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While these statements are true, we are
none-the-less taught how to be a spouse and we are taught how to parent. The
teaching is by way of example and it comes at the hands of our own parents or
caregivers from the moment we are born and then raised. We refer to this as
formative experiences.
Formative experience is the everyday life we lived
growing up and the know-how we develop as a result. More often than not, the
know-how develops beyond our awareness. We simply react or do the things we do,
based on a familiarity, having seen or experienced something like it before.
Apart from harm to a child in the moment of abuse,
there is a lasting harm in that the abusive experience sets the stage for the
child to act similarly when faced with a similar situation as an adult. There is
a sense of “doing what comes naturally” (or as familiar) even if what one is
doing is recognized as harmful. In the absence of having been taught appropriate
means of managing child behaviour or resolving interpersonal conflict, some
people fall back onto the strategies learned though formative experience. If you
had proper, reasonable and decent formative experiences, that’s good. If not,
there is an elevated risk of managing parenting or spousal relationships as you
experienced from childhood. Everything that happens to a person as a child, can
effect how they manage life as an adult.
Interestingly, even when looking at divorce, if
one’s parents were divorced, whether low conflict or high conflict, there is an
elevated risk that the child of those divorced parents will get divorced as an
adult too.
The message here is powerful. From what children are
exposed to, so shall they learn and so may they do. This is not to say all
adults with untoward childhood experiences are doomed to repeat them, but it is
to say that there is an elevated risk in much the same way as some people
experience harm from second hand smoke while others do not.
Hence the rationale of eliminating child abuse and
improving parental (spousal) relationships, is not just for the protection of
children in the here and now, but as an investment in their future and other
future generations.
The good news is that those folks whose formative
experiences left them with questionable parenting or relationship skills can
improve with help and support.
Adults who were abused or exposed to abusive
behaviour between their parents as children, where it appears to be affecting
life through parenting skills or relationships, are advised to consider
counselling, parenting courses, marital therapy or the like. The goal of these
strategies is to challenge the formative experiences in favour of adopting new
appropriate, directly learned strategies for managing parenting demands and
getting along with others.
There is an old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog
new tricks”, so thank goodness, we aren’t dogs! People can learn new tricks and
can improve upon the past.
Adults with untoward formative experiences affecting
adult life deserve better, their children deserve better and their children –
the future grandchildren deserve better too.
Gary Direnfeld is a social
worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert on child development,
parent-child relations, marital and family therapy, custody and access
recommendations, social work and an expert for the purpose of giving a critique
on a Section 112 (social work) report.
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