From time to time in our lives, we all experience feelings of being an "outsider" within a particular group of people. These are usually isolated episodes that happen, for example, upon our joining a new club or beginning a new job during an initial break-in period, when we are getting to know the people there. They are specific, "local" experiences that are part and parcel of learning to adjust to a new group of people. Once we become bonded with the group, however, these feelings of discomfort naturally fade away. It is when an individual continues to feel distance between himself and others and cannot move beyond this familiarization stage that some form of intimacy dysfunction has taken root. It is therefore imperative that we as parents make our children feel wholly welcome into our lives as unique, autonomous individuals, and to guide them toward full participation in the workings of the family group. This is how our children will learn self-acceptance, as well as the emotional skills they will need to bond with others in the larger human community. Strong feelings of "inclusion" within the family unit helps children avoid potential problems they may have of feeling like an "outsider" in their individual and group relationships later on in life.

There are two principal types of inclusion and its associated feelings within an individual that are attributable to human relationships. The first involves intimacy. People who are capable of true intimacy have the majority of their emotions functioning properly. Their feelings are not repressed, hidden away in the deep recesses of their psyches and thus unavailable for use. They possess solid self-esteem and are self-confident enough to reveal their true feelings, and are not devastated when those feelings are occasionally rejected. Hurt? Yes. But devastated? No, not to the point of severe depression or compulsive "mood-altering" in order to change the way they feel. We have our intimate relationships with our families, lovers, and very good friends. The second kind of inclusion and its associated feelings involves our social "connectedness." When we feel like we are part of the human community, like we fit in at work and are part of a team reaching for a common goal, and when we feel a general sense of good will toward our fellow man and are comfortable in social situations, like we "belong" in the society in which we live: These are the hallmarks of a healthy socialization process that took place in childhood and has been carried with us into adulthood. Like two sides of the same coin, they are not really separate aspects of inclusion as much as they are two outlets for the expression of our ability to connect with other people. It is helpful, however, to look at inclusion as having two distinct parts. Because, as we shall see, for some people there can be a dysfunction in one while not in the other.

The primary way that people learn how to be intimate with others is through proper nurturing in childhood. One description of this idea is the psychological theory of "attachment." The attachment theory says, in effect, that the ways in which we relate to others in adulthood can be traced back to the ways in which we were or were not properly bonded with or "attached" to our primary caregiver. This can be a man or a woman, but in our society, it is usually the mother. When the primary caregiver is empathetic and responsive to the child's needs and is able to give time and attention, gentle touch, and warm affection in abundant amounts, the child will respond by learning to trust the caregiver. This effective parental nurturing will express itself in the formation of a healthy "interpersonal bridge" between caregiver and child. As a result, the child will feel safe enough to express all of his feelings openly, and learn empathy for the needs of others by example. He will also feel secure enough to begin exploring the world around him, returning to his caregiver from time to time to renew those feelings of security and trust. As children mature, they naturally increase the time spent away from the parent in an ever-widening radius of investigation into their exciting new world.

In his book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, John Bradshaw stresses the necessity of a strong interpersonal bridge between parent and child and how that bridge is the basis for learning to trust other people:

The relationship between child and caretaker gradually evolves out of reciprocal interest along with shared experiences of trust . . . As trust grows, an emotional bond is formed . . . This bond becomes an interpersonal bridge between parent and child. The emotional bond allows the child to risk venturing out to explore the world . . . The bridge is the foundation for mutual growth and understanding . . . The other person, our primary caregiver, becomes significant in the sense that that person's love, respect, and care for us really matters. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable in that we allow ourselves to need the other person.

