Child ego as explained by Berne in his theory of transactional analysis includes two main kinds of ego, the natural ego or the natural Child and the adapted ego or the adapted Child. The natural Child is the cheerful, impulsive, carefree and imaginative kid who has had a childhood which allowed him to practice these qualities and hence built a full-fledged personality of his Child which resurfaces every now and then from many different motivational sources even after he has grown up.

In this modern age of extremely fast and effective communication and technology it is hard to fathom how is it that we still find it difficult to communicate our feelings. Transactional analysts believe it is because we fall into cross transaction as neither one of the party is ready to realize the importance of deciphering the other party’s ego state and adjust their own accordingly for a complementary transaction, meaning if one is in Adult state you should talk to him as an Adult but if one is a Child try Parent ego to placate him.

Child ego is a strong impulsive state that you experience every now and then, but what needs to be examined is the true nature of that Child and how it got shaped so. Despite the fact that every Child has his own personality which has very individualistic characteristics, yet the role of environment and genes cannot be denied.

Transactional analysis is as much a theory about discovering one’s true identity as it is about communicating with others, for only then one can be comfortable in his own skin and develop sound relationships. A child develops his opinions about himself as he comes in contact with his sexual identity, as he affiliates himself with the parent figure of his gender and learn to act and think the way his model does by imitation.