How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 260

Inferiority

meaningful activity. It's the development of
competence and skills, and a confidence to use a
'method', and is a crucial aspect of school years
'To make (= going
experience. Erikson described this stage as a
after)'
sort of 'entrance to life'. This correlates with
'To "make like" and Freud's psychosexual Latency stage, when
sexual motives and concerns are largely
complete things,
and to make things repressed while the young person concentrates
on work and skills development. A child who
together'
experiences the satisfaction of achievement - of
(To initiate projects anything positive - will move towards successful
negotiation of this crisis stage. A child who
or ideas, and to
experiences failure at school tasks and work, or
collaborate and
worse still who is denied the opportunity to
cooperate with
discover and develop their own capabilities and
others to produce
strengths and unique potential, quite naturally
something.)
is prone to feeling inferior and useless. Engaging
with others and using tools or technology are
also important aspects of this stage. It is like a
rehearsal for being productive and being valued
at work in later life. Inferiority is feeling useless;
unable to contribute, unable to cooperate or
work in a team to create something, with the
low self-esteem that accompanies such feelings.
Erikson knew this over fifty years ago. How is it
that the people in charge of children's education
still fail to realise this? Develop the child from
within. Help them to find and excel at what they
are naturally good at, and then they will achieve
the sense of purpose and industry on which
everything else can then be built.

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