There is a paradox in nurturing our children well so that they can attach to us in emotionally intimate ways: Eventually, and only with proper attachment in childhood, will our children feel secure enough in adulthood to head off into the world with confidence and vigor. In other words, our children must bond strongly to us in order to leave us! It is often those children who were not properly attached in childhood who remain in the parents home long after they should have ventured out into the world to stake their own claim. Or they are the ones who allow their parents to control or influence decisions in their lives in areas where the parents have no business being involved. I wonder: Are such young adults still trying to achieve a secure attachment with their parents by remaining tied to them in these "enmeshed" parent/adult-child relationships? Are they still trying to gain the confidence from the parent that they need in order to separate and emotionally make it on their own?

In their booklet, The First Years Last Forever, the I Am Your Child Foundation espouses the importance of proper attachment in infancy:

When children receive warm, responsive care, they are more likely to feel safe and secure with the adults who take care of them. Researchers call these strong relationships "secure attachments," and they are the basis for all the child's future relationships. We have always known that children thrive when they feel secure; now we know that children's early attachments actually affect they way their brains work and grow.

L. Alan Sroufe, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota have found that children who receive warm and responsive caregiving and are securely attached to their caregivers cope with difficult times more easily when they are older. They are more curious, get along better with other children, and perform better in school than children who are less securely attached.

So our children "get along better with other children" when they have been shown responsive, loving care in infancy. Makes sense to me. In a rudimentary way, they have learned to feel comfortable in their first relationship with another human being. They have internalized the feeling that their caregivers are safe and can be trusted to respond to them with an air of good will. And they will naturally transfer these feelings to the other relationships in their lives. A secure attachment to the parent in early childhood also helps children develop a sense of self-love and self-confidence because they are being shown that every part of them is acceptable and lovable. The areas in the brain where these healthy emotions take place are stimulated to greater growth because of all this positive caregiving, which causes children to approach life with an even greater spirit of optimism, thus reinforcing the entire process. Attentive, patient, loving care in infancy, then, is the first step in helping our children feel like they belong to the larger human community - beginning first with the relationship to their "source figure," on through the family group, and out into society.

In order for a child to feel included in the parent's "world," the primary caregiver (or caregivers) must first be attentive to the child's physical needs, caring for him or her with patience and understanding and not becoming angry for being awakened "at all hours of the night," for instance. Beyond mere attentiveness to the child's physical needs, however, it is crucial that the child begin to feel irreplaceable to the parent. This is accomplished quite naturally for emotionally healthy parents by taking delight in the child's very existence and the resulting demeanor with which the child is cared for. When a child is cared for with a spirit of joy - always being rocked and cooed and sang to, and with all the accompanying expressions of wonder and excitement on the parent's face - he or she begins to feel true acceptance and inclusion into the caregivers world. Contrary to the old wives tales and outdated religious admonitions, it is not possible to spoil a child with love. Infants thrive on love, both emotionally and physically, as the new data indicates.

When the primary caregiver treats an infant with an air of indifference or even like a nuisance, however - not coming when he crys, or becoming angry at her for being so needy (by nature, not by choice) - the child will begin to feel as though he is an unwanted burden to the caregiver. As a result, this child will most likely not develop feelings of being "included" in the caregiver's world. Such children will often emotionally "detach" from their caregivers as they begin to move into their own psychological world: a place that is separate and safe from the bad feelings they derive from their caregiver's negativity and/or neglect. And because of an innate egocentrism at this developmental stage, children commonly "interpret" this negative treatment as something for which they are responsible because of a basic "unlovability" about them. Although they cannot understand it or even consciously formulate this thought, many improperly attached children begin to feel like flawed and defective human beings who are not worthy of being loved. If you carry these feelings inside you - that you are inherently flawed and not worthy of being loved - chances are that your primary caregivers did not give you the love and attentiveness that you needed in order to attach to them well in childhood.

Children who do not attach properly to their primary caregivers will be psychologically impacted in significant ways throughout their lives. Some of these children will fail to develop the desire to interact with others in more than a superficial way, or only in ways that are intended to get their needs met. They are unconcerned with the needs of others. These are the loners, the introverts, the children who do not need or want the company of other children. They are entirely happy working or playing by themselves and are disinterested in the emotional lives of other people. They often appear uncomfortable in group situations, and may even become angry and aggressive when pressured into interacting with others.

