Developmental Paths to Healthy Outcomes

Plan Backwards

As parents, we all share a common goal. We want our children to develop into happy healthy adults, who lead satisfying lives within loving relationships. So why not start with our end goals in mind and work backwards to discover the developmental paths that lead to those outcomes?

Healthy Adulthood

What are the characteristics of healthy adults? Here is a wheel that does not need to be reinvented.  A list of twenty-three characteristics of healthy adult functioning, drawn from the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200), provides us with just such a guide.

This list of twenty-three characteristics has been developed from clinical and empirical research on personality, psychopathology, and healthy functioning.

Characteristics of Healthy Adults

    • 1.  Is able to use his/her talents, abilities, and energy effectively and productively.
    • 2.  Enjoys challenges; takes pleasure in accomplishing things.
    • 3.  Is capable of sustaining a meaningful love relationship characterized by genuine intimacy and caring.
    • 4.  Finds meaning in belonging and contributing to a larger community (e.g., organization, church, neighborhood, etc.)
    • 5.  Is able to find meaning and fulfillment in guiding, mentoring, or nurturing others.
    • 6.  Is empathic; is sensitive and responsive to other people’s needs and feelings.
    • 7.  Is able to assert him/herself effectively and appropriately when necessary.
    • 8.  Appreciates and responds to humor.
    • 9.  Is capable of hearing information that is emotionally threatening (i.e., that challenges cherished beliefs, perceptions, and self-perceptions) and can use and benefit from it.
    • 10.  Appears to have come to terms with painful experiences from the past; has found meaning in, and grown from such experiences.
    • 11.  Is articulate; can express self well in words.
    • 12.  Has an active and satisfying sex life.
    • 13.  Appears comfortable and at ease in social situations.
    • 14.  Generally finds contentment and happiness in life’s activities.
    • 15.  Tends to express affect appropriate in quality and intensity to the situation at hand.
    • 16.  Has the capacity to recognize alternative viewpoints, even in matters that stir up strong feelings.
    • 17.  Has moral and ethical standards and strives to live up to them.
    • 18.  Is creative; is able to see things or approach problems in novel ways.
    • 19.  Tends to be conscientious and responsible.
    • 20.  Tends to be energetic and outgoing.
    • 21.  Is psychologically insightful; is able to understand self and others in subtle and sophisticated ways.
    • 22.  Is able to find meaning and satisfaction in the pursuit of long-term goals and ambitions.
    • 23.  Is able to form close and lasting friendships characterized by mutual support and sharing of experiences.

What do you think of these characteristics? Have I left anything out? Do you see how these characteristics capture the two basic areas of life we strive for: Self Development and Relating to Others?

How Do We Get There?

Healthy Kids

Let’s turn our attention to how we get from point C to point A, in other words from childhood to adulthood. Keeping in mind our goal of backwards planning, what do you think children need to master to become healthy adults? We have to know where the child should be headed and how to get there, so we can be attuned to where they are and what needs to be done to teach them.

Are you starting to get an idea of what kids need to develop if they are going to come out as healthy adults at the other end? Stanley Greenspan and his associates concluded that “great kids,” children we recognize as doing well, are making effective progress along ten dimensions. In essence, these experts in child psychology argue that the path to healthy adulthood begins early by emphasizing these areas of development.

Raising kids is a bit like wise investing. Every day you are bombarded with multiple demands for your time and money, each of them seemingly worthy and attractive. But there is not enough time and money for all of these demands. Similarly, every day there are demands placed on you and your child for time and attention, often compelling and convincing. Unless you have a clear set of goals for which you are saving, you will rarely have money left over at the end of the month. Unless you have clarity about where your child needs to move developmentally, time will pass before you know it and you will be left scrambling to catch up in adolescence.

Backward planning provides that clarity, helping you become mindful of the process as the demands for your time and energy bombard you.

In Stanley Greenspan’s book Great Kids, the simple, compelling list of developmental competencies provides a clear thematic guide to raising healthy children. He argued convincingly that these competencies are the same qualities necessary for healthy adjustment to adolescence and adulthood. As you read through the list, make note of whether you think these competencies will adequately account for the characteristics of healthy self and relatedness.

