THE PROBLEM WITH OFFERING CHIDREN A “CHOICE”
In the Family of Origin, the first family with our parents and siblings, there exists an invisible world of conflict over LOVE. Children clearly perceive this conflict over the LOVE they sense that emanates from their parents. It is something they worry about ALL the time because they are pushed by their instincts to feel entitled to it. But the overwhelming thought and fear that pervades their little Mind of a Child every waking moment is: WHO is getting our parents’ LOVE, and WHO IS NOT? AM I GETTING MORE OF THIS LOVE THAN MY NEXT BORN SIBLING, OR IS MY NEXT BORN SIBLING GETTING MORE OF IT THAN ME?
In the Mind of a Child the LOVE that exudes from parents is like a bubble of precious gold dust that floats freely in the air. Imagine two or more siblings obsessed with watching and waiting for signs of this golden bubble, clamoring to WIN it and worrying ALL the time that their sibling might seize it. They continually respond to their instincts by seeking to attain this LOVE, relying on their inborn Emotional sensibilities to ‘sniff it out’. They fight to hold on to it and savor ALL of it for themselves alone at ALL times. It is the most important source of their sense of self identity. This is what constitutes the seemingly trite behavior that adults dismissingly refer to as SIBLING RIVALRY.
From our point of view we observe their constant competition with each other as an incessant barrage of annoying fighting for even the slightest advantage, and we are astounded at their ferocity when they argue or hit each other. They carry on their struggle regardless of any objective differences between them such as age, sex, ability or disability. In fact, they may or may not even fight in plain view, but with our knowledge of DOLF, we conclude that their resulting opposing personality structures betray their hidden intensity and their desperate intent to annihilate each other.
And while the children are so immersed and preoccupied with WINNING this haze of LOVE, parents, like all adults have not even the slightest inkling about this sibling battle. Preoccupied by their daily routines of work, finances, social obligations and such, parents can hardly believe that such a children’s underworld even exists. And their disbelief is probably the reason why the phenomenon has been so elusive and was never discovered before. We can only imagine what a disruptive, conflictual scenario of miscommunication this all creates between parents and their children! It is an atmosphere that is rife with parent-child misunderstanding within the very tiny microcosm, or social circle we call the nuclear family!
Now consider that although two parents may both be sincerely involved in providing their children with LOVE, DOLF theory reminds us that there is always only one parent to whom the children respond with MORE Emotional warmth, while they respond with relatively LESS emotional warmth to the other parent. As explained in other contexts, this is the standard Emotional division between parents where there is only one PLG and one ALG. Yet it seems unmistakable that, like bees are attracted to honey, once children smell, sense or somehow identify the LOVE source in their family, they find this feeling of LOVE irresistible, and proceed to become vitally Emotionally attached to the parent who provides it. Kindly be reminded once again that this author is not to blame for the division in parental roles, but that she is only its observer and reporter. From the moment that this lone prime Emotional parent or PLG is identified by the first child, the children become poised to do whatever it takes – sacrifice everything – literally moving heaven and earth – to access the warmth and LOVE of this parent and direct it toward themselves alone. This childish orientation includes adjusting all their behavior and personality structure, behaving in any bizarre way they can, opposing any obstacles, and in short, doing whatever their little minds tell them to do – just to lay claim to that LOVE, attention, warmth and humanity from that one parent for themselves alone.
We may say therefore, that throughout all their actions, behavior and expressions toward the outside world, we the adults and parents should know that deep within themselves our children are continually thinking “PLEASE LOVE ME – AND ONLY ME!” It turns out that for children, this POT of LOVE is in fact the holy grail which every child seeks to claim from birth onward. If for any reason they DO NOT receive it, or cease to retain it, DOLF warns that they will lack, crave and feel cheated out of it for the remainder of their lives. Tragedy strikes when parents refuse to believe that their children will fight to the bitter end, sacrificing ALL their own and anyone else’s physical health, strength and wellbeing, as well as their own and anyone else’s Emotional health, strength and wellbeing, in order to lay claim to this special, precious POT of LOVE that is owned and distributed exclusively by their very first, original PLG. Parents must recognize that this LOVE is a vital, life-rendering need, and that their children are poised to fight to the bitter end to try to HOG it ALL for themselves alone in what they perceive as no less than a life or death contest or actual struggle for survival. And unfortunately for us, since the drive itself comes from their basic inborn instinct there is nothing anyone can do to dissuade them from delving in with all their strength and might to carry on this battle. Moreover, the hard fact for parents to swallow is that, unfortunately, there can never even be a complete and final resolution to this crisis of sibling rivalry, though some resolution is possible through the DOLF treatment method of changing the LOVE of the PLG, a topic that is discussed in more detail elsewhere ion this website.