Oddly enough, my neighbor is an example of someone who possesses little or no interest in connecting with other human beings. After living next door to him for over four years, I know virtually nothing about him, as do my other neighbors because he won't talk to us. I watch him with great curiosity as he goes about his business, always alone, leaving for work at seven o'clock sharp each morning and returning at six thirty. I often wonder if this kind of solitary life is even worth living. Apparently it is for him, because he shows an interest in life by keeping up his yard, taking daily walks after work, sunning himself in the summer time. He takes pride in his appearance, his home, and his vehicle, as well. He simply lives his life alone. I tried to make a connection with him when I first moved in, but I could tell that he wasn't interested in talking to me. Initially, I thought that it was me that he didn't like. But my other neighbors told me that he never talks to anyone, that he's just a loner. I can't help but wonder as I look at him through my window from time to time: What could have gone wrong during the time of his "psychological birth" that would cause him to be so disconnected from the remainder of his species? I guess I'll never know.

There are many people with less severe attachment problems than my neighbor - people who desire the company of others, but because of their poor social skills and/or feelings of low self-esteem, have difficulty finding and maintaining human connections. This is an example of the most common sort of attachment problem that causes millions of people to enter therapy every day. Children with this level of attachment dysfunction have a far better chance of learning how to bond with others than in the case of the first group, that is, with the right kind of help for both themselves and their caregivers.

I would say that my neighbor mentioned above is someone with a relatively severe attachment problem. But even though he has no interest in connecting with other human beings, most people would still consider him to be a constructive member of society. There are other individuals with severe attachment problems, however, who are far less harmless. Attachment disordered children of this sort are markedly aggressive toward other children. Because of the combination of their internalized anger and lack of empathy for others, they tend to exhibit bullying and taunting behaviors. They "act out" on others their unconsciousness anger and loneliness for not feeling wanted and cherished by their primary caregivers. With no inner compass of self-value to guide them toward feelings of camaraderie for other children, they lash out at the world. And bring emotional or even physical destruction to the world of people - just as their core selves were destroyed by the very people from whom they were supposed to have been given unconditional love.

In an article published by Regional Research for Human Services, one mother recounts her experience with her severely attachment disordered child. She laments that her child is:

Cruel to animals, defiant, hyperactive, senselessly destructive, forgetful, a thief and lying about the obvious. People who don't know him well are instantly deceived. They see a handsome, charming, well-mannered, innocent, blue-eyed boy. This 'innocent' intruder is sneaky, manipulative, superficial, and always blames someone or something else for his problems. He has an uncanny knack for determining how to irritate me most. There is no remorse when he does wrong.

When I first read the description of this boy as a "handsome, charming, well-mannered, innocent, blue-eyed boy," it reminded me of the descriptions of Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer. His charm and "innocence" is what enabled him to get close enough to so many women that he could assault, rape, and kill them. So outside charm, then, is no indication of how "intimacy functional" a person is, as many people in the dating world soon discover. So just teaching our children manners, as is so often stressed by parents, will do little to benefit their lives if their good manners are not also backed up by an ability to be genuine in their relationships with others. And that ability to be genuine is taught only through warm human contact during our children's formative years.

Just today, I saw a woman vehemently spanking her son, who looked to be about four years old, on the front porch of the house next door to where I was visiting. She then dragged him kicking and screaming to her car, threw him into the back seat like a rag doll, and slammed the door behind him (needless to say, no seatbelt). As she walked around the car to climb into the driver's seat, she was so mad that both her teeth and her fists were clenched. Then she sped off, her anger now being expressed in the form of aggressive driving. Now what could a four-year-old child have done to make someone this mad? Nothing, I would suggest. He was probably just being a kid, maybe acting up a bit (or even a lot). All this anger is something that the mother carries within her - anger that she likely "inherited" from an angry parent and is passing along to her son because of this dehumanizing treatment.