I have replaced Greenspan’s use of “Engagement” with “Relatedness” and have added “Responsibility & Purpose” as an eleventh essential developmental competency.

The eleven competencies are:

1.   Relating to others

2.   Curiosity

3.   Empathy

4.   Communication

5.   Emotional Competence

6.   Genuine Self-Esteem

7.   Logical Thinking

8.   Creativity & Vision

9.   Internal Discipline

10. Moral Integrity

11. Responsibility and Purpose

These categories will help you monitor developmental progress. When we examine the struggles of our five kids, we will begin to note how their struggles relate directly to a lack of progress in one or more of these developmental areas. You can already guess that a lack of Internal Discipline left Mitch unable to take care of himself and Neal unprepared for college.

Let’s go through this list one at a time. As we do, notice how the childhood competencies lead naturally to the SWAP list of 23 healthy adult qualities.

Healthy Children Are Developing These Qualities:

1. Engagement / Relating to others

Healthy engagement (relating to others) begins with a secure attachment to a parent who anticipates and meets the child’s needs, as well as mirroring her emotions and behaviors. The baby enjoys the connection and comfort of another person and can trust that this person will be there when needed. The securely attached toddler knows that he can get his mother’s attention and that she will be there when he returns from his adventures out of her sight. This capacity for attachment is the basis for loving his teacher and seeking her approval, and longing for connections to playmates. Having someone who cares and understands, who empathizes and shares, provides the capacity for the child to connect with others in a loving and caring way. The child who has experienced empathy, caring, and dependability then has the capacity for creating relationships with others that are satisfying, comforting, and intimate.

As the child grows, engagement moves from caregivers to peers to larger groups. Over the course of childhood, kids move from parallel play to taking turns, shared pretend games, expressing preferences and explaining themselves, learning to enter games with peers as a preschooler, then in the grade school years dealing with more challenging peer relationships, playground politics, and developing the social skills to negotiate within and among groups. Then in adolescence, they form intimate relationships, closer friendships that are more reflective and revealing. Their world expands, and they must face challenges of exploring their sexuality, making decisions about risk taking, and understanding their own values as related to others. Upon entering adolescence, the clearer her understanding about who she is and what she values, the better she will be able to form satisfying relationships with peers.

2. Curiosity

All children are born curious, with a desire to explore their world. When parents provide a safe base from which to explore, curiosity can be the engine for learning and mastery. The parent who shows genuine interest in their child’s ideas and efforts promotes the child’s trust that his ideas have value. This development is promoted by asking the child for her opinions and solutions to problems. Exposure to varieties of people, places and things stimulates curiosity. Helping children tolerate anxiety, frustration and failure and therefore overcome avoidance allows them to follow their curiosity, sustain their engagement and continue to grow. When a child can trust that his parents’ love is unconditional, he can trust his own thoughts and feelings and not fear that having his own ideas threatens his relationship security. When curiosity leads to well-developed interests and competence, that child will be less vulnerable to peer pressures to set his own thoughts and feelings aside. Curiosity can and should be the driving force behind the pursuit of greater understanding, intellectual depth, and personal and professional success. Curiosity gets sidetracked when children begin to worry more about judgment, embarrassment and failure than pursuing what they love.

Children are naturally curious, asking questions from the earliest age. Encouraging these questions is essential to keeping their curiosity flame burning. Similarly, questioning born of genuine interest on the part of parents further stimulates curiosity. This wondering why process that leads to always questioning, drives discovery from childhood to an adulthood of pushing the limits, such as with scientific knowledge. Parents can encourage multi-causal thinking by asking what else could have caused things, asking, “What do you think?” and “Why?” They promote curiosity through friendly debate as the child grows, leading the child to test his/her ideas, explain them, question them, and/or prove them.

