LET’S MODEL DEFENSIVENESS

When it comes to being defensive, we humans are pretty much natural experts. This expertise seems to almost be built in, it is learned. Yet little children hardly have to learn to be defensive at all, it seems to come along naturally with the way they think right from the beginning. Amazing isn’t it? Now, why is that? What explains this?

In explaining this, let’s not overlook the role of imitation. After all, many parents provide exquisite examples to their children of how they are never wrong, they never admit that they make a mistake, and when they are caught red-handed, they curse, blame, accuse, yell, and scream—a great distracting technique! So, is it any wonder that our experience as children, as we grow up provides us all the schooling that we need for learning how to be defensive? And even though little children start out open and naive and vulnerable and perfectly okay with that—it isn’t long before they learn that being open to being wrong brings painful consequences.