Besides my own anger at the mother, all that I could think of as I watched this episode was what was going inside the child's brain. He was vigorously being taught that people cannot be trusted, and that it is probably a good idea to keep his distance from others in order to keep from being hurt. I envisioned the neuronal connections in the fear, anger, and aggression centers of his brain growing like wildfire; areas that, when thus strengthened, will likely cause him to express angry and aggressive behaviors toward others in the future. I ask you: What chance does a child who is abused like this have of growing up to feel like a valid, contributing member of his family, and by extension, the human community? What chance will he have of learning how to form intimate, emotionally healthy relationships with other people? And if this is his typical treatment at the hands of his sadistic mother, what are the chances that he will be able work through his resulting rage so that it does not destroy his life or the lives of others?

Studies have shown that infant children have an uncanny ability to pick up on the emotions coming from the world around them, even when the emotions are not aimed directly at them. So if you are extremely angry at your child, or even at someone or something else, it is important that you not care for him or her while you are in that distressed state. If your child's need is something that cannot wait, then take several deep breaths and put your anger aside while you care for your child with empathy and love. Even the negative energy of loud arguing in the next room can be "absorbed" by children. To be sure, no family is perfect. But if there is a lot of turmoil in our household, it is important that we continually strive to have healthier spousal and parent/child relationships so that our children can learn to thrive, emotionally, in an environment of joy, cooperation, and good will.

Traditionally, the focus has been on the ages of birth to 3 years old as the window of opportunity for children to establish "secure attachments" to their caregivers. But clearly, all the emotionally generous parenting that allowed us to attach well to our young children must continue on if we don't want all that early bonding to go for naught. Emotionally generous parenting is not something that we can do in infancy and young childhood, then say: "Well, my children are attached to me, so now I can relax." Our children need our continuing love and support throughout their lives. At any point along the way in their maturation process (and even into adulthood), if we are not empathetic to their needs, the parent/child bond can begin to deteriorate.

In psychology, there is a term that is used to describe our basic human need to be loved and valued just for who we are, not for any potential we may have or for what others may imagine us to be. As previously mentioned, John Bradshaw calls this our "being need": the need to be accepted without qualification for who we are right now! The way that infants learn to feel loved and valued is through the fulfillment of their "narcissistic needs." In Greek mythology, Narcissus is a young god who is condemned to fall in love with his own beautiful reflection in a crystal blue lake. The story has traditionally been used to illustrate the idea that self-love is a negative personality trait that should be avoided at all cost. The story can be interpreted in another way, however, as an allegory for our psychological birth: a healthy recognition of our emerging "self" and our accompanying feelings of empathy and respect for who we are. There is a need for self-love in each of us. When we possess strong feelings of self-value, it actually allows us to take our attention away from ourselves and focus it on others, as well as what we want to accomplish with our lives. It is a seeming paradox, but it is those people with little self-love who are always looking for others to value them for things like outside appearance, abilities, accomplishments, or what have you as a way to feel good about themselves. Vanity and conceit are not self-love; they are a compensation strategy for a lack of true self-value. And they never work to bolster our self-esteem because there is no substitute for self-love.

There are actually a variety of needs that fall under the heading of our "narcissistic needs." In infancy, the primary narcissistic need is to feel irreplaceable to the parent, which is the result of being cheerfully and attentively cared for. As children mature, their narcissistic needs expand into things like needing to be admired, which comes from praising by the caregiver; needing to be understood and taken seriously, which comes from empathy and good listening; and the need for emotional support, which comes from encouraging the child when he or she is facing a challenge. Since infants do not naturally know how to feel about themselves except by reacting to the emotional and visual cues of their caregivers, the responsibility falls entirely upon the shoulders of the caregivers to instill feelings self-value in their child. All of this good nurturing forms the basis for a secure attachment between caregiver and child, which instills in the child feelings of inclusion in the "caregiver's world."

