this period may lead to patterns of behavior that require great amounts of tact and effort to correct. The healthy child will perceive and respond to both the attitudes and the behaviors of other persons. Calm, casual parents foster quiet, peaceful childhood behavior; while overconcerned, anxiety-prone parents induce timidity and nervousness in their offspring.

There is no doubt that the child may be the first to stimulate a vicious cycle which disturbs the harmonious relationship between mother (or father) and child, perhaps through premature birth, serious illness, developmental disturbance or in some other way. Yet, it is the parents’—and typically the mother’s—response to such occurrences that is most likely to continue to provoke new agitation in the relationship. The degree of understanding and control which a mother can command at these crucial moments affects the child directly and may inhibit adequate adjustment. Even in cases where this vicious cycle begins with disturbing conditions, which are not associated with the child, they may upset the mother and, through her, affect the child.

Because a disturbed relationship between the generations may continue to upset both even after the cause of the original difficulty has ceased to exist, parents need to be careful both in the management of their own behavior and in the maintenance of their emotional equilibrium. While this should in general remain true throughout life, it is especially important during the first few weeks and months after the birth of the child. From the very beginning of his life, the infant must be seen as an increasingly autonomous individual but one who will or may need help and assistance in certain functions as he learns to fit into the social order of his community as he grows and develops.

In most cases, as the child matures, he will be perfectly capable of adjusting himself to society and life by his own means. When this is the case, he is not only entitled to do so but will also profit from the experience. While it seems easy to understand why parents often try to assist and protect their children, all parents need to realize that no child will develop the courage and self-reliance needed in later life if that child experiences, from his infancy, favorable consequences of helplessness. Enlightened parents who resolve to refrain from helping their children in every little predicament will find that the enormous self-restraint required often reaps great rewards.

Children who are not overprotected and who are allowed to learn as much as is practical from their experiences will display increasing success (1) in their efforts to gain control of their bodies and (2) in their handling of the difficult situations that they will encounter. As the child grows and develops, this early success in self-management will lead to development of the courage and independence that he will need as he (or she) meets the increasing complexity of problems later in life. Within this context, fear and pity are particularly unfortunate adult motivations which (1) often grow from parental vanity and overambition for the child and (2) may lead directly to abuse and oppression of the child. They usually provoke wrong actions that not only disturb the child’s development but also disarrange his very important relationship to others.

As an infant, the child may be breast fed or bottle fed, but regardless of the method used, he or she will encounter in this procedure his or her first experience in cooperation with another human being. For this reason, it is necessary that regularity in this element of training—or socialization—begin on the first day of his life. Then, as he becomes used to order, the process will come to be an increasingly pleasurable experience for him. The sooner a child can establish a natural rhythm in this and in his other functions, the better will be his physical and social development.

A program of regular routine in feeding has the distinct advantage of exposing the infant to order and regularity, both of which are essential for social living. Following the rhythm of food intake, periodic elimination will also begin as soon as the child is sufficiently mature. However, specific training in elimination must wait until the child is able to take deliberate action to control his organs. This process is unlike that of food intake, which does not require the control of an organ. When a child is exposed to regularity in his eating, his stomach adjusts itself without need for any special training or control. These patterns of regularity in food intake and later in the process of elimination are in accordance with natural biological order since all physiological functions—and especially their vegetative functions—are characterized by specific patterns of rhythm.

Although a four-hour feeding interval has been found to be best for the average child, consultation with a pediatrician and consideration of the specific needs of each child are important in the establishment of a proper feeding schedule. In cases where the child is especially frail or on occasions when the child is ill, a modified schedule may become necessary. And as the child grows and develops, his schedule will need to be revised accordingly. Still, it is important that the parent operate at all times according to a definite plan. Parents who give in prevent their child from enjoying the benefits of regularity. Those who do often express fear that the child will not get enough to eat if they do not give in, with the result that most feeding errors stem directly from the unwarranted anxiety of overanxious parents.

Most adults underestimate the strength and resilience of childhood and fail to realize that the child will take care of himself as long as others do not interfere with his appetite. The child who eats less at one meal, even if he falls asleep while eating, will make up for it the next time he eats. This same principle also applies as he outgrows baby food and graduates to the same food eaten by other family members. Although he may select only potatoes at one meal or only meat at another, over time, he will select those foods needed to properly nourish his body. Among the most trying moments for a child’s mother may be when he wakes up hungry or when he begs for food between meals. Here, too, the disruption of regularity, which occurs when feeding the child ahead of time, should be avoided.

Meals served a few minutes early or late make no real difference. In fact, it is important that lack of exact precision not become a new source of anxiety for the mother since such anxiety will be much more detrimental than any slight deviation from the requirements of the model outlined above. It is, of course, important that parents be quiet and calm while feeding a baby since infants respond easily to tensions and anxiety, which may in turn disturb their digestive and other vegetative functions.

When the time for weaning arrives, parents should not allow themselves to be diverted by their child’s objections to giving up a comfortable habit. Simply stated, they should not give in. Here again, it is necessary that the parent display his or her strength through a planned routine. Parents who can remain calm and friendly but firm and can control their own display of concern, sympathy, and anxiety can allow the infant’s hunger to work for them without recourse to pressure or coercion.

Because the child has become accustomed to soft liquid food, he may reject any food in solid form, with force only increasing his resolve to resist. For this reason, force should not be used. However, experience has revealed that if the child refuses a certain food and is not given a substitute, he will usually learn to accept and later to like food that he at first rejected. By following this general format, parents will not allow their child to get the notion that his parents are more interested in his feeding than is he. Children who get this idea very quickly learn to manipulate their parents toward retention of their habit.

Early Physical Skill Learning, Courage, and Independence

Children should not learn to depend on others when they are learning to stand or walk since those who do so learn as part of this process to be unsure of themselves on future occasions when they lack assistance. Here again, our advice to parents is to be patient. The self-reliance of the child in pulling himself upright and taking his first steps is respected by adults when they leave him in his playpen to accomplish the task entirely on his own. Parents who take their child by the hand and drag him along the floor make the process unnecessarily awkward.

All children have a natural desire to draw themselves into an upright position and, when strong enough, to sit up under their own control. Later they will get up on their feet, and still later will begin their first faltering steps. As the child first learns to stand and later to walk, he will not only learn balance and coordination but, of even more importance, will also encounter his first experience in self-reliance. Parents who provide too much help only impede the process of his learning to manage his body alone and hinder development of the self-reliance he will need as he continues to develop.

Parents should not display anxiety as they respond to their child’s attempts at self-locomotion and should never try to drive him beyond his level of readiness. We often tell parents that all children who learn to walk must also learn to fall. Parents who take the child into their arms to console him after such a fall succeed only in putting a premium on crying and self-pity. Experience with children has revealed that those who have anxious parents learn to cry easily and frequently, often trying to receive an immediate compensation for their hurt by this means. We know, however, that children very rarely hurt themselves while learning to stand or to walk. For this reason,