Infantile - a child inside an adult
What do we imagine when we hear the phrase “infantile person”?
1. Irresponsible, prone to rash actions, in a word, an adult who does not want to grow up or cannot do without outside help. He does not realize the consequences of his decisions, does not think about what his rash actions will lead to. What can we say, he’s like a child: he doesn’t understand prohibitions when he really wants something.
2. Many of the infants would rather get into a fight to defend their interests instead of simply discussing the problem.
3. Infants will come up with a lot of excuses for doing nothing. They are looking for those responsible for failures. They turn the arrows on anyone, just not to look at themselves. You can’t build a dialogue with such people, because it turns out that the people around you, the conditions around you, anyone but the infantile must change.
Any psychotherapist will tell you that it is sometimes difficult to help infants. Adults sacrifice their pride in order to build healthy, reliable and lasting relationships. Problems can be solved if the partner admits mistakes and wants to change. But infantiles are not capable of change, so their communication with others, as well as with their other half, resembles a cheap performance. They will angrily talk about how inadequate their partner is, despite looking at themselves from the outside. However, if your efforts to convince the infantile to work on themselves are crowned with success, they will still sit and wait for those around them to adapt to their whims. This, naturally, does not happen, the problems deepen, and the life of infantiles becomes even more difficult.
Simple
Harmonic simple mental infantilism is characterized by a fairly uniform lag, affecting social adaptation. The average delay is 1-3 years. Patients look younger than their age. They are lively, inquisitive, but easily distracted, fickle, incapable of long-term concentration even in their area of interest.
Children play for a long time, but quickly get tired when they have to complete tasks that require patience, willpower and intellectual tension. When starting school, they have difficulty responding to standard tasks. Due to overload, neuroticism is possible.
The current is quite favorable. Symptoms level out or disappear upon reaching 10 years of age. However, some experts believe that the observed dynamics do not necessarily indicate complete harmonization of the psyche. In adults, there is an increased likelihood of developing character accentuations.
Criteria for the behavior of an infantile person
- Job. Due to the fact that these people suddenly give up everything, forget about their promises and obligations, it is impossible to cooperate with them. They, like children, are inconsistent, suddenly change plans for the sake of their fantasies, leaving their partner with a lot of problems.
- Relationship. Infantile people need a “magic hand” that will motivate, solve emerging problems and define tasks. Just like parents are for a child. It is understandable that in childhood a child relies on the experience and wisdom of his parents, who will solve everyday problems, and he will continue to live happily ever after. However, an immature child is not able to take responsibility for what happens around him in adulthood.
- Thinking. Infantile people do not like to understand something thoroughly. Delving into and studying is not about them. Infants listen to the advice of others, especially if they do not require extra effort. Advertising services, sofa shops, financial pyramids, bright movements cause them complete delight. They do not think about the working mechanisms of such organizations, and will take all their savings to scammers, and then wonder how they were deceived so much.
- Education. An infantile person wants a beautiful, bright, fabulous life, but she herself must find them. Compared to infantiles, adults do not just indulge in dreams, but build their own lives. Because to achieve success, it is important to learn and constantly overcome the unpleasant surprises of fate.
- Responsibility . Infants are not able to take care of loved ones. They are frivolous and irresponsible. It’s easy to get a pet, and then throw it on the street when they’ve had enough of it. But the trouble is that such people also do not take procreation seriously. They might accidentally have too much at a party, and then suddenly there’s an unexpected pregnancy. Of course, it is a sin to have an abortion, which means we will give birth. Or they make children because that’s the way it is. How is it done? By whom? Is it necessary at all? You won't get an answer to such questions.
- Cleaning. The next thing that infantile people notice is a mess. The infantile will not clean up the house, on the street or anywhere else. He’s already comfortable, he knows what he threw where. There is even a designated corner for trash. And this is a reflection of what happens in the brain, where sometimes even an accomplished adult cannot understand.
Causes of infantilism: how do adults become children?
Reason #1: infantile parents.
This problem is passed on from generation to generation, but not through genes, but simply because children accept the behavior model of their infantile parents. True, sometimes parents lead such a crazy lifestyle that their children have to suffer. In this case, the parents will become a negative example, showing that it is impossible to live like this.
Reason number 2: overly caring and restless parents.
