- Emotional escalations: Young children often cry, get mad, or outwardly appear petulant and pouting. Grownups seldom do.
- Blaming: When things go wrong, young children look to blame someone. Grownups look to fix the problem.
- Lies: When there's a situation that's uncomfortable, young children might lie to stay out of trouble. Grownups deal with reality, reliably speaking the truth.
- Name-calling: Children call each other names. Adults seek to understand issues. Adults do not make ad hominen attacks, that is, attacks on people's personal traits. Instead, they attack the problem. They do not disrespect others with mean labels.
There is one exception. Sometimes adults, just like firefighters who battle forest fires, have to fight fire with fire. They may need to use "fire" to manage an angry child or an out-of-bounds adult, in order to get them to cease their bad behavior. - Impulsivity—or as therapists say, "poor impulse control": Children strike out impulsively when they feel hurt or mad. They speak recklessly or take impulsive action without pausing to think about the potential consequences. Similarly, instead of listening to others' viewpoints, they impulsively interrupt them. Adults pause, resisting the impulse to shoot out hurtful words or actions. They calm themselves. They then think through the problem, seeking more information and analyzing options.
Again, some instances of acting on impulse can be hallmarks of mature behavior. Soldiers and police, for instance, are trained to discriminate rapidly between harmless and dangerous situations so that they can respond quickly enough to protect potential victims of criminal actions. - Need to be the center of attention: Ever tried to have adult dinner conversations with a two-year-old at the table? Did attempts to launch a discussion with others at the table result in the child getting fussy?
- Bullying: A child who is physically larger than other children his age can walk up to another child who is playing with a toy he would like and simply take it. The other child may say nothing lest the bully turn on them with hostility. In many cases, it's safer just to let a bully have what he wants. Adults, on the other hand, respect boundaries: Yours is yours and mine is mine.
- Budding narcissism: In an earlier post, I coined the term tall man syndrome for one way that narcissism can develop. If children—or adults—can get whatever they want because they are bigger, stronger, or richer, they become at risk for learning that the rules don't apply to them. Whatever they want, they take. This narcissistic tendency may initially look like strength. But in reality, it reflects a serious weakness: being unable to see beyond the self.
Psychologically strong people listen to others, hoping to understand others' feelings, concerns and preferences. Narcissists hear only themselves and are emotionally brittle as a result. They operate like children who want to stay out and play—even though dinner is on the table—and who pitch a fit rather than heed their parent's explanation that the family is eating now. Their mindset, in short, is "It's all about me." In the eyes of a narcissist, no one else counts; if they don't get their way, they may result to pouting or bullying in order to do so. - Immature defenses: Freud coined the term defense mechanisms for ways in which individuals protect themselves and/or get what they want. Adults use defense mechanisms like listening to others' concerns as well as to their own. They then engage in collaborative problem-solving. These responses to difficulties signal psychological maturity. Children tend to regard the best defense as a strong offense. While that defensive strategy may work in football, attacking anyone who expresses a viewpoint different from what they want is, in life, a primitive defense mechanism.
Another primitive defense is denial: "I didn't say that!" or "I never did that!" when in fact they did say or do the thing they claim not to have done. Sound childlike to you? - No observing ego—that is, no ability to see, acknowledge, and learn from their mistakes: When emotionally mature adults "lose their cool" and express anger inappropriately, they soon after, with their "observing ego," realize that their outburst was inappropriate. That is, they can see with hindsight that their behavior was out of line with their value system. They can see if their outburst has been, as therapists say, ego dystonic (against their value system).
