Young kids often don’t make sense to parents because, well, they don’t make sense! At least not logically.
That’s because they’re ruled by their emotions—even though they can’t tell their parents what they’re feeling.
But when we see the world through a child’s emotions-only lens, they do start to make sense.
I call this their “mindset,” the core way that children work based on the emotional experience of being a child. Understanding this mindset doesn’t just help us understand kids—it helps us raise happy, healthy kids.
Here’s a breakdown of the seven key pieces that form a child’s mindset.
1. Their primary need: to be connected at all costs
As John Bowlby, the pioneer of attachment theory, noted in his trilogy, Attachment and Loss (1969-82), the quality of a child’s connectedness with a caregiver is paramount to the child’s healthy development.
If kids, therefore, need to feel closely connected to a parent, what should this connection look like?
In psychology, it’s called “attunement,” the ability of a caregiver to accurately understand, anticipate, and provide for a child’s emotional needs. When parents get what’s going on inside their child and respond appropriately, their child feels safe, nurtured, and valued.
The need for connection doesn’t end there. Kids want to emulate, imitate, and learn from their parents as if they want to be their parents. Of course, it’s not possible to become someone else, but emotionally, if kids can become like their parents—whether taking on good or bad qualities—it’s the next best thing. By identifying with the parent, the child feels a psychic closeness.
Because this connectedness is so core to a child’s well-being—if not survival—it influences and intersects with each of the six traits below.
2. Feeling small means feeling helpless and afraid
Nearly every interaction young children have reinforces the idea that they are small and have little power. They already know this all too well, living in a world of giants who make (and enforce) the rules. Being small often leaves them feeling helpless and scared, as well as dependent on a caregiver’s love and connection.
To cope with their fear and helplessness, they often try making other people have these same feelings. It’s as if they hope they can give away—and thus get rid of—the feelings they don’t want.
Feeling small often prompts a child to want control. To have control helps them feel big—and not afraid.
3. Generalizing, seeing the world in black and white
Young children can’t grasp complex ideas—their minds aren’t developed enough. As a result, they make sweeping generalizations from their experiences in an attempt to understand and adapt to a confusing world.
This can cause serious problems for young kids because they form expectations (and narratives) based on these inaccurate generalizations. (For more on all-important narratives, check out my key post, “How We Form Lifelong, Unhealthy Narratives.”)
For example, a two-year-old tries petting a dog as it eats. When the dog nips the child’s hand, he can’t understand why the dog is suddenly hurting him. Naturally, he tells himself this is how dogs work and that all dogs are very dangerous.
Unless someone explains why this one dog behaved in this one way, the child might retain a deep fear of dogs.
4. Preserving the parent as all-good
Because kids know they are small and helpless, they need parents to be competent, reliable, and trustworthy. They need someone who’s in control, someone who will say, “I got this. You’re okay.”
Because kids see the world in black and white, to perceive a parent as flawed in any way would mean the world is broken, directionless, and unsafe, like being on a plane with no pilot!
Kids will twist themselves into knots to maintain their parents’ good image. Rather than see their parents as fallible—for example, when the parents break up/divorce—kids will imagine they’re the cause.
5. Egocentrism
Renowned Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget proposed in his four-stage developmental theory that young children are naturally egocentric, frequently misunderstanding how others feel by falsely assuming they feel the same as the child.
Because little kids understand little about their world, their egocentrism causes them to explain events as if they have influenced them.
For example, faced with a perfect day for playing outside, a preschooler might believe they’re responsible for the sun shining because they wished for it. Similarly, they might think it’s their fault when their goldfish dies because they haven’t paid much attention to it. When their parents separate, they’ll believe they are somehow responsible for this, too.
6. Shame
Every time we correct a child’s behavior, we’re telling them what behavior is acceptable; we’re teaching them right from wrong. Kids want to get it right; they want to please us and behave well, but their feelings often get in the way, causing them to act out.
Here’s where they run into trouble: hearing that they’re behaving badly, it’s easy for children to feel ashamed. In this way, shame can enter a child’s self-narrative, radically affecting their self-esteem.
Kids are also prone to feeling shame given their need for connection with parents and their need to maintain parents as all-good. If children regularly feel disconnected from a parent—say, the parent works two jobs or has mental health issues, etc.—they may explain this as their not being worthy of the parent’s love.
7. Feeling overwhelmed
How can a child not feel overwhelmed? The world is too big, too fast, too complicated, too everything!
For kids, being overwhelmed is an intense, confusing, and lonely feeling.
They handle being overwhelmed in a variety of ways: they shut down, explode, cry, isolate, rage, focus intensely on one thing, or hide. These ways of coping frequently hinder their connection with others.
What matters here is the messages kids receive—and tell themselves—about themselves, their ability to deal, and their caregiver’s ability to remain connected to them.
What all this means for parents
Knowing the seven ways your child’s mind works will help you understand your child’s behaviour. After all, their emotions create their behaviour, and their mindset hugely affects their emotions.
The next time your child acts up, ask yourself what’s at the root of it. You’ll likely find that one or more of these qualities is at play. If you know which one lies at the root of the behaviour, you can name it, bringing it into the open where you and your child can talk about what’s going on inside your child.
Ultimately, when kids get help processing their emotions, their challenging behaviours decrease or disappear.
