Katz – self-definitions

Interesting research, a large body of research now suggests that unless children achieve at least a minimal level of social competence by roughly about the age of six, they will be at risk for the rest of their lives. Because, not because they can’t, just can’t learn, but because once a child has experienced being defined as unlikeable or has been avoided by peers, then that child tends to define itself as unlikeable, and we’ve got plenty of evidence that children will bring their behavior into line with their definition.

Like sometimes the child is defined as the class clown, well this child from the studies we have, would rather die than not be funny, because that’s his identity or her identity, and that’s the same with the child who’s unlikeable, and that, generally speaking, that child’s avoided, and what we do have reason to believe now is that when those children like that are teenagers, they find each other. And they solve the problem of being unlikeable by joining together with the shared bitterness for the rest of society. So they have the experience of closeness based on shared bitterness, and they would rather be, make trouble than solve their problems, because if they solve their problems they won’t have the shared bitterness so they’d lose the closeness.

So getting the social development right in the first six years is hugely important, and by the way, we know a lot about how to do that, and I’ve spent a lot of my time with teachers helping them to help different kinds of children with these problems. But most children we say, for the sake of the discussion, all children who see themselves, by the time they’re about six, as unlikeable, have to be helped by an adult. They cannot solve the problem by themselves. But we do know how to help them.