What’s behind bossy behavior in children? | Dr. Gordon Neufeld on Alpha Children

0:00 We're having an escalating problem with alpha children in North America. Children who tell their parents what to do, try and get their parents to listen, who are demanding, prescriptive, bossy, controlling, and who are often that with their friends. They appear as if they're strong and independent. But something is dreadfully a miss. When we put the puzzle pieces together about attachment, we find that we attach in one of two ways, one of two modalities. There's a dependent modality to look up to to seek comfort in uh to follow uh to look uh for direction and then there's the alpha mode which is to be to be the answer to all of this to give direction to take charge. It's that generous kind of presentation uh where you present yourself as not having the answers but you are the answer to the dependency needs and this is a beautiful attachment dance. The problem is that when it's not safe to depend or when the parent does not find their good alpha instincts of taking charge, what happens is a child can only attach through in a sense going on top. And these children by the time they're three years of age become bossy, prescriptive. They're alpha children.

1:11 They have an alpha complex. And so this is rampant in our society. In traditional societies, culture scripts this alpha presence. And so the children naturally fall into this wonderful dependent looking up to seeking uh kind of dance. And so the answer is very simply make it safe to depend upon you for your child and find those alpha instincts in you. Not lording it over the child but being able to find yourself as the answer to what your child needs. When you see your child is in need of you and you present yourself as the answer to that needs, it corrects the dance and the child begins to depend rather than to climb on