Industry versus Inferiority

Struggling with conflicts and choosing to be strong has been my life story. And probably yours, too. And my hope, if you are a parent (or teacher) reading this, you will try to understand the specific needs your child has at specific times in his/her life. Yes, a child has struggles. They need you!

I posted this tutorial on lifestyle development for you to have an introduction into Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. My focus will on one of these eight stages, "Industry vs Inferiority." Mine took place in the early 60's.

In an article written in PsychPoint by GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC, she says of Erikson's beliefs as follows:

*Personality development continues throughout life

*Personality lessons and growth can be reversed or challenged

The stages explain how social interactions guide a person’s course of development.

The Industry versus Inferiority challenge or struggle typically occurs from age six until puberty. This is why it is called the School-Aged Stage. Mostly the elementary years of a child. It takes place when the child is expected to be independent of parents in a new environment for the first time. And they are expected to accomplish many new tasks in that new environment. How well they meet their goals will follow them throughout life.

My time began in late 1961 when my parents, my baby brother, and I arrived back into the United States from Canary Islands after two years of my father being work-stationed in the Sahara Desert for a petroleum company. I was seven years old. I spoke fluent Castilian Spanish and had been in a local school where I read and wrote the native language well, too. My parents enrolled me in a second grade class in Houston, Texas that year. I will never forget that experience.

In another article, this one written by Kendra Cherry and medically reviewed, in 'Very Well Mind,' the author explains my conflict challenge then as follows:

"Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments and abilities. Children need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority."

The classroom was full and I was brought to the front of the class to be introduced to the students already in attendance. This was tough. I always remember being an introvert and being shy. But it got worse as the day progressed. We began reading class. One by one students were called up to the front to read a small excerpt from a story. The story was about squirrels, strange as I can recall that vividly. When it became my time, I tried. I stammered and struggled though each incomprehensible word while the other children laughed and finally the teacher asked me to take my seat again. I wanted to die. I knew how to read, but it wasn't my language. It wasn't in Spanish and those English words were a jumble of mess to me. I was humiliated and ashamed. I guess my parents had never realized I couldn't read English! I was placed back into a first grade class to master the English reading and writing the next day.

In Houston, Texas there are always children of Mexican descent in classrooms. My parents had no idea I would have problems with relating to them. After all, we spoke Spanish, didn't we? Yes and no. Their dialect and mine were very different. I spoke with proper and not common terms, my pronunciation was not theirs, either. And they laughed. Again, I was humiliated and ashamed. From then on, I refused to speak that language. My parents prodded me and were perplexed and disappointed at my stubbornness.

By high school, I had regretted my decision of not keeping the language up, and even though I enrolled in Spanish class to "re-learn" the language, thinking that it would easily return, it didn't. My mind had blocked it. I barely passed that class.

I'm not angry at my parents. I wasn't angry with them back then. It was the sixties. There were no internet how-to resources back in those days. They had their own challenges like taking care of a toddler and finding work. No wonder they had never heard me try to read English. I was their first-born, the trial and error child. And they certainly didn't expect their American, bilingual daughter to be an ESL (English as Second Language) student.

But what I learned about myself in retrospect was that I didn't like feeling humiliated or shameful. I was head-strong in my decisions, even at seven years of age. I don't remember feeling "dumb," just dumbfounded at my predicament. I set out to learn to read and write English with a vengeance. Hence, it became one of my strongest academic accomplishments after that. And I became a lover of the English language and books.