So what are the siblings’ motivations for being such hogs? Why can’t they just share the LOVE, as adults continually beg them to do? At the risk of repetition, the reason that children are so eager to HOG ALL that LOVE, to the detriment of their adjacent sibling, is simply that THEIR INSTINCTS COMMAND THEM to do so. Bear in mind that, as DOLF teaches us, every child is created with fixed, immutable INSTINCTS, one of which commands them TO COMPETE TO PUSH OUT THEIR IMMEDIATE NEXT-BORN SIBLING FROM THEIR CIRCLE OF LOVE WITH THEIR PRIME LOVING PARENT. This is followed by their second compelling instinct: the INSTINCT TO BE OPPOSITE to their next born sibling. These are two inborn human instincts that are as fundamental, logically nonsensical and as defiant of reason as salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
So now that we have clearly defined the children’s uniquely human instincts, we may assume that because these instincts are so strong and absolutely fixed into all their human psyches, it means that CHILDREN CANNOT HELP HOW THEY BEHAVE! It means they have none of what adults conveniently label or refer to as a “CHOICE”. Their natural instincts simply do NOT allow them to have any CHOICE! Rather, their Instincts dictate and demand from birth that they must search around, locate LOVE, lay claim to it, and struggle with all their might to POSSESS IT ALL for themselves. At the same time, they must shove aside their immediate next-born competitor. This they do at the cost of ALL rationality. From a child’s point of view, it is ALL-OUT WAR, and in this THEY DO NOT HAVE A “CHOICE” about whether they should or should NOT participate. Guided by pure instinct they feel fundamentally entitled to the LOVE in their family, which as we said, they wish to keep ALL for themselves alone. Using all their ability, they fight to protect their territory from invasion and want to to destroy anyone who seeks to interfere with their effort to do so.
Now in order to satisfy their second instinct, and to distinguish themselves as different and independent, they are driven to do something that is the opposite of what their adjacent sibling chooses to do. This they do in order to attract attention onto themselves and away from their sibling. So, if their sibling moves quickly, they move slowly; if their sibling is verbal, they are quiet; if their sibling sleeps well, their sleep is disturbed, if their sibling is a crier and whiner, they are placid and compliant, and so on. These separate characteristics then become increasingly pronounced over time and ingrained into their personality. In DOLF the two basic instincts – the Instinct toward Sibling Rivalry and the Instinct to be Opposite – govern every child’s thoughts and behavior. Every human born to this earth is programmed to behave in exactly this same way, and this is the way humankind has conducted itself since the beginning of time.
When I point out the Instinct to SIBLING RIVALRY and its outcomes in stark reality to parents and show that it is accompanied by opposing behavior and personality patterns and suggest that there is a link between these two sets of behaviors, they balk, oppose and snarl at me. Though they readily admit to the differences, they resist when it comes to acknowledging these disparities might be due to their children’s competitive frenzy for the LOVE of the prime parent. “That’s impossible!” they retort, “We treat our children all the same!” Entrenched in their own lives, biased, unaware and unsuspecting of the Emotional intensity of Sibling Rivalry, and the acute, bottomless energy that powers their children’s struggles, they continue to engage in senseless confrontations with their difficult child. Or, they may helplessly sit by and watch their children argue, fight bitterly, and end up draining a good deal of the mental, Emotional and physical energy of the entire family. Alternatively, if they see no overt verbal or physical fights occurring, they sit by and watch as one child routinely WINS the battle by acting according to the adults’ desires, while the other child systematically LOSES the battle and gradually, helplessly drifts into an increasing state of Anger and rebellion, and/or Depression and withdrawal, and/or becomes Anxiety-ridden. They may consult with uninformed experts, but on finding no recourse, reluctantly blame and accept their rotten fate, abdicate their responsibility, or decide to just sit by and let the problem ride. Little do they realize that these same professionals are also themselves exasperated parents and plagued with their own children’s problems. Therapists, such as those who are celebrities or whom we routinely see giving advice, tend to paint a perfect picture of their own lives while making no admission of their own children’s serious plights and their own struggles with problems of rebellion, hyperactivity, drug abuse, mental illness, criminal behavior and even suicide. With the backing of “experts” who freely spread their “tips” and opinions about child-rearing in popular literature and on television, they chalk up the aberrant behavior and problems in their families to bad genes, unlucky fate, blame their spouse or unruly child and soon try to ignore it and get on with their lives. Tragically too, a great many couples blame each other and end up embroiled in divorce without even recognizing the contribution that this discord, which started with their children’s intense Sibling Rivalries, caused their own personal problems. This not to mention the difficulties they will almost certainly face throughout their lifetime with their wayward child and the guilt that will forever haunt them.
