Your Turn
For a Joyful Family Gathering, Leave Your Inner Brat Behind
By
Pauline Wallin, Ph.D.
In the wake of the September 11, this year's holiday season takes on extra significance. Winter festivities have always been a time for family, but now people really hope to make it special -- not by buying more gifts, but by making family gatherings more harmonious and joyful. If you want to make the most of your family's get-together, leave your inner brat behind. The inner brat -- that part of your personality that's still a two-year-old -- is responsible for much of the conflict that we see at family gatherings, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's your inner brat that makes a big deal out of simple (but annoying) questions that your mother asks over and over. It's your inner brat that feels so wounded because your sister neglected to thank you for the pictures you sent her. It's your inner brat that urges you to have 3 desserts when you don't even have room for one.
No matter how old you are, or how professional and sophisticated you may
appear to others, when you go home you often regress into a petulant or
oppositional child. You may never behave this way except when you are
with family. This is because situational cues (i.e., the presence of the people
you grew up with) evoke certain feelings and responses from you. These responses
originated in your childhood, and were repeated over the years. If you are the
senior generation in your family, the children of your
siblings and cousins will tend to evoke similar feelings in you that their
parents did years ago.
Situational cues have even more of a hold on you when the family home that you now visit was the one you grew up in. Not only do you react to the words and behaviors of the people, but you also react to the surroundings: familiar smells, the creak on the steps, the food in the cupboards, etc. When you encounter these familiar cues, you react in old familiar ways -- some of which may be quite immature. In other words, these cues can trigger your inner brat.
Everyone has an inner brat, left over from early childhood. It's the part of us that feels entitled to have what it wants when it wants it (just like an infant does.) It also has very little tolerance for frustration, and when things go wrong it blames the situation or other people. Since the inner brat is the immature part of ourselves that is associated with early childhood, and since current family encounters evoke childhood memories and behaviors, then it follows that current family encounters will also trigger our inner brat.
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Old sibling rivalries, unresolved feelings of anger or resentment toward parents, and buried insecurities are all closer to the surface when you're back in the family home. Thus, you're not only reacting to family members in the present, but you're also reacting to past tensions. Your inner brat tends to overreact. Instead of behaving like a mature adult you might find your inner brat taking over. You'll know it's there when you start getting angry at the slightest provocation, or when you complain about things not being fair. You'll also recognize its presence when you eat, drink or smoke more than you you know is good for you.
For example, when your mother asks, "Why haven't you called your grandmother?" your inner brat might snap back, "Why are you always picking on me?! Why don't you ever ask my brother why he doesn't call Grandma?" Or, when you've resolved to control your drinking over the holidays, you end up downing a quart of spiked egg nog, with your inner brat in the background rationalizing that it's OK because the alcohol is diluted.
If you recognize these tendencies within yourself, you can deflect them. If you see other family members acting in a bratty manner, there's not much you can do to control them, but you don't have to allow yourself to be drawn into their complaints or provocations.
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Pauline Wallin, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Camp Hill, PA. She is
author of "Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide to Transforming Self-defeating
Behavior", Beyond Words Publishing, 2001. For more information, go to
http://www.innerbrat.com
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