Ego is a characteristic of human beings which starts establishing its hold on a person from very early childhood. Parents used to scolding or spanking their children rarely realize that they are harming the kid’s self-esteem, which if developed properly, can be the positive version of ego. Children should be brought up in an encouraging environment where they are free to express their views and consider it their right to get answers to all kinds of questions they have.
Child-ego is a term used in transaction analysis to represent the behavior of a person as if they were a child when exposed to extreme hurt or happiness. Children generally express their ego by demanding that they get whatever they want and, though they start understanding the importance of love and sacrifice as they grow, the Child-ego surfaces often as adults also.
The same is true in case of sexual identity and opinions of the opposite sex if the fundamental knowledge is not provided appropriately at the correct age.A child’s memory should also not be under-estimated which ensures that any bad or unexplained perplexing experiences of the childhood will surface during some or the other time during the person’s life as an adult.
The most difficult phase for the parents starts when the kids raise questions about their sexual identity. Parents find themselves in a dilemma regarding how much information should be passed on to the kids for their age, which behavior is normal and which is alarming. They are concerned about their children offending other children with their extra knowledge and contrarily, if left ignorant, they might fall prey to others or they might start their own explorations unknown to the parents. Hence it’s very crucial for the children to have the correct amount of knowledge about their gender.
To achieve this, the parents should encourage the children to ask more questions, to express themselves freely by listening and answering them patiently. When children start noticing the physical differences between them and the opposite sex, they become more curious and obsessed with the new discoveries. They want to take it to the next level or want to boast about their knowledge to their friends which is then considered as dangerous or obscene by the parents and the child is given a good lot of punishment which makes him/her feel that he has committed a grave offence.
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