Developmentally, ages 10-14 is when reflective thinking develops, incorporating feelings, dreams, and disappointments. By adolescence, that curiosity is applied to self, asking “who am I?”, and this insight leads to internal standards. Adolescents must also balance cravings and curiosity with moral standards and judgment. By adolescence, children strive to have an internalized process for evaluating self, behavior, and feelings. Natural curiosity is the jumping off point for the journey into self-development, in much the same way that engagement is the jumping off point for relatedness.

3. Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This ability comes from being empathized with by parents. The warmth, love, and trust in those beginning years helps instill a depth of caring which is the earliest foundation for empathy. Emotional development is an essential component of empathy and it begins with the parent helping the child identify his or her feelings; conveying an appreciation of and tolerance for the expression of a full range of feelings; and labeling the parents’ feelings and their expression. Seeing the interest and concern the parent takes in the feelings of others promotes this capability in the child. Imaginative play and storytelling also allow for the child to consider the thoughts and feelings of others. Empathy is an essential component of caring, sharing, and intimacy, making relationships deeper and more meaningful. It also prevents antisocial actions such as bullying, vandalism, and violence. Empathic understanding, even more than concrete solutions, is the essential ingredient to deescalating conflict and repairing relationships.

As the child grows, and they have to deal with disappointments, this will help them to empathize with others who have to deal with sadness. In adolescence, with the close friendships that develop, there are new levels of empathy required, as friends increasingly turn to each other for support and understanding, not just their parents. Empathy is an essential component of relatedness. What is an intimate friendship or a good marriage without genuine empathy?

4. Communication

Communication begins with the parent mirroring the sounds and gestures of the infant. Quickly the baby learns that her actions can have an effect on her caregiver, causing her to come when needed, and respond when asked – well before any words are learned. An attuned parent learns to interpret their child’s moods, gestures, and nonverbal requests. This parent puts words to these actions, promoting the early development of language.

Parents can promote communication by asking children to explain what they want and then help them to get it. Consequently curiosity and the desire for mastery fuel the need to learn to communicate. Parents honor a child’s needs, wishes, and interests by asking “why” and asking for elaboration. Ultimately a dialogue that asks the child to problem-solve is a process that promotes self-efficacy and effective communication. Genuine curiosity about a child’s interests or difficulties can lead to discussions that result in greater understanding and better solutions to problems. When a child feels genuinely listened to, he is prepared to do that in return.

Becoming a good listener is crucial to healthy relationships. The problem solving dialogue the parent promotes by listening and inquiry ultimately promotes an ability of the older child to learn to engage in an internal dialogue of self-reflection or analysis of problems. Effective communication of thoughts and feelings is essential to the development and maintenance of healthy relationships. Emotions power the desire to communicate in more complex ways. Good communication is essential to leadership as well as saying “no” effectively at critical times. In early adolescence, the child’s language becomes more reflective and abstract. Some kids may be quiet but express themselves well in writing. Learning the art of arguing (vs. fighting) is an effective form of communication that promotes reasoning and logic. Kids who learn to argue or debate within the family are more effective expressing their thoughts and feelings with peers as they enter adolescence.

5. Emotional Competence

Emotions are messages that things are right or not right. Smiling, crying, giggling and cooing are spontaneous expressions of emotions in infants. Parents help label these feelings for the young child and eventually help them link these feelings to causes. The parent’s ability to tolerate the expression of negative emotions and not inhibit them gives the message that feelings are natural, important, and need to be understood. Empathic gestures and words can convey understanding and sympathy, leading the way for the child to explain what frustrated, disappointed or hurt her. Effective communication can lead to help with soothing intolerable feelings. Tolerance of the child’s expression of emotion and empathic reflection are essential in helping the child learn to tolerate her feelings, express them appropriately and soothe herself.

Learning to connect feelings with causes is an essential first step to figuring out solutions to the problems causing those uncomfortable feelings. Imaginative play can allow children to safely explore emotions such as fear, jealousy, anger, and disgust, sometimes in the role of hero, sometimes as monster or bad guy. Through play the child can experience negative emotions without being judged or overwhelmed. When he is overwhelmed, the parent can help soothe him or regulate his expression. In the process, the child can learn to incorporate those strategies and make them his own. Eventually, the child can learn to regulate the expression of feelings as well as gain greater control over the cause of those feelings.

