Understanding childhood coping mechanisms
Understanding childhood coping mechanisms is an intriguing area of research in psychosocial development. Photo by saeed karimi on Unsplash
“Hallo, are you stuck?” Rabbit asked.
“N-no” said Pooh carelessly. “Just resting and thinking
and humming to myself. . .”
“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “you’re stuck.”
“It all comes,” Pooh said crossly, “from not having front
doors big enough.”
A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
Again and again the fox tried to reach the tempting grapes
but at last had to give them up. As he walked away with
his nose up in the air, he could be heard saying, “I’m sure
they were sour anyway.”
The Fables of Aesop
Nine-year-old Joshua had always wanted to play Little League baseball. After he tried out for a position on a team with dozens of other boys, however, he learned that he wasn’t among the coach’s final selection. Although disappointed, he later remarked to his mother that it was just as well that he didn’t make the team because it might have interfered with his paper route and other interests.
Elaine was excited about her new job prospect. To a 32-year-old registered nurse, the idea of an emergency room nursing position seemed challenging, especially since she had been away from her profession for a number of years raising two children. When the position was given to another applicant, however, her career plans were brought to a momentary halt. Yet, after surveying the situation, she reasoned that maybe it wasn’t time to return to work after all because she was still needed at home by her children and husband.
Kristin was an upset seventh grader. She not only had been caught copying from another student’s paper but was also asked to give the teacher an explanation for her behavior. “I was copying?” she blurted out in disbelief, “You can’t be serious! If you take a close look inside, you’ll see that the entire class is copying each other’s paper!”
Realizing that he was late for a critical business meeting, Jonathan inched the car’s accelerator further and further to the floor. He was willing to exceed the speed limit to arrive on time, at least until a police officer pulled him over. Upset at the prospects of receiving a speeding ticket, Jonathan looked up at the patrolman with an incredulous expression. “Seriously, officer,” he said, “you’re pulling me over? What about all the others that were passing me on the highway?”
These stories illustrate patterns of behavior that exist similarly between children and adults. In each instance, potentially threatening situations prompted the use of a coping mechanism, a defensive behavioral reaction that is designed to reduce such unpleasant emotions as anxiety, guilt, frustration, or disappointment. In the first set of illustrations, both child and adult employed rationalization, or excuse-making, to deal with the disappointment at hand. Both Kristin and Jonathan, in the second set of examples, projected their guilt and frustration to other parties. All four individuals used coping mechanisms to justify their failures.
Contrary to what many believe, the development and use of coping mechanisms is not strictly a phenomenon of adult life. Rather, this detailed and elaborate system begins its development during the childhood years; by middle and late childhood, youngsters use them with surprising frequency. Furthermore, as children become older, these mechanisms become more elaborate and intertwined with their overall personalities. Seeking to understand how and why coping mechanisms develop will help adults understand how youngsters deal with the struggles and turmoils that are characteristic of everyday life.
Why Coping Behavior Develops
The periods of early and middle childhood are critical years of personality development. Once restricted to the four walls of the home and totally dependent on parents for care and protection, the growing child is slowly able to venture out into new and challenging situations. While the rewards to be reaped are great as far as personality and social growth are concerned, so too are the risks inherent in life’s many struggles. Bumps and bruises to the child’s sense of self will rival the successes and triumphs. A child leaves for nursery school and feels the pain of separation. An older youngster is reprimanded by a teacher for excessive talking in class. A youth football player experiences the bitter taste of defeat. The ways children resolve the struggles that they face each day become vital components of the personality.
Children must learn that success as well as failure is part of everyone’s existence, although many of us have difficulty in accepting the negative side of life. Some challenges, routines, and turmoils, it will be learned, can be successfully met and will generate positive feelings; others, however, are more anxiety-producing and ego threatening and steer the child toward a potential path of failure. Such negative situations threaten the very existence of the positive self. A mother’s favorite jewelry box is broken. A report card reveals three failing grades. A borrowed book is lost. When attempting to save face while at the same time defending against unpleasant situations, coping mechanisms start to emerge. In time, they will become armament for daily battle with the world.
Children as well as adults use coping mechanisms to deal with stress and frustration. Photo by Michael Heise on Unsplash
How the Ego Gets by With a Little Help from Its Friends
Coping mechanisms are learned forms of behavior that are concerned with relieving anxiety. We have all heard references to anxiety at one point or another: Mary has test anxiety, Stan is anxiously awaiting the company’s decision, or Phillip is always nervous and uptight. Anxiety is a reaction of apprehension often described as a response to a subjective, rather than objective, danger. Put another way, it is psychological pain compared to physical pain. In many instances, anxiety originates from the conflicts in life that we face, but it should be acknowledged that anxiety in small amounts can be beneficial, such as when it helps some stay alert or perform their best.
