The Pygmalion Effect: how children end up being the yearnings and fears of their parents.

Be careful what you wish for your children, because they could end up adopting certain roles.

The Pygmalion Effect is the phenomenon whereby adults' expectations and beliefs towards their children tend to be confirmed over time. over time.

The Pygmalion Effect in children

It is named after Pygmalion, an ancient king of Cyprus, who fell in love with a female statue he had created and implored Aphrodite to give the statue life. Aphrodite finally agreed to Pygmalion's demands, materializing his wish. Pygmalion married Galatea, which was the name of the woman born from the original statue, and had a daughter named Paphos.

Metaphorically, the Pygmalion Effect describes how parents, teachers and significant others can transfer or influence children's lifestyles, changing their abilities, tastes and behaviors.by changing their abilities, tastes and behaviors. These kinds of expectations placed on the child are transmitted through verbal and nonverbal language, and express both what we long for and what we reject.

Language can convey insecurity to the child

A good number of the messages we transmit are surreptitious, and operate in both the gestural and nonverbal domains. operate both in the gestural field and in the connotation of what we express.. Therefore, they differ from the verbal message that is transmitted, and the child is able to grasp that background feeling beyond the strictly verbal message. Without going any further, many messages sent to children may be of the type: "Behave like a man", "Be smarter", "You can't do this".

However, what is transmitted is the longing or fear expressed in the imperative form of language; the child apprehends what his or her role or behavior is to be (and more importantly: how it should not be). Thus, the real message the child gets is: "You are not man enough, prove it", "You are stupid", "You are going to fail". It is therefore crucial to try to describe more precisely what we feel, and to try to be sure of one's own feelings before expressing them.

In short, families often hold a number of unconscious beliefs unconscious beliefs (good or bad, constructive or (good or bad, constructive or limiting) regarding the future of each of their offspring. The tangible product of this aggregate of beliefs and desires is what is known as the Pygmalion Effect.

Research on the Pygmalion Effect

One of the studies on which the theory of the Pygmalion Effect is based was conducted in the United States. We worked with two groups of students, one of which was made up of students with superior intelligence and good academic grades, while the other was made up of students with below-average grades.. The teacher during the experimentation did not know the true origin of the students nor the criteria used to separate the students into two groups.

On the other hand, the teacher was given inverted information about the intellectual and academic performance of the students..

The teachers were informed that the first group (which consisted of the applied students) was made up of the worst students in the state. As for the second group (the mediocre students), the teachers were told that it was made up of students with a higher intellectual level, and that they obtained excellent grades.

After some time teaching, it was reported that the group of intellectually bright children suffered a noticeable drop in grades, while those who were academically poor significantly increased the quality of their grades.while those who had a poor academic level significantly increased the quality of their grades. Therefore, the conclusion is clear: the teacher's belief influenced their interaction and the students' achievement of academic goals. Thus, the belief about the students' ability resulted in a sort of "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Sometimes adults are aware of these expectations and longings placed on children, for example, they may be aware that they have had a child to avoid feeling lonely in old age, to solidify marital ties, to give meaning to life, to replace someone who died, to inherit a business, etc. Whether or not they are more aware of these reasons, the truth is that they develop a whole set of strategies aimed at maximizing the chances of these desires being fulfilled, from the name given to the baby, to the most unusual fantasies about its capabilities, its physique or its future vocation.

Belief as a protective element

Beliefs are so powerful that they can reverse the future of a person, who for example has a tendency towards a complicated and surly character, just by the influence of the reiteration of unconscious messages that has been heard and internalized during his childhood, and that marks the way on how his story should end or, in this case, a particular personality trait. In this way it has been possible to forge personalities and biographies that, far from essentialist mechanicism, have been consolidating their way of being and their goals hand in hand with the beliefs poured on them..

In this sense, it is important to point out that this influence of the family environment is capable of protecting the child in vulnerable social contexts, because from this point of view, trust is able to protect the child in a network of optimism about their capabilities and their future, acting as a vaccine against the virus of misfortune.

These good intentions born of love certainly have the capacity to build realities, as reflected in the unforgettable film "Life is Beautifulby Roberto Benigni. In the film we learned how it is possible to found an alternative realityWhen the father modulated the vision of events in his son, transforming the terrible experience of living through the war and the concentration camps of the Third Reich into an event full of challenges, challenges and games, with characters who played the role of villains, contributing decisively to save his carnal life, but above all his desire to live and to be able to face barbarism with fortitude.

How to avoid the harmful effects associated with the Pygmalion Effect

• Treat yourself through a process of self-exploration (psychotherapy or developmental techniques) to access deep, perhaps unconscious, expectations about your child(ren), as well as your perception of reality and the future.

• Release expectation-focused thoughts, using an effective method or discipline.

• Reframe some of the ways you look at your children and change the way you express yourself to each of them, physical proximity, recognizing genuine qualities and abilities, eliminating fantasy images of what we would want them to be or do.eliminating fantasy images of what we would like them to be or do. In short, try to respect the child's freedom to choose his or her dreams and aspirations as freely as possible.

• Accompany the child in his or her natural evolutionary process by means of expressive systems, such as art or music, which can make reformulations and perceptual modifications visible, thus developing the habit of self-observation.

• The methods based on family therapy can be effective in analyzing, predicting and intervening in the family's pre-set role in the birth of a child, the limiting conditionings and therefore indicate the path where the offspring will develop. Thanks to this methodology, we can assume the changes and modify the destiny of the child.

• As parents, we must learn strategies for our child to grow up with healthy self-esteem.