Tolerance of emotion and self-regulation of its expression are essential to the child’s ability to stay engaged with difficult situations or relationships as she finds effective solutions. Learning to express negative emotions effectively is important. Learning that negative emotions mean that something is wrong and needs changing is also essential. Together, these skills lead to the creation of relationships that are satisfying and worth maintaining. Recognizing that emotions underlie behavior but are separate is an important distinction necessary for understanding and tolerating strong emotions, as well as self-regulating behavior.

A central goal for all children is learning how to self-soothe and how to return to emotional equilibrium. This ability is essential for developing a healthy self as well as healthy relationships. Learning to modulate emotion early is important because the biological changes and social demands of adolescence only heighten the intensity of what is felt. In adolescence, there are powerful romantic and sexual feelings that develop. Life can be an emotional roller coaster, combined with more responsibility being expected, all of which makes it harder for them to maintain emotional balance. Then, as they leave home, emotional balance is essential to handle the demands of college, work, and family. People learn to increase their emotional range throughout their lives and better adjust their balance.

6. Genuine Self-Esteem

The development of genuine self-esteem is a healthy blend of self and relatedness. All children begin life curious, with a desire for mastery. The earliest source of building self-esteem comes from the child learning that he can effect a connection with a loving adult. Self-esteem also develops as the child takes in the feelings of positive regard he experiences in his loving interactions with his parents. Over the course of childhood, a can-do attitude results from overcoming obstacles on his own and having those efforts and accomplishments acknowledged by the people he loves.

Genuine self-esteem is built upon a foundation of setting goals for oneself and accomplishing them. Consequently, a child must learn to engage with challenging tasks, learn to soothe her anxiety and frustration so that she can stay engaged as she struggles, and come to trust that she can learn from her failures. Instead of relieving frustration in the child by doing the task for her, the effective parent helps the child stay engaged with encouragement, queries about strategies, helps assess prior attempts, and praises effort and hard earned accomplishments. Parents create an environment that encourages striving for greater skill and exploring new areas of intellectual development. They also model a willingness to acknowledge areas of weakness and a healthy attitude of wanting to work on them.

Self-esteem also means a child trusts her own thoughts and feelings, because she has experienced respect for and genuine interest in them from her parents. When a child pursues genuine interests and develops competence, she finds satisfaction in those activities. Similarly, she develops a view of herself with a set of values she retains, even with outside pressures to compromise them. Ultimately, genuine self-esteem leads a child to know what she expects from others in terms of being a good friend. She is willing to ask for that, or if necessary move on.

In grade school, in the world of playground politics, the sense of self-esteem is complicated by individual roles in the group, such as being chosen first or last for kickball. How kids picture themselves compared to their peers becomes important. The pressure felt for fitting in and feeling adequate only increases as peers play a larger role in the young adolescent’s life. Genuine self-esteem comes from nurturing hopes and dreams and as the child aspires toward these and works toward greater mastery she develops an internal sense of can-do and pride that buffers against the tendency to judge oneself in comparison to others or via externally defined measures. She comes to trust that she can engage in challenges, tolerate frustrations and failures and emerge from the process even stronger.

7. Logical Thinking

Children are born curious and seek to make sense of their world. By mirroring cues and behaviors, a parent teaches her infant that she can have an effect on her world and that the world is responsive to her. These are the earliest bases for understanding causality, an essential basis of logical thinking. An effective parent asks for explanations of what sense the child has made of events or processes and asks for elaboration to encourage depth of thinking and logical reasoning. When responses do not make sense, they ask about her reasoning in a way that makes her think about her logic or her inconsistencies. As children mature, they learn to separate fantasy from reality and logic from illogic. This growth is fostered by parental requests for explanation and elaboration. Similarly, these dialogues promote the development of comparative thinking and differentiated thinking (thinking in degrees).