Coping mechanisms attempt to deal with the pain and turmoil of threatening situations such as failures, mistakes, and accidents and in some cases succeed in freeing the individual from some stress. It is in this sense that the ego “gets by.” However, coping mechanisms are, at best, temporary and do not resolve underlying conflicts. In most cases, coping mechanisms produce automatic and rigid reactions that enable the individual to avoid, rather than deal with, struggles. Such patterns of behavior have a tendency to distort reality.
Withdrawal, for example, is a classic coping mechanism that reduces some anxiety yet avoids the resolution of conflicts. A child may close his or her eyes and run to mother’s side every time a stranger enters the house. Another youngster, although liking the game of baseball, may avoid going near the ballpark because of a fear of competition. An abused child may lapse into prolonged periods of silence and withdrawal when the topic of an abusive father comes up. In each of these examples, the individual has chosen what seems to be the safe way out of a conflict but has avoided, rather than faced, the reality of the situation.
Are Coping Mechanisms Useful for Handling Life’s Menacing Sides?
Most experts agree that the use of coping mechanisms is useful, but not when used as a crutch by the individual. At one point or another, we’ve all employed some kind of coping behavior; this is true for children as well as adults. It is when coping behaviors are used excessively — such as in the case of the perpetual excuse-maker or coverup artist — that troubles begin.
The very nature of their title — coping or defense mechanisms — indicates their temporary quality. As we are assaulted with the problems of daily life, defensive behavior yields few, if any, long lasting solutions. Consequently, for the child or adult who persists in over relying on coping mechanisms, life becomes a battle of offense versus defense, and never in the course of history has a defense won a war.
It has often been said that coping mechanisms deal with the symptoms rather than the causes of problems. Just as taking excessive amounts of aspirin for headaches or sleeping pills for insomnia doesn’t explain what the roots of the problem are, continually using a coping mechanism do not deal with the need or frustration that initially caused the anxiety. Thus, coping mechanisms are considered useful, but their adjustive or maladjustment quality depends on how often the child uses them.
Some Common Coping Behaviors: From Cover Ups to Cop Outs
Just as anxiety exists in all shapes and sizes, so too do coping mechanisms. It should be realized, however, that these behaviors are highly individualized and will differ from person-to-person and from situation-to-situation. In this sense, it is possible that no two people use the same coping device in the same manner.
Rationalization and projection, mentioned earlier, are widely used. The fox in Aesop’s fable serves as an excellent example of rationalization. Unable to reach the grapes, the fox rationalized they were probably sour. Children who rationalize attempt to save face and protect the ego with this form of excuse-making. Mother’s favorite piece of china was broken, for example, because someone else had stacked other dishes too high. A baseball bat is blamed when a little leaguer fails to get a hit.
“Uh-oh” moments often trigger coping mechanisms, such as rationalization. Photo by Arthur Harutyunyan on Unsplash
Projection, the coping mechanism that ascribes one’s guilt to other parties, can best be seen in the heat of children’s quarrels. “The fight wasn’t my fault,” a seven-year-old screams to her parents. “He hit me first!” Tattling may also exist as a form of projection. “Teacher, those kids are splashing water,” a young boy may say when moments ago he had been an active participant in the same free-for-all.
Another popular coping mechanism is displacement, the redirection of pent-up hostile feelings to objects less dangerous than those that initially aroused the emotion. Displacement is observable in the case of the young girl, who after committing a misdeed has been struck by her father. Obviously, she cannot return the blow to the parent, unless she wants to deepen her predicament. Instead, she may seek other channels through which to release her internal hostile feelings, such as kicking a ball or spanking a doll. Displacement may also explain why so many adolescent bedroom doors are slammed shut following family disagreements.
Children frequently resort to denial of reality. To protect the self, children may refuse to perceive the existence of hurtful situations. For this reason, youngsters may continually deny that a beloved relative has passed away. Older children may deny to their parents that they are doing poorly in school, despite knowing that they are failing several courses.
Many children seek to find a rewarding activity that can be substituted for failure in another kind of activity. This coping mechanism is referred to as compensation. The unathletic boy who cannot successfully compete in sports may find satisfaction in developing a particular hobby. An unattractive girl may try to excel in all of her school subjects or seek to become the school’s best dresser. Interestingly, parents employ a type of compensation when they seek to satisfy their own ambitions through their children. A mother who experienced a deprived childhood may go out of her way to give her children the best of everything. A father who always wanted to go to college but never had the chance may continually prod his son to pursue higher education. Although this type of compensation may satisfy the parent’s needs, it is questionable whether the child’s needs are met.
Regression is one other coping mechanism worthy of our attention. When children regress, they retreat to earlier developmental periods to escape the anxiety of a situation. This technique of “turning-back-the clock” is quite apparent when a new baby arrives home from the hospital and an older child regresses to infantile behavior. To regain the parental attention that has been displaced because of the new arrival, a child may regress to behavior that characterized his or her experiences as a baby, such as bed-wetting, thumb-sucking, or crawling.
