THE MAKING OF A LACK MINDSET SYNDROME; THE LONGTERM EFFECT OF RAISING A CHILD IN LACK AND POOR COMMUNICATION.
A child’s mind is like a new computer. It is the operating system that you install in the child’s mind in the form of upbringing and environmental exposures that determines how the child’s mind will function even in adulthood.
Every parent can attest to the fact that a child can make five different requests daily without feeling that they are disturbing their parents. The summation of either positive or negative responses they get as they consistently ask and how these responses are managed affects the mindset configuration of that child.
Long term refusal without intentionally letting the child know why you won’t consistently give a thing will configure a child’s mind to believe that nothing works. Explaining why you can’t get them a thing only makes the child to feel valued and not ignored.
When a child lives with a parent who is struggling financially, and for that reason the parent consistently refuse to buy things when the child makes the simplest requests like ‘Please, Daddy, buy a balloon for me’. It is common for most parents struggling financially to think that buying a balloon could be a waste of resources(due to ‘lack mindset’ and not because there is a reason that such acquisition will affect the child negatively), because they might believe that the kid will burst the balloon in split second and the resources will waste but that isn’t the point, the idea is to configure the child’s mind to know that they can ask. It is a bonding technique. The ability to make them understand that it’s okay that they have asked, also okay that for a specific reason it can’t be granted at that given time is the intentionality required.
However, If they receive most of the times, they will tend to believe that there is such possibility as asking and receiving. On the other hand, it also makes them to be more cheerful with sharing what they have when another person asks for a thing.
GIVING IS INTERPRETED BY THE BRAIN AS A SHOW OF LOVE AND CARE.
The amount of love a child feels is what will continue to bring them back home. A child who gets more love outside home might stray towards the influence of outsiders.
During teenage life when they will have so many questions to ask, that configuration that ‘they receive at home when they ask is the reason they will come home to ask all their inquisitive questions to their parents rather than outsiders .
For some kids, the long term implication on their outlook in life is that they metamorphose into ‘survival mode’. A point where they try to get the things that they need without asking anybody or even by forcing their way through by dragging what others have or trying to acquire unnecessary things that they may not need in adult life because there is a void of lack in their early days.
Take some poor countries for instance, there is a great level of what is seen as ‘resilience’ or ‘Hustling spirit’ in most of them who grew up with not only financially poor parents but parents who are unaware of the effect of lack and it’s poor management on their little ones. There is always a void to fill.
Consistent receipt of a ‘NO RESPONSE’ may cause some children to withdraw from their parents for reasons of not wanting to keep doing the same thing and getting the same result. Others may resort to continue to ask as a matter of having no other option but with a lot of resentment for their parents.
FAILING CONSISTENTLY IN AN ENDEAVOR IS THE FASTEST WAY TO VIEW SUCCESS AS A ROCKET SCIENCE.
This is why there should be an advocacy for people to attain a certain level of stability before becoming parents or alternatively understanding how lack and it’s mindset can affect upbringing, hence, the need to give birth to only the number of kids that they can comfortably afford to manage their ‘PARENTAL-GIVING -BONDNG -PSYCHOLOGY’ in order to raise a mentally balanced human who sees WINNING as normal.
Uche N. Azubuine