By asking questions of the child and engaging her in dialogues, she can come to see that there are often multiple ways to view events, people’s behaviors, and their intentions. Asking for analysis promotes the development of logical thinking that turns to searches for evidence to support ideas and ways of testing to determine fact or truth. Even if she does not choose to become a scientist, she still needs to become skilled at theory building and hypothesis testing in her daily life: is she a trustworthy friend; how has this strategy worked for me; does adding or removing a certain food to my diet make me feel better; is a certain website a source of valid information; how do I choose preferences in books, movies and music?

A parent’s genuine interest can lead to healthy challenges to her thinking that forces her to support her ideas and beliefs. The same approach to asking about behaviors and her reasoning can promote self-reflection and healthy self-evaluation. In the process, she can become better at analyzing challenges, attempts, failures, and strategies for reengagement. Logical thinking can develop into an area of strength that allows a child to take on greater challenges, stay engaged longer, and gain greater competence and self-esteem.

Logical thinking is a skill that can serve an adolescent well, especially when faced with challenges from peers to take risks or make impulsive decisions. Learning to analyze before he acts, carefully considering various solutions and thinking about what is best, is an important prerequisite to a safe and satisfying life. Logical thinking guards against falling prey to emotional persuasions and prejudices that bombard them. The more kids know the basis for their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs the better they will be at analyzing them and defending them when necessary. Consequently, the ability to think logically leads to a greater sense of competence and therefore a more secure self.

8. Creativity & Vision

Through a parent’s genuine, unconditional interest in a child’s thoughts and actions, he comes to trust his own ideas and feels safe expressing them. Encouragement of the child to share his fantasies and latest big ideas encourages the child to push beyond conventional thinking. Parents find a way to appreciate the creativity in drawing, painting, singing or dancing rather than complain about the noise or mess. Experiencing parental support for attempts at creative solutions to problems will serve children well in life as problems become more complicated.

Judgment, criticism, and between-child comparisons can stifle the development of creativity. A fear of failure can lead a child to remain superficial in an effort to avoid taking on challenges or allowing his efforts to be viewed and judged. Instead, genuinely curious requests by parents for explanations and elaboration promote the development of creativity and vision. Parents’ questions can also help lead a child in new directions. Wondering how their ideas or creations relate to different senses or feelings can stimulate new areas of exploration and expression. Providing a child with opportunities for learning from people and resources that stimulate, inspire and inform can also promote interest and sustained engagement in areas of interest. Exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking can promote creativity, since the child learns to view things in new ways with new skills.

The creative child/adult is able to immerse herself in her thoughts, feelings, and expressions while temporarily quieting her internal judgmental voice. That judgment may be useful later for self-critiquing and making changes, but it limits the free flow of ideas and feelings during the process of creation. Creativity is also a bi-product of hard work, increased competence, and a willingness to return to work to continue making revisions. Developed within a safe and supportive context, a willingness to get feedback and make revisions can lead to greater depth of thought and more creative approaches to their work. The ability to self-criticize can lead to continued pursuit of ideas and greater competence.

9. Internal Discipline

A significant developmental goal for children involves moving from external sources of control and direction to internal ones. Self-regulation and self-direction are what we refer to as internal discipline. A young child has urges and impulses that press for immediate action. Children can also feel emotionally overwhelmed and unable to problem solve solutions or calm themselves. Parents provide structure and supervision to insure safety, but do it with a mind toward promoting the transfer of that regulation to the child as he or she can demonstrate an ability to assume it. Limits on behavior exist for safety and the bases for those limits are explained, as children are able to understand them. The involvement of the child in altering those limits through demonstrated competence and self-regulation provides for a dynamic, respectful, and growth-promoting environment. Despite their grumblings, adolescents feel secure in the knowledge that there are limits to protect them, yet simultaneously view them as markers for their own growth – when those limits change in response to their development of greater self-regulation and internal discipline. As adolescents leave home and head off to college or live on their own, they will be successful if they have learned to set meaningful goals and self-limit in order to pursue those goals.