In his book, Bradshaw On: The Family, John Bradshaw writes of the crucial nature of having our narcissistic needs met at the earliest stages of life.

Children need to have their healthy narcissistic needs met . . . the infant child's inner sensations form the core of the child's self. These earliest sensations come from the mother's [or mothering figure's] feelings about the child. Since the child is non-verbal, everything depends on feelings. These early feelings about the self are the core out of which the child's self-esteem will be formed.

In my own experience, I believe that I was attached fairly well to my mother in infancy. In other words, my mother was able to "give" her good feelings to me and thus, at least to some degree, fulfill my healthy narcissistic needs. So I had a reasonable start to my psychological development during my early years. But as I began to grow into an autonomous, independent individual in young childhood, my developmental needs began to be ignored because my mother has little ability to relate to other individuals except through "the prism of her self." That is precisely why she is so "good with animals and young children," as the cliche goes, because they do not possess a strong, separate "self;" they are more like an extension of her own "self." My mother developed this way because she was "narcissistically deprived" by her mother - another self-absorbed caregiver with little ability to encourage and take delight in her children's independent thoughts and accomplishments.

In Bradshaw On: The Family, John Bradshaw warns that when the primary caregiver's narcissistic needs were not met in childhood, the resulting void often becomes a driving force behind that caregiver's relationship with his or her child:

Parents who never had these needs met are themselves needy. They therefore cannot give to their children what they do not have themselves. When the mothering persons have been deprived of their own healthy narcissism, they will try to get it for the rest of their lives through substitute means . . . If parents never got their narcissistic needs met, they will use their children as objects of narcissistic gratification. When this is the case, the children intuit very early on that they must take care of the parents' emotional needs if they are to survive.

In my mother's case, her "substitute means" for achieving her narcissistic gratification is to get any person that she can, including her own children, to listen to her and give her the attention she did not receive as a child. So although I had a reasonably good "mirror" in infancy, as I began to grow into psychological separateness, I had that mirror ripped away from me. At a tender age when I sincerely needed her continuing support and comfort, I was forced into the role of being my mother's mirror. And thus I entered into a particularly destructive relationship with my mother, known by psychologists as a "double bind." Not only were my developmental needs for attention and approval being neglected, I was further being used by my "source figure" - the one who was supposed to fulfill those needs in me - to meet her unmet needs. (I would still be being used in this manner if I allowed it to go on.) Do you see why this is called a "double bind"? Number one, the child's developmental needs are being ignored. And number two, the child's limited emotional resources are being used up, if you will, to meet the needs of the caregiver. As you will read later on, this emotionally draining early environment created a large number of emotional problems for my brothers and me. But I must say, my mother in no way used us to meet her emotional needs out of any sense of malice or conscious selfishness. She simply does not know that she is doing it. And she continues to do it because no amount of self-praise will ever make up for what she missed in childhood. I know that she loves her children dearly; she simply does not possess the emotional resources to nurture other human beings in significant ways.

I believe that the most severe negative consequence of poor attachment in childhood and the resulting inability to connect with other human beings is a profound sense of loneliness. We all experience feelings of loneliness from time to time, but the loneliness that can dominate the lives of people with an intimacy dysfunction, as well as people who feel a sense of "social exclusion," can be almost paralyzing. In their book, Reinventing Your Life, Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko discuss the negative repercussions, both emotionally and physically, of individuals who have difficulty connecting with others:

The primary feeling is loneliness. You feel excluded from the rest of the world because you feel either undesirable or different . . . For most people this feeling of being different is painful. Although some people see themselves as better, or feel good about being different, most see it as a source of unhappiness. Most of us want to fit in, and we feel pain, hurt, and loneliness when we do not . . . Loneliness is often linked to stomach and heart problems, headaches, and depression.

