Childhood Affects Personality Development

Childhood is an extremely delicate stage in which the development of personality takes place.

In fact, it is so important that many of the problems adults suffer from arise as a result of this phase of life.

We must remember that everything we experience in childhood leaves an imprint on our brain. It is an imprint that we are not aware of, but that affects us in certain ways.

Different types of reinforcement and the importance it has for the development of the personality

When it comes to raising children , we can choose between positive or negative reinforcement. The best thing you can do is find an area in the middle between the two extremes.

• Positive reinforcement is when we celebrate the things that children do well, and ignore what they do bad or wrong. This can lead to high self-esteem, which can mean that the child is not able to take responsibility for their mistakes.
• Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, places particular emphasis on everything the child does badly. This can cause low self-esteem, which makes them look down on themselves, especially in relation to those around them.

Both extremes are negative and affect the personality of any child. Therefore, if we experience self-esteem problems as adults, looking at childhood may show us why we are bothered by this.

The development of the personality: The connection to our parents marks us

Secure connection

Secure attachment is when the child gets all his needs met by the mother.

It consists of physical contact and they know that the mother will be there if they need her. Therefore, the baby develops a healthy bond with the mother.

Anxious attachment

Anxiety or ambivalent attachment develops when a child has a mother who is very attentive and caring in some cases, but is cold and distant in others.

The consequence is that the child grows up with a lot of insecurity.

Avoiding attachment

Avoidance attachment develops due to insensitive mothers who tend to ignore their children’s needs.

As a result, children learn to reject them, to be independent and not need them. In the future, they will have trouble creating relationships with other people.

As we can see, a secure connection is the healthiest. Anxious and avoidant attachment, however, is much more common than we think.

• A person who developed anxious attachments during childhood is likely to suffer from emotional dependence on future partners. This is because they have problems establishing healthy bonds and being confident.

• Someone who developed an avoidant attachment during childhood will appear emotionally distant, and they will run when someone begins to get close to them emotionally.

It is difficult for these people to establish solid relationships with others.

The development of personality during childhood

As we have seen, the development of personality during childhood is very sensitive to the type of reinforcement and attachment that is generated thanks to the relationship that parents maintain with the children, and especially mothers.

It is therefore very beneficial to know how to give children the necessary attention, not let our own relationship problems affect them and ensure that we can offer them a safe connection.

Unfortunately, parents do not usually remember this, and because of their responsibilities and work as well as their children’s constant need for attention, all this falls into the background.

However, we can not forget that the development of personality takes place during childhood, and that it is the parents’ responsibility to do everything they can to avoid the possibility that their child will experience certain problems in the future.

Emotional addiction, an inability to establish affective relationships with other people, fear, insecurity in relationships… All this does not just come out of nowhere: It has a cause and it is to be found in childhood.