What Life Could Mean to You

by Alfred Adler

  The path he chooses to follow will depend on the impressions and sensations he receives from his environment and from his own body, and on the interpretation he makes of these impressions and sensations. Especially it will depend on his education.

  It is the same with the inheritance of mental faculties, though perhaps the evidence is not so clear. The greatest factor in the development of mental faculties is interest; and we have seen how interest is blocked, not through heredity, but through discouragement and the fear of defeat. It is doubtless true that brain structure is in some degree inherited; but the brain is the instrument not the origin of the mind; and, if the deficiency is not too severe for us to repair in the present state of our knowledge, the brain can be trained to compensate for the deficiency. Behind every exceptional degree of ability we shall find, not an exceptional heredity, but a long interest and training.

  Even where we find families which have contributed many gifted members to society in more than one generation, we need not suppose any hereditary influence at work. We may suppose, rather, that the success of one member of the family acted as a stimulus to the others, and that the family traditions enabled the children to follow their interests and train them through exercise and practice. So, for example, when we learn that the great chemist, Liebig, was the son of a drugstore proprietor, we have no need to imagine that his ability in chemistry was inherited. It is sufficient if we know that his environment allowed him to pursue his interest; and that at an age when most children understand nothing at all of chemistry he had already familiarized himself with a great deal of his subject. Mozart's parents were interested in music; but Mozart's talent was not inherited. His parents wished him to be interested in music and provided him with every encouragement. His whole environment from the earliest age was musical. We generally find among outstanding men this fact of an "early start": they played the piano at the age of four, or they wrote stories for the other members of the family when they were still very small. Their interest was long and continuous.

  Their training was spontaneous and widespread. They kept their courage and did not hesitate or remain back-ward.

  No teacher can succeed in removing the limits a child has set to his own development if he himself believes that there are fixed limits to development. It may ease his position if he can say to a child, “You have no gift for mathematics”; but it can do nothing but discourage the child.

  I myself have had some experience in this way. I was for a few years the mathematical dunce of my school class, quite convinced that I lacked all talent for mathematics. Fortunately I found myself one day, to my own astonishment, able to complete a problem which had stumped my schoolmaster. The success changed my whole attitude towards mathematics. Where previously I had withdrawn my interest from the whole subject, now I began to enjoy it and use every opportunity for increasing my ability. In consequence I became one of the best mathematicians in my school. The experience helped me, think, to see the fallacy of theories of special talents or inborn capacities.

  Even in a crowded class we can observe the differences between the children and we can handle them better if we understand their characters than if they remain an undistinguished mass. Crowded classes, however, are certainly a disadvantage. The problems of some of the children are concealed and it is difficult to treat them rightly. A teacher should know all of his pupils intimately or he will not be able to establish interest and cooperation. I think that it is a great help if the children have the same teacher for several years. In some schools the teacher changes every six months or so. No teacher is given much opportunity to live with the children, to see their problems and follow their development. If a teacher stayed with the same children for three or four years, he could more easily find out and remedy mistakes in a child's style of life; and it would be easier, also, to create from the class a cooperative social unit.

  It is not often an advantage for a child to skip a class; he is generally burdened with expectations which he does not fulfill. Perhaps promoting a child to a higher class should be considered if he is too old for his classmates or if he develops quicker than the other children in his class. If the class is a unit, however, as we have suggested that it should be, the successes of one member are an advantage to the others. Where there are brilliant children in a class, the progress of the whole class can be accelerated and heightened; and it is unfair to the other members to deprive them of such a stimulus. I should rather recommend that an unusually quick pupil should be given other activities and interests — painting, for example — in addition to the ordinary tasks of the class.

  His successes in these activities would also widen the interests of the other children and encourage them to go forward.

  It is still more unfortunate if children repeat their classes. Every schoolteacher will agree that children who repeat classes are generally a problem in school and at home. It is not always so; a small minority can repeat a class without giving us any problem at all. The great majority of children who repeat classes, however, always remain backward and problematic. They are not well thought of by their fellow children and they have a pessimistic view of their own capacities. This is a difficult question and in our present school routine we cannot easily escape from letting children repeat classes. Some teachers have managed to make it unnecessary for backward children to repeat classes by making use of the vacation to train the children to recognize the mistakes in their style of life. When the mistakes have been recognized, the children could proceed through the next class with every success. Indeed, this is the only way in which we can really help the backward child; by letting him see the mistakes he has made in his estimate of his own capacities, we can set him free to progress by his own efforts.

