S17. Learned Behaviours

Children mimic behaviours, it’s how they learn. Early influences shape our minds and our thinking. Parents/stepparents, siblings, grandparents, neighbour’s, friends, teachers… Healthy and Unhealthy behaviours can be picked up mimicked by the developing child. While we aim to teach our children healthy behaviours such as Kindness, Honesty, Good Manners, Healthy Eating, Exercise, compassion and Inclusion, the love of nature and caring for the planet, recycling, accepting responsibility, apologizing when in the wrong, congruence etc.

We also, inadvertently and often unconsciously teach our children unhealthy behaviours such as Discrimination, Intolerance, Dishonesty, Bullying, Unhealthy eating, Addiction, Exclusion, Gossiping, Blaming, Projection, Displacement, Waste and Littering, Stealing, Favouritism, Arrogance or Rudeness

There are other, less obvious behaviours that we as adults may pass onto our children that we ourselves may be unaware of because they are happening outside of our consciousness. Behaviours that create toxic stress and environments, behaviours that result in developmental trauma. Other unhealthy learned behaviours may include:

• Swearing/Cursing

• Self-Criticism/Limiting Beliefs

• Poverty Consciousness

• Overspending

• Controlling Behaviours

• Manipulative Behaviours

• Greed/Selfishness

• Blaming others

• Concealing Emotions

• Repeated Blaming/Fault Finding/Criticizing

• Self-Harm/Nail Biting

• Self-Loathing

• Sarcasm

• Aggression/Shouting

• Lack of Personal Hygiene/Spitting/Bad Manners

• Verbal/Physical Attacks

• Unrealistic Expectations

• Threatening/ Living in Fear

• Body Shaming

• Incongruence/Dishonesty/Stealing

• Road Rage

• Personal Attacks- Appearance/Beliefs/Friends/Choices

• Devaluing/Minimizing

• Deliberate disappointing

• Setting up to fail/Mind games/Testing

• Name Calling/Gossiping

• Comparing to others; Not as Good As (someone they like) & You are just like (someone they dislike)

• Bullying/Intimidating

• False Accusations

• Public Humiliation

• Grandiosity

• Indoctrination

• Porn - Leaving Pornographic Material easily accessed

• Addiction - Leaving Substances easily accessed

• Gas-lighting/ Made to question own reality

• Controlling/ Treating people as a possessions

• Deliberately Ruining Relationships /Parental Alienation

• Ignoring/Invisibility

As responsible adults we have a duty of care to monitor our own behaviours and question our motives to ensure we are not impacting negatively on others or negatively influencing the young minds in our care.

A simple act of apologizing when we have done something wrong, teaches a child that it is okay to make mistakes and learn from them. It teaches Truth, confidence, strength of charity, honesty, integrity, responsibility, and humility. It teaches that we are equals, and as equals we are responsible and answerable for the consequences of our own actions.

Whereas, when we are willing to accept responsibility for wrongdoing, if we refusing to apologise and shy away from responsibility or blame others for ‘causing’ our actions – this teaches dishonesty, mistrust, egotism, excuses and weakness.

Environments where adults refuse to apologise when they are in the wrong quickly become toxic, unhealthy environments and cause further damage to those who are experiencing trauma.