With their overprotective care, they protect the child from all possible difficulties and do not allow them to face life’s difficulties, which are so necessary for growing up. Excessive care for your child, trying to protect him from pain and suffering is not love. This is a direct path to lifelong guardianship of an adult child. She only causes harm.
Reason #3: service system.
In addition to important knowledge, kindergarten, school, and university teach a person to perceive life correctly. Correct for the system, but not always for the person himself. The point is that a human child is taught that someone is always taking care of him, that he needs to count on others. For this there are specialists, various kinds of officials, leaders. This is how the system binds a person to itself in order to obtain a devoted servant in him.
Reason No. 4: single-industry.
Distributing most of the important tasks to other people takes the additional burden off the person. It deprives the infant of the opportunity to develop comprehensively and bear responsibility for other areas of his life. To develop to the level of a mature person, we need to complicate life, to be exposed to a little stress, which will help our psyche mature.
Psychological fusion with the parental family
The cause of infantilization of young people is often incomplete separation from their parents. This term refers to separation from a loved one with whom a person was in psychological fusion.
Most often it is about the mother. If a growing child separates from his parents, personality formation occurs. He gradually begins to take independent actions and takes decisions upon himself.
Photo by kelli mcclintock on Unsplash
If the separation is completed successfully, the young man gains self-sufficiency and becomes an adult. “The child grew up, but the parents didn’t even notice.” This can be said today in relation to young people in our country.
After all, there are many conditions that prevent separation from being completed. Low incomes, difficulties in finding employment, uncertainty - all this hinders development. Children reach adulthood but remain dependent on their parents.
In some families, the child is the “center of the universe,” and all other relatives revolve around him, like planets around a star. But the time comes to release the child from its native nest.
Photo by Daniel H. Tong on Unsplash
For example, to go to study in another city or perform military service. For the sake of work, after all. The whole family is acutely experiencing this moment. A “syndrome of a nest from which the matured chick has flown away” occurs.
Modern culture does not have traditions that initiate the acquisition of a new status in society. There are often situations when the mother continues to interfere in the life of an already married “child”; or the father of an adult woman dictates to her how to dress and who to date.
Infantilism can be cured if the person himself recognizes this problem
Getting rid of infantilism means doing everything so that a person begins to work on his own development. This is not always possible on your own, without outside help. After all, children are children because in some things they need the help and support of adults and experienced people. Therefore, infantile people need help. And this means that it is correct to teach them independence, it is correct to push them towards what they avoid most in the world, towards difficulties.
And here, first of all, you need motivation for such work. A person is motivated by two things - pain and pleasure. If a person has no interest in development, in learning, in work and cannot be awakened, if the desire to reach heights does not awaken, then there is only one thing left - to make him suffer, experience pain, deprivation, so that he begins to develop not according to desire, but according to necessary. Here it is important not to overdo it, so as not to break the person. After all, everyone’s psychological age is different and taking it into account is a difficult task. Therefore, it will not be possible to immediately catch up with all the lag in development that has developed over the years. Each person receives such a load that he is able to withstand at this stage of his own development. This applies to his physical, mental and mental development.
Secondly, you can turn to the help of professionals. Psychotherapy is the best way to sense a person’s mood and help change one’s own views on life. Look at yourself from the outside, admit your shortcomings. It is unknown what trials will fall on a person’s head in the future. And if he is not ready for them because of his own immaturity, then everything will end sadly for him.
So we decide for ourselves whether our path in life is correct. Therefore, if your opinion on the issue of infantilism does not coincide with what is written here, this does not mean that you are wrong. It is important to decide for yourself which opinion is worth listening to.
Symptoms
Infantile children are characterized by increased suggestibility, carelessness, lack of independence, inability to accept responsibility and lack of understanding of its essence. Patients prefer gaming to any other type of pastime (studying, participating in family affairs, helping elders, independently learning new things, studying in clubs and sections). It is difficult for them to make volitional efforts, restrain their feelings, and subordinate their behavior to the demands of teachers and parents.
Characteristic features are low interest in exploring the world, weak motivation, a tendency to excessively merge with the mother, and lack of need for independence. At an early age, delayed maturation of the brain regions responsible for the emergence and control of emotions is indicated by a tendency to generalize reactions to irritability, disinhibition and hyperactivity with insufficient formation of fine motor acts. Details of the clinical picture are determined by the type of disorder.
