Human Development
Conforming
Towards the end of the surviving stage of development, the child becomes mobile and learns to communicate. This is the time when the limbic mind/brain, also known as the emotional mind, becomes dominant. The focus of the limbic mind/brain is on physical and emotional safety—keeping the body safe from harm and satisfying its need for love and belonging
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CONFORMING
At first, the child rebels: it wants what it wants when it wants it. It has not yet learned that the people it depends on for its survival and safety also have needs. To get its needs met, the child learns to follow the rules laid down by its parents. It learns that life is more pleasant and enjoyable, less threatening, and less difficult, if it can live in a state of harmony with its caregivers and siblings.
Conforming—obeying the rules—has benefits: it allows the child to meet its physical and emotional safety needs. Participating in family rituals are also important at this stage of development because they contribute to the child’s feeling of belonging and safety. If the parents make the child’s adherence to rules conditional on the child getting its desires met, or the child is coerced into behaving in specific ways, the child will learn that love is conditional.
If, because of poor parenting or lack of attention, the child feels unloved, unimportant, not accepted and not protected or it doesn’t feel a sense of belonging, the child may develop the subconscious belief that it is unlovable. When you do not get your safety, needs met at a young age, they do not go away; they are imprinted in the subconscious memory of your emotional mind. You become needy, always searching for love.
If the child’s parents or caregivers are attentive to the child’s needs; if it is raised in a caring, loving environment, where its feels safe and protected, then the child will grow up with the desire and willingness to form committed relationships when it reaches adulthood.