Effective parents teach children to delay immediate (impulsive) gratification by showing that it is possible to wait, that greater value can come from the wait, and that strategies can be learned to help make the wait tolerable. They applaud persistence and effort, rather than rightness or comparisons. Essentially, they serve as the child’s yet undeveloped cortex, which plans ahead and makes judgments with those future goals in mind; that links behaviors with consequences; that considers multiple concerns and options simultaneously. By showing the child this process of planning and regulating, the child learns the steps necessary to doing it for herself, a developmental process that must wait on structural brain development, yet has the plasticity to be formed by effective practice. Parents model problem solving in challenging situations; involve children in problem solving; and ultimately transfer that problem solving process to the child as she shows that she can handle it herself.

By hearing the parental voice of reasoning through the learning process, the child incorporates that voice, as part of her own self-reflecting. By asking questions, a parent can encourage the development of self-reflection and self-regulation. Although it may begin with after-the-fact-analyses of what happened, gradually the child learns to bring that thinking into the present, thus using it to self-regulate.

Encouraging interests, goal setting, and mastery promotes the development of internal incentives that fuel a child’s wish to self-regulate and pursue meaningful, satisfying goals, while saying “no” to outside forces and internal urges that push for immediate action. Within the context of parental support and encouragement, a child develops a “can-do” attitude that leads to setting worthy goals; taking on the challenges necessary to accomplish those goals; and soothing herself as she sustains that necessary, but difficult engagement.

10. Moral Integrity

Moral integrity is more than knowing right from wrong. It also requires caring – as in caring how others feel and how your actions affect them. Moral integrity is developed in children who experience empathy and respect. From their earliest moments they experience loving parents who understand and know how they feel, who can feel what they feel. As a child learns to communicate, they help the child label his feelings. They ask about those feelings, and then attach meaning to those feelings. This is a prerequisite to understanding feelings in self and others.

Parents set clear limits on behavior to protect a child as well as others. When a child’s behavior is harmful to others, those limits are enforced with empathic understanding of how the child feels and why they acted as they did, along with an explanation of the logical consequences of that action. But that process is also accompanied by one that reminds the child of the consequences to others of his actions. The child also sees examples of his parents modeling caring behavior with them and others. Within a secure relationship, parental disappointment in inappropriate behavior conveys an important message about what is an acceptable way to treat others. Similarly, experiencing a parent’s empathy for the victim of bad behavior helps the child learn to care about the consequences to others. As the child becomes old enough, queries about future behavior and potential moral dilemmas can be made and discussed.

Seeing how an admired parent or other charismatic adult in their lives struggles with and handles moral dilemmas can also profoundly affect what a child learns and chooses to do. Children benefit from good role models for moral behavior and clear guidelines for what that behavior should be. But most importantly, they must develop an ability to take the perspective of others and know how others would feel in those situations. Kids who care about others have the basis for moral integrity.

11. Responsibility and Purpose

Sole responsibility for another person often pulls for the best in us. Parenthood is proof of that. Taking on responsibilities during childhood promotes the development of character. Altruism, compassion, and generosity are developed through roles of caring for others. Beginning at an early age, children should be given developmentally appropriate responsibilities for tasks, household needs, pets, and younger children. Knowing “it won’t get done without them” leads them to set aside their own personal interests in the service of helping. For many, they are able to be more responsible in the service of others than they are for themselves. Children can be motivated to develop necessary helping skills because they are being depended upon (or needed). Feeling needed and rising to the challenge promotes self-esteem in children. Tutoring a younger child motivates the tutor to develop his own skills in that discipline. When they are old enough, sole responsibility for a pet is good preparation for parenthood. Although we are probably wired for altruism and compassion, many things in life can distract us from those capacities and diminish their roles. Ultimately, altruism and compassion must be given places of value in a child’s life and he or she must have roles that value these qualities and serve as sources of esteem. Empathy, altruism, compassion, and respect are essential qualities of effective parenting and people of character. Learning to take on responsible roles during childhood and adolescence promotes healthy character development and adults ready to be parents. Having a sense of purpose gives our lives meaning and motivates us. Children need opportunities to develop a sense of purpose in their families and in their communities.