Adolescent Coping Behavior: With Age Comes Ingenuity
Are adolescent coping mechanisms different from those employed by children? While they resemble those used by children and reflect the basic operating principles, they are undoubtedly more refined and complicated. This refinement of coping mechanisms is attributable to several reasons, including more advanced cognitive skills and wider psychosocial experiences. Most adolescents, like adults, have managed to devise elaborate and detailed ways of handling failure and other unpleasant situations.
Consider rationalization as an example. Whereas the child may be restricted to one excuse to justify a failure — and frequently a flimsy one at that — the adolescent has a greater arsenal of rationalizations. If a high school senior, as an illustration, fails a critical test, his or her poor test performance may be justified on any number of grounds: It may be that the teacher did not adequately prepare the students; there simply wasn’t enough time to take the test; the course was irrelevant to the student’s career pursuits, or the teacher was harboring a personal grudge. Some adolescents move from one excuse to another if the credibility of each is questioned.
Some new coping mechanisms may also emerge during the adolescent years. Intellectualization, for example, is especially popular among some teenagers. To intellectualize is to cover one’s anxiety in a shroud of philosophy, logic, and intellectual maneuvering. Individuals using this technique typically sever their emotional involvement with the subject and talk in abstract generalities. For example, a philosophical discourse on the nature of death in contemporary society may be a teenager’s way of avoiding the release of emotions about a recent death in the family. A student flunks out of college; and instead of expressing regret or sadness that is felt, he or she expounds on the “questionable” role of college in society or the astronomical costs of higher education.
Adolescent coping mechanisms often reflect greater levels of resourcefulness and inventiveness. Photo by Jeremy McKnight on Unsplash
How Adults Can Help Children to “Know Thyself”
Everyone needs feedback on their behavior, and children are no exception. As far as coping behaviors are concerned, it is important for children to be aware of their actions, especially if defensiveness is a common occurrence. The importance of objective adult feedback and meaningful guidance cannot be overstressed here. Parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and other adults are in strategic positions to observe children and help them develop a sense of personal awareness. As an effort to help youngsters understand their coping behaviors, the following suggestions are offered:
Adults should examine their own coping mechanisms. Seeking to understand our own coping mechanisms and why we use them may provide adults with meaningful insight into children’s defensive behavior. While adult coping mechanisms are more refined than children’s, the fundamental design behind each is remarkably similar.
Respect the struggles, turmoils, and disappointments that are characteristic of childhood. An empathic adult is one who can appreciate the many anxious situations that await the child throughout life. Because coping mechanisms are learned forms of behavior, children need models more than they need critics. Shaming the child or making fun of coping behavior accomplishes nothing and should be avoided.
Try to teach the child that success as well as failure is part of everyone’s life. While everyone wants to succeed, only a handful of us are capable of succeeding on a continual basis without failure. Accepting failure and disappointment are important dimensions of self-growth and should not be reasons for negative self-regard.
Seek to understand why coping mechanisms are used, especially those that are used excessively. This suggestion implies not only patience and gentle understanding on the adult’s part but also careful observation of the events that triggered the coping device. Verbalization of the situation should be encouraged, but at a time when the anxiety of the event has diminished. It should be stated to the child that defending against and retreating from unpleasant situations are normal reactions; however, learning to deal with struggles head-on avoids reality distortion and nurtures a more accurate sense ofself.
Avoid comparisons with other children. Children rarely employ coping mechanisms in the same fashion, nor do they accept the consequences of negative situations in similar manners. Therefore, it is unfair to say such things as “You’re always making excuses . . . Mary doesn’t behave like you!” Such comparisons downplay the individuality of the child. Comparisons accomplish little, except possibly to produce further anxious feelings and inferior attitudes towards one’s sense of self.
Try to understand coping mechanisms as part of the child’s whole personality. As mentioned earlier, coping mechanisms do not exist separately as behavioral phenomenon; on the contrary, they frequently reflect significant aspects of the child’s total personality. Thus, rather than attempting to understand coping behaviors and defensive episodes separately, adults might seek to explore their integration into the larger whole. This implies becoming aware of such areas as accuracy of the child’s self-concept, levels of self-esteem, insecurities, and emotional sensitivities.
Jeff Turner is the co-author of Exploring Child Behavior; Lifespan Development; and Marriage and Family: Traditions and Transitions. He holds a doctoral degree in human development and family studies from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Bridgeport.
Thanks for reading! If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, remember to follow the publication (and clap/comment too!). Want to write for Mindful Mental Health? Please check out our submission guidelines and ask to be added as a writer in the comments of that post.
Why Kids Cover Up, Cop out, and Tattle was originally published in Mindful Mental Health on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.