  Wherever I have seen the children divided into grades of quicker and slower pupils and put into different classes, I have noticed one outstanding fact. My experience has been mainly in Europe and I cannot tell whether the same observation would hold good for America. In the slower grades I have found together feeble-minded children and children who came from poor homes. In the quicker grades I have found mainly the children of richer parents. This fact seems intelligible enough. In the poorer homes the preparation of the children is not so good. The parents are confronted with too many difficulties; they cannot spare so much time to prepare their children and perhaps they are not well enough educated themselves to help them. I do not think, however, that children who are not well prepared for school should be placed in slower classes.

  A well-trained teacher will know how to correct their lack of preparation and they will gain from association with children who are better prepared. If they are placed in slower grades, they are generally quite aware of the fact; and the children in the quicker grades know it too, and Look down on the others. This is fertile ground for discouragement and strivings for personal superiority.

  In principle, coeducation deserves every support. It is an excellent means for boys and girls to know each other better and to learn to cooperate with the other sex. Those who believe that coeducation meets all problems, however, are making a great error. Coeducation provides a special problem of its own; and unless the special problem is recognized and dealt with as a problem, the distance between the sexes is greater with coeducation than without it. One of the difficulties, for example, is that girls develop quicker than boys until their sixteenth year.

  If the boys do not understand this, it is difficult for them to preserve their self-esteem. They see themselves excelled by the girls and grow disheartened. In later life they are afraid of competition with the other sex, because they remember their defeat. A teacher who is in favor of coeducation and understands its problems can accomplish a great deal through it, but if he does not wholly approve of it and is not interested in it, he will fail. Another difficulty is that if the children are not properly trained and supervised sexual problems are sure to arise. The question of sexual education in school is very complicated. The classroom is not the r
ight place for sexual education; if a teacher speaks to the whole class he has no means of knowing that each child understands him in. the right way. He may thus arouse interests without knowing whether the children are prepared for them or how they will adapt them to their own style of life. Of course, if a child wishes to know more and asks him questions in private, the teacher should give him true and straightforward answers. He has the opportunity, then, of judging what the child really wants to know and setting him on the way to a correct solution. It is a disadvantage, however, if there are always discussions about sex in a class. Some of the children are sure to misunderstand; and it is not useful to treat sex as a matter of no great importance.

  For anyone who is trained in the understanding of children, it is easy to distinguish different types and styles of life. The child's degree of cooperation can be seen in his posture, in the way he looks and listens, in the distance he keeps from other children, in the ease with which he makes friends, in his capacity for attention and concentration. If he forgets his tasks or loses his schoolbooks, we can gather that he is not interested in his work. We must find the reason why school is distasteful to him. If he does not join in the games of the other children, we can recognize his feeling of isolation and his interest in himself. If he always wishes to be helped in his work, we can see his lack of independence and his desire to be supported by others.

  Some children work only if they are praised and appreciated. Many pampered children succeed very well in their school work so long as they can gain the attention of their teachers. If they lose this position of special consideration, trouble begins. They cannot proceed unless they have an audience; if there is no one to watch them their interest stops.

  Often for such children mathematics offers a great challenge and difficulty. While they are only asked to memorize a few rules or sentences, they acquit themselves admirably; but as soon as they must solve a Problem by themselves they are quite at a loss. This may seem a small fault; but it is the child who is always claiming the support and the attention of others who represents the greatest danger to our common life. If the attitude remains unchanged, he will continue in adult life always to need and demand the support of others. Whenever a problem confronts him, he will respond by an action designed to force others to solve it for him. He will go through life making no contribution to the welfare of others but being, as far as he can, a permanent liability to his fellows.

  Another type of child who desires to be the center of attention, if the position is not accorded him, will try to gain it by mischief-making, by disturbing the whole class, by corrupting the other children, and by being a general nuisance to everybody. Reproaches and punishments will not alter him; he revels in them. He would rather be thrashed than overlooked; and the pains that ensue on his conduct are no more than the price that he pays for his pleasure. Many children are only challenged to continue in their style of life by punishment. They regard it as a contest or game to see who can hold out longest; and they can always win, because the issue is in their own hands. So children who are fighting with their parents or teachers will sometimes train themselves to laugh when they are punished, instead of crying.

  A lazy child, unless his laziness is a direct attack on his parents and teachers, is almost always an ambitious child who is afraid of defeat. Success is a word differently understood by everybody; and it is sometimes astonishing to find out what a child regards as a defeat. There are many people who think themselves defeated if they are not ahead of all others. Even if they are successful, they consider it a defeat if someone has done still better. A lazy child never experiences the real feeling of defeat because he never faces a test. He excludes the problem before him and postpones the decision whether he could compete with others.