Sometimes there is no apparent disharmony among siblings, and there may even be complete harmony, which parents tend to gloat on. “No. This doesn’t happen in OUR family”. “No. OUR children don’t fight. They don’t even interfere with each other!” Yet every parent will readily agree that their children are “very, very different!”. Challenged about what they think caused the differences, they have few answers. They either deny any problems or quote the standard reasons such as genetics, good or poor luck, family circumstances or various life events. If one child is a disappointment they often consider themselves lucky to have had at least one well-behaved one. They think “We can’t be such bad parents if we raised one good child. So the fault must must be with the other child.”
Yet based on my 40 plus years of observation and study, I can see now that the DOLF phenomenon was probably never discovered because the same professionals who studied hard to earn their degrees also went to work all day to help others. They didn’t take the opportunity to deepen their knowledge about what goes on in their own homes. In a radio interview I presented exactly this challenge to Dr. Mark Rabinovitch of McGill University, who promptly retorted that he didn’t have to be home all day to know what’s going on with his children! Worse yet, I know of many professionals who face the same challenges as everyone else with their children: rebellion, delinquency, fighting with parents and authority figures, mental illness, depression, substance abuse and even suicide. Having made my DOLF observations and verified them over 4 generations though, there remained little doubt in my mind that the DOLF phenomenon is real. Moreover, since most parents seemed to me to have the best of intentions when they started their families, there seemed to be no other possible conclusion but that these differences were initiated by the children themselves. This gave rise to the need to hypothesize that the children’s actions are sourced from raw instincts that are built into every human creature, and come in a package with the babies when they are born. In other blogs called Sources of Proof I offer many arguments and case studies with mathematically based confirmation of DOLF theory.
That SIBLING RIVALRY might be a cause of personality development is a phenomenon that was first mentioned by Birth Order theorists who had observed that “If you have a child of one type, you can bet that your next child will be the opposite”. But the Birth Order Theorists made an critical error of insisting that the Favored child was always the firstborn. This was based on the observation that many firstborn men who had made substantial discoveries in their times were labelled as the most loved and preferred child in their own families. However, their personal lives were usually very obscure, or even undocumented. For example, Sigmund Freud was considered Favored because he was the firstborn and because his mother always referred to him as “Mein Golden Ziggy”. However, in line with DOLF analysis, Freud was a difficult and controlling character, a Disfavored firstborn child who was upstaged and outdone in gentleness by his next born sister, who most likely shared a close and warm relationship with their PLG mother. Unfortunately, Freud was so catapulted into stardom that we have little accurate knowledge about his next born sister, or his several younger siblings. Other firstborns such as Galileo, Einstein, and many more were also automatically classified as favorites simply because they were firstborn, without any actual research or information about their family dynamics. A further problem with Birth Order Theory is that, in contrast to DOLF, no explanation is offered about the personalities of later children beyond the first two. Regardless of the total number of siblings, DOLF theory continues to identify their personalities all as either Favored or Disfavored within their own clusters,
I developed DOLF theory by looking into families in depth and observing that the first two children were routinely stark opposites. Even when I look at pre-verbal babies, I always notice that if one is very active, the other is invariably slower, more passive, quieter or even may appear sluggish and less driven. By later childhood, around 8 to 12 years, as their personalities take shape, they begin to display mental/emotional characteristics that become more deeply entrenched into their soon-to-be permanent personality traits. The general direction of those characteristics becomes increasingly clear, so that by adolescence, and sometimes even much earlier, one has a clear sense of the emotional stability or lack of stability in the psychological status of any child.
If, without gentle introduction, I tell parents that they themselves are playing an active role and exacerbating the dynamics of Favoritism, or that they may even be accomplices or instigators of the conflict, most become absolutely indignant. Convinced of the impact of genetics and DNA, nature over nurture, they are adamant that their children were simply born different from day one: “This one takes after me, and that one takes after my spouse”, they insist. Or, they might conclude they are just victims of bad luck with children who happen to hate each other, or that one child is just of bad temperament, their “devil”, while the other is the “angel” that heaven sent to compensate for the bad one. Or, as one parent openly declared, I love the younger one more because “he has a heart of gold!” In short, parents are absolutely convinced and adamant that any differences in the personalities and behavior of their first two children is due either to genetics or luck. This they insist regardless of the author’s time, effort and experience in figuring out the secrets behind it.
