"We often look at child development as a ladder the child climbs, but we forget that the parent is climbing a parallel ladder. Erik Erikson, the pioneer of psychosocial development, argued that the primary task of adulthood is "Generativity vs. Stagnation"-the drive to nurture things that will outlast us. For years, I understood this intellectually, but I now feel it distinctly in two different frequencies."
"With my 5-year-old, generativity is tangible and immediate; it is tying shoes, managing tantrums, and being the sun around which their little world orbits. But with my 17-year-old, generativity has morphed into something quieter and more painful. It is no longer about control or direct care; it is about witnessing. I am learning that if I try to apply the same "generativity" to my teenager that I apply to my kindergartner, I am actually hindering their growth."
Parenthood forces caregivers to adopt and revise identities as children's needs change across developmental stages. Caring for a young child demands structure, hands-on tasks, and immediate generativity, while parenting an adolescent requires stepping back, witnessing growth, and supporting autonomy. Simultaneously parenting very different ages creates psychological whiplash as caregivers switch quickly between authority-driven and autonomy-supporting roles. Applying identical parenting strategies across these stages can impede adolescent development. Caregivers must reconstruct their sense of self and adjust behaviors to provide appropriate structure for young children and respectful independence for teenagers.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]