The Truth Behind “The Easy Child” And “The Difficult Child”
Reality is much more complex than we think.
There’s this idea that some children are “easy” while others are “difficult”. Easy children are supposed to be nice and quiet, while difficult children tend to act out and create trouble.
“She was such an easy child”, some parents say. But what does that really mean? And why are some children “easy”?
Most importantly, is it really a good thing?
Let’s dive in.
We’re Shaped By The Environment We Grow Up In
The environment we grow up in plays a major role in the development of our personality. If our environment is overall safe and our caregivers can meet our emotional and physical needs, chances are we’ll have a balanced personality.
It doesn’t mean we’re perfect — it means most of our traits and beliefs are healthy because we were surrounded by people who supported our growth and modeled healthy ways of being. People who taught us how to set boundaries and how to cope with life even when things are not pleasant.
If, on the other hand, we live in a chaotic/stressful/emotionally unsafe environment where our parents are not able to meet our needs, we develop many unhealthy coping mechanisms:
- we become insecurely attached (anxious, avoidant, or fearful-avoidant) and it becomes very difficult for us to build secure, healthy, loving relationships;
- we learn to adapt by pretending to be someone we’re not in order to be loved and accepted;
- we become chronically sick because we’re in fight-or-flight mode and we’re constantly suppressing our feelings and emotions;
- our self-talk becomes very negative because we blame ourselves for everything and we feel unworthy of love, health, and success;
- we turn to people-pleasing as a way to earn love and affection (because we believe our worth stems from our ability to be nice and agreeable);
- we become workaholics — because we believe our worth comes from our achievements;
If you’re having an aha moment and you’re realizing some of these behavioral traits apply to you, please don’t judge yourself. You were simply trying to adapt and survive. You did what you had to do — and now you can choose to heal.
Different Children React Differently To Emotionally Immature Parenting
Both “easy” and “difficult” children are simply trying to cope with their parent’s inability to meet their needs. They just have different coping mechanisms.
“Easy” children cope by being nice, quiet, agreeable, and compliant because they believe that maybe if they behave this way, they’ll be able to avoid conflict and make their parents happy. They’re “easy” because they feel like their parents are not able to deal with their genuine feelings and emotions.
On the other hand, “difficult” children externalize their feelings in their own way. They don’t know how to self-soothe or ask for support because they were not modeled healthy relationships or coping mechanisms. Instead, they carry unresolved anger and get defensive/reactive when something triggers them.
In Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Dr. Lindsay Gibson explains this very well. The only difference is she uses the terms internalizers (“easy” children) and externalizers (“difficult” children):
“Internalizers don’t act out their emotions immediately, like externalizers do, so their feelings have a chance to intensify as they’re held inside.
When internalizers experience a painful emotion, they’re much more likely to look sad or cry — just the sort of display an emotionally phobic parent can’t stand. On the other hand, when externalizers have strong feelings, they act them out in behavior before they experience much internal distress. Therefore, other people are likely to see externalizers as having a behavior problem, even though emotions are causing the behavior.
And while externalizers are told that their behavior is the problem, internalizers get the message that their very nature is the problem.
When internalizing children have self-involved parents, they often think that being helpful and hiding their needs will win their parents’ love. Unfortunately, being counted on isn’t the same thing as being loved. No child can be good enough to evoke love from a highly self-involved parent.
Children who try to be good enough to win their parents’ love have no way of knowing that unconditional love cannot be bought with conditional behavior.”
These labels can have many consequences on our mental health and well-being.
Securely attached children are neither easy nor difficult. They don’t feel the need to act out or please everyone because they feel unconditionally loved and supported.
They know home is a source of love, peace, and comfort — not pain, anxiety, and conflict.