When I suggest that the differences in the personalities of their first two children may be due to the attitudes of the parents themselves because they may be directing more LOVE at one child than the other, I repeatedly meet with belligerent rejection. If I attempt to explain that the antics their children are performing, their behavior and personalities, are merely designed with the purpose of attracting their attention and LOVE, and that the answer lies with the distribution of LOVE in the family, they begin to openly fight with me. Surrounded by professionals who fear they might be seen as blaming parents, they insist that behavioral control, discipline, social regimentation and training are the only answer to their family’s problems. To add to this, our foremost experts advise them to act “as a team”, band together and scold, punish, conspire and deprive their naughty child of the child’s greatest pleasures. Unfortunately, this only results in exacerbating the situation by isolating the child, humiliating them, escalating the battle, and in short, pitting the parents’ WILL against the WILL of their irrational, instinct-driven immature child, whether big or small! Little do they realize that when parents “team up”, they form a social pair, and when they address their children as such, the child perceives their very own parents who should protect them as social aggressors – bullies who are “ganging up” on them! All the while, they see themselves as the tiny, vulnerable victims of such aggression. As explained in other blogs, the child thinks: “WHAT? YOU TWO GROWN-UPS GANGING UP ON LITTLE OLD ME? POOR DEFENSELESS LITTLE ME! Their immature Mind of a Child that is guided by Emotions perceives nothing but the parents’ Anger and goes on to feel and conclude: I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY EVERYBODY HATES ME!
NOW THE NAUGHTY CHILD, WITH THEIR LIMITED INTELLECTUAL AWARENESS, THE SUPREMACY OF THEIR EMOTIONS OVER THEIR INTELLECTUAL POWERS, AND DRIVEN BY THEIR UNCONTROLLED INSTINCTS, REVS UP THEIR ENGINES. THEIR ANGER, DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY BECOME CHARGED TO THE MAX. THE CHILD BECOMES POISED TO GO TO ANY LENGTHS, DISPLAY UNTOLD NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR AND UNRULINESS, and ENGAGE IN ALL MANNER OF EXPRESSION OF THEIR NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. (Not only is the sibling the natural enemy, but now, so too are the parents.) They do all this with the misguided hope of regaining their parents’ precious LOVE, positive regard and social status in the family. Their instincts unequivocally command them to do so!
In the end, my findings indicate that every child’s attempt to obtain LOVE from their parents indelibly marks their personalities and behavior. I discovered that the outcome of this battle is so deep as to become THE KEY DETERMINANT of every person’s present and future psychological development into adulthood. You see, we adults perceive OUR hard lives in terms of OUR OWN social reality in an Intellectually-driven world, with our main preoccupations such as daily events, schedules, proper social behavior, financial and legal obligations and more. But if we picture the scene to be like an ocean, we might say that adults routinely conduct our lives above the water line, observing our own social and political reality in our real world. However, children live below the water line, surrounded by exquisite colors, and a wealth of flora and fauna that are completely foreign to us. The children exist in a secret, Emotion-driven world, where all feelings and perceptions are dominated by that invisible, intangible cloud of LOVE that inhabits their Emotional underworld.
So why bother to understand the world of a child? First, because there is no adult who was never a child, and since every person’s life started in their childhood, in order to understand your adulthood, your personality and the reasons behind your current behavior and your mental wellness or illness, you need to begin by understanding how life felt for you when you were a child – how you sensed the world treated you, and how you responded to it. Secondly, in order to build a better future for our society, we need to understand the motivations behind our children’s behavior, and why some go astray while others, raised in the same environment, do not. Any new insights will give us clues into mental balance or imbalance, criminal behavior, substance abuse, suicide and more. Thirdly, given a proper understanding of the development of personality and behavior, we will be better able to treat, change or even predict and reverse certain character traits or mental problems. DOLF tells us we can accomplish this quite easily and routinely, just by changing the Emotional dynamics in the Family of Origin.
Bear in mind that the DOLF pattern of opposing personality development in siblings is very deeply entrenched into every human psyche since it is founded on pure human instinct. It is fixed, inescapable and as predictable as turtles swimming ashore to lay their eggs. It is universal and never fails to appear in every new human offspring, cutting across all social barriers such as socioeconomic status, color, creed, gender, intelligence and even ability / disability. It is entirely pervasive, obvious beyond reproach, and quite foolproof once we tune in and start to decipher its effects. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the DOLF behavior pattern exists in every child and in every family, and has been the standard course of human development throughout time and history.
Now after 40 years, having honed DOLF theory and built a concrete, easy-to-follow, quasi-mathematical model of how it functions, I offer it here to the public. Besides its predictability and universality, the formula relies on pure, unalterable human instinct. That is, DOLF BEHAVIOR ABSOLUTELY MUST TAKE PLACE IN THE SAME FORM IN EVERY FAMILY ON THIS EARTH. This might seem strange in the context of psychology, which has always been believed to be an inexact science because human nature and Emotion is considered to be necessarily “fuzzy” and unpredictable. To the contrary, I have found that human behavior is in fact very predictable. In fact, famous scientist, Stephen Hawking once quipped that he believed that “ALL of life can ultimately be brought down to pure mathematics”. Perhaps DOLF is the ultimate example.