  Everybody else is more or less sure that if he were less lazy he could meet his difficulties. He takes refuge in that blissful country, “If only I tried, I could accomplish anything." Whenever he fails, he can diminish the importance of his failure and keep his self-esteem. He can say to himself, “It is only laziness, not lack of capacity."

  Sometimes teachers will say to a lazy pupil, “If you would work harder, you could be the most brilliant pupil in the class." If he can gain such a reputation by doing nothing, why should he risk losing it by working? Perhaps if he stopped being lazy, his reputation for hidden brilliance would come to an end. He would be judged on his accomplishments, not on what he might have achieved. Another personal advantage for the lazy child is that if he does the least bit of work, he is praised for it. Everyone sees a hint of reformation in his activity and is eager to stimulate him further. The same piece of work from an industrious child would never even have been noticed. In this way a lazy child lives on the expectations of other people. He, too, is a pampered child who has trained himself from babyhood to expect everything to come from the efforts of others.

  Another type of child, always present and easy to recognize, is the child who takes the lead amongst his fellow children. Mankind has real need of leaders, but only of men who lead in the interests of all others; and such leadership we do not often find. Most children who take the lead are interested only in situations where they can rule and dominate others and will join in with their fellows only on these conditions. Such a type, therefore, is not a type with favorable auspices. Difficulties are bound to occur in later life; and where it is not tragic, it is comic to see the meeting, in marriage, in business or in social relations of two such leaders. Each is looking for an opportunity of dominating the other and establishing his own superiority. Sometimes the older members of a family enjoy seeing a pampered child try to boss them and tyrannize over them. They laugh at him and urge him on. Teachers, however, can soon see that it is not a character development which is advantageous for social life.

  There will always be varieties among children, and it is not in the slightest degree our aim to cut them all to pattern or make so many blocks of wood out of them. We wish, however, to prevent the developments which obviously lead towards defeat and difficulty: and these developments are comparatively easy to correct or prevent in childhood. Where they have not been corrected, the social consequences in adult life are severe and damaging. The line between childhood mistakes and adult failures is direct. The child who has not learned to cooperate is the neurotic, the drunkard, the criminal or the suicide of later years. The anxiety-neurotic was terrified of the dark, or of strange people, or of new situations. The melancholiac was a cry-baby. We cannot, in our present society, hope to reach all the parents and help them to avoid mistakes. The parents who most need advice are the parents who never come for it. We can hope, however, to reach all the teachers and through them to reach all the children; to correct the mistakes which have already been made and to train the children for an independent, courageous and cooperative life. In this work, it seems to me, lies the greatest promise for the future welfare of mankind.

  It was with this aim in view that I started to develop, some fifteen years ago, the Advisory Councils in Individual Psychology which have proved so valuable in Vienna and in many other cities of Europe. It is well enough to have high ideals and great hopes; but if a method is not found the ideals all prove worthless. After the experiences of these fifteen years, I think I may say that these Advisory Councils have proved a complete success and offer us the best instrument we possess for dealing with the problems of childhood and educating children to be responsible fellow men. Naturally, I am convinced that Advisory Councils will succeed best if they are grounded in Individual Psychology; but I can see no reason why they should not cooperate with psychologists of other schools. Indeed, I have always advocated that Advisory Councils should be established in connection with each different school of psychology, and a comparison made of the results obtained by each school.

  In the method of the Advisory Council, a well-trained psychologist who is experienced in the difficulties of teachers, parents and children joins with the teachers of a school and discusses with them th
e problems that have arisen in their work. When he visits the school, one or other of the teachers describes the case of a child and the problem he offers. The child is lazy, perhaps, or quarrelsome, plays truant, steals or is backward in his work. The psychologist contributes his own experiences and a discussion follows. The family life and character and development of the child are described. The circumstances in which the problem first occurred are mentioned. The teachers and the psychologist inquire what the reasons for the problem may be and how it should be dealt with. Since they are experienced, they soon come to a common conclusion.

  On the day of the visit both mother and child are in attendance. After they have decided how it is best to speak to the mother and how they can influence her and Show her the reason for the child's failure, the mother is called in. The mother has more information to contribute; and a discussion begins between the psychologist and the mother, in which he suggests what can be done to help the child. Generally the mother is very glad of the opportunity for consultation and is prepared to cooperate. If she resists, the psychologist or the teachers can discuss similar cases and draw conclusions from them which she can apply to her own child.