Corresponding to the two types of inclusion, there are also two aspects of "emotional exclusion." The first develops as a result of being more or less rejected by the peer group throughout childhood. Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko write about one of their patients, Debra, "who feels inferior in social situations, and consequently experiences a great deal of social anxiety." About her childhood, Debra says that, "I was a fat child. I was disgusting. In the playground other kids made fun of me. They would chase me and try to get me to fall down. When I got older, none of the boys wanted to go out with me. It wasn't till I lost weight before college that I had my first date."

Young and Klosko write:

Debra feels excluded because of surface qualities. Something about the way she presents herself does not feel good enough . . . Once she breaks through, meets people, and begins to get close, she's fine. She is comfortable in intimate relationships.

Debra's feelings of social exclusion are about external attributes, and came about when she ventured out into the world and began to be the target of rejection and "shaming" by her peer group. Debra successfully attached to her mother and father in infancy and continues to feel close to them; her difficulty occurred apart from these primary relationships and is therefore not an attachment problem. Her feelings of low self-esteem and social exclusion resulted from negative treatment outside the family group by other children. And these feelings continue to dominate her life, even in adulthood. And though many people like Debra become thin as adults, dress well, and are intelligent and articulate socially, many will carry their feelings of social inadequacy throughout their lives. It often takes years of "emotional work" for these individuals to rid themselves of their residual feelings of inferiority in social situations.

The second aspect of emotional exclusion is caused by an intimacy dysfunction within the individual. This is almost always an attachment problem. Because of poor attachment to the primary caregiver in infancy, these individuals feel excluded from humanity as a whole, not just uncomfortable in social situations. They may possess the ability to connect with other people in social situations in superficial ways, or maybe not. But they have little ability to build and maintain intimate relationships. Young and Klosko discuss their experience with another individual, Adam, who cannot connect with others either socially or intimately - because he never attached properly to either one of his caregivers. Both parents were alcoholic, and consequently were not emotionally available to meet Adam's developmental needs. They were both stuck in their own pain and found it necessary to continue the self-medicated flow of alcohol into their veins to deaden their inner suffering. About Adam, Young and Klosko write:

Unlike Debra, who feels rejected in social situations, Adam feels a kind of nothingness, a disconnection. For him, social situations trigger a feeling of isolation. Adam is not angry at the world for rejecting him. Rather, he just feels like an outsider. He is different. He does not fit in.

Young and Klosko further describe some of the characteristics of intimacy dysfunction:

You may have developed [emotional] exclusion as part of a more core [feeling of] defectiveness . . . You had such a global sense of being unlovable in your own family that it naturally transferred to your social life. You were uncomfortable in intimate situations and social situations. Now, whenever you interact with another person, you expect your personal unacceptability to become an issue, and you either feel anxious or avoid the situation. You do not expect to be loved or valued.

Clearly, it is critical that we as parents "attach" properly to our children in infancy as the first step in their socialization process. Because if they feel inherently flawed and defective because of our inability to nurture them well, it will be all but impossible for them to feel confident, secure, and emotionally available in their relationships with other children. And eventually, with other adults, as well. But what can we do if our children look or act a little different from the other children in their playgroup, and it becomes an issue for them? What can we do to help them thrive in an environment over which we have no control? Well, a secure attachment and a great deal of emotional support is the first step in helping our children learn to deal with the dilemma of being the object of other children's teasing. When children feel loved and supported at home, it is easier for them to psychologically survive the ordeal of being picked on outside the home. In addition to the confidence we give them through our emotional support, however, we can also teach them the social skills to be able to diffuse situations in which they are a target for other children's "jokes."

Children tease because it gives them a kind of warped sense of fun. And by harassing other children and taking delight in their discomfort and pain, it helps them get the attention they need by showing off to their friends and making themselves look and feel better than the one who is being teased. But there is something much deeper going on with children who try to make themselves feel good at another's expense. First of all, their sense of empathy for other people is not developing as it should, or is being suppressed because of their need for attention. This is often the result of poor attachment to their primary caregivers. Second, although some teasers may appear to be socially adept leaders in their peer group, they are likely suffering from low-self esteem because their attention and admiration needs are not being met by their caregivers. If these children really felt good about themselves, they wouldn't be harassing other children and taking delight in their misery as a way to feel like valuable people.

So if our child is a teaser or a bully, it is time to muster up all our powers of dedication and begin to give him (or her) the attention and expressed love that he needs to feel valuable inside, and that he really MATTERS to us. This will enable him to stop trying to get his "being needs" met at the expense of others. Providing more emotional nourishment for children who tease and bully is really the only way to get at the source of their problem and change it "from the inside out." Parents who take the punishment route - attempting to change the problem "from the outside in" - may curb their children's behavior in the short term. But it will do little to change the internal feelings of worthlessness that caused their child to seek this "warped" kind of attention in the first place. And once such an individual is out from under a parent's tutelage, he or she may continue this behavior at a later date. We have all had experiences with adults who possess little sense of self-value and still harass and/or dominate others in their futile attempts to feel better about themselves. In the work place, in institutions of higher learning, in social situations, and so on, these "adult-children" continue to derive pleasure from bullying and shaming people (often in more subtle ways than in childhood) through the erroneous belief that they can raise themselves up on the backs of others.

If our children are suffering from abuse by other children, it is important that they learn how handle these situations in ways that stops the teasing and maintains their dignity. Of course, when they are young and therefore with us more often, we can intervene if our children are being teased. But when they leave the nest and go out into the world, primarily in the school environment, they will have to learn to protect themselves because even "telling the teacher" doesn't seem to do much good after about the first grade. It only fuels the fire, with the word "tattletale" being added to the list of insults.

In his book, Good Friends Are Hard To Find, Fred Frankel, Ph.D., teaches us how to help our children disarm the teasers in their world:

My experience shows that the most effective technique you can teach your child is to Make Fun of the Teasing. Your child makes fun of the teaser's inability to tease well. This is different from teasing back: Your child does not sink to the level of the teaser, but shows through humor that the teasing does not push his buttons (even if it does). Children who learn this tell me they have success the first time they use it. They get sympathy from onlookers and take away the fun of teasing.

You need to teach your child what to say in these situations to take the fun out of teasing, but not tease back. Your child will answer every tease with a reply. Read aloud the following list of replies to see if your child likes any of them.

"So What?"

"Can't you think of anything else to say?"

"I heard that one in kindergarten."

"That's so old it's got dust on it."

"That's so old it's from the Stone Age."

"I fell off my dinosaur when I first heard that one."

"Tell me when you get to the funny part."

These are only a few of the possible responses that your child can use to diffuse the aggressor in a teasing situation, and not escalate it by teasing or fighting back. I'm sure that you and your child can think of many more. Have fun coming up with some clever responses of your own!

Another aspect of inclusion that our children must learn at some point in their lives is in the area of responsibility, dependability, and accountability. If our children learn these lessons well, it will plant in them the seeds of good citizenship: the feelings of belonging to and a responsibility for themselves, their families, and their community. We as parents must ask ourselves: Do we want our children to be self-centered and motivated only by their own needs? Or do we want them to develop a sense of camaraderie with others and learn to live with a spirit of sharing and giving? Which will bring them a more fulfilling life? Which will help create a better world in which they can prosper and share the joys of fellowship?

In their book, Teaching our Children Responsibility, Linda and Richard Eyre write:

[Responsibility] means to become mature in the sense of being responsible to family, to self, to society. It means being responsible for all aspects of our lives and our situations: for our talents, for our potential, for our feelings, for our thoughts, for our actions, for our freedom.

Responsibility is not the result of maturity, it is the cause of it - and a major responsibility of parents is to teach responsibility to children.

In the area of responsibility, the concept of inclusion is an integral part of preparing our children for adulthood because it teaches them how to take care of themselves. As all parents know, it is relatively easy to include children in the pleasurable aspects of family life. Children go along willingly and enthusiastically when there is fun to be had. It is only natural. The difficult part of parenting is to get our children to participate in the responsibilities of taking care of themselves and their things, as well as the larger goal of running the family household. When we insist that they do their fair share of the family work (in age-appropriate ways), however, and not just enjoy the rewards of the family fun, they will learn to be accountable for themselves and to the family. And though they may resist us in the beginning, as they mature and gain more perspective, they will be able to recognize the emotional benefits of learning to contribute their work to the family group. This is a life lesson that can be very challenging for parents and children alike. But when it is missed, it is one that may cause a variety of negative personality traits or thinking habits that will not be beneficial to our children's pursuit of happiness and peace of mind.

One possible negative outcome for children who have not learned the lesson of accountability is an emotional condition known as "the psychology of entitlement." Most of us have known people who think the world owes them a living, as they say, and have no qualms about using others to reach their desired goals. These people often look at others as opportunities for gain, not as companions with whom they can enrich their lives. They think they are entitled to anything and everything, just because they want or need it; they do not understand the importance of working for the things in their lives.

In their book, Reinventing Your Life, Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko describe three types of entitlement: Spoiled entitlement, Dependent entitlement, and Impulsivity. On Spoiled entitlement, they write:

You see yourself as special. You are demanding and controlling, and want everything your way. When other people balk, you get angry.

On Dependent Entitlement:

You feel entitled to depend on other people. You place yourself in the weak, incompetent, needy role, and expect other people to be strong and take care of you.

You feel entitled much in the same way as a child feels toward a parent. It is your right. People owe it to you.

And on Impulsivity:

This is a lifelong pattern of difficulty controlling your behavior and feelings. You have problems with impulse control. You act on your desires and feelings without regard for the consequences.

You have trouble tolerating frustration enough to complete long-term tasks, especially boring or routine ones. You have a general lack of organization and structure. You are undisciplined.

The life-damaging consequences of learning to live off the fruits of another's labor, the inability to delay gratification, and seeing oneself as above others is not something that any emotionally healthy parent wants for his or her children. In addition to the harm they cause others, people who possess feelings of entitlement toward or place themselves in a position above other human beings are doing themselves a grave disservice by using others to attain their goals: ego goals and/or material goals. They usually don't consciously realize this because they block it out. On a deeper level, however, on those rare occasions when they allow themselves to take a look at who they really are, most understand that they are behaving like users or egotists, which works to erode their self-esteem.

Early childhood is the most effective time for children to begin to internalize a dedication to self-sufficiency and a desire to contribute to the lives of others. An important aspect of this lesson is to teach children how it feels to have other people depend on them. When our children repeatedly rise to this challenge, it bolsters their feelings of self-worth and self-respect and elicits the respect of others, all of which encourages them to want to continue being dependable. Dependability is a primary survival skill for leading a successful life. It is the personality trait that allows us to keep our job in order to support ourselves and our families; run our child's softball team during our off hours; prepare family meals on time without fail; you name it! A sense of our own dependability is what gets us up in the morning on those days when we don't feel like going to work, and then helps us drag ourselves to PTA and Girl Scout meetings in the evenings, when we are dog tired. Those people who have not internalized a devotion to their own dependability are the ones who feel, for instance, that it is okay to party late into the night when they have to get up early for work the next day, stand people up or keep people waiting, and repeatedly fail to do what they say they're going to do. In short, without a keen sense of responsibility and a reputation for dependability, the attainment of an emotionally and financially secure life is not a realistic goal.

One suggestion that I have heard for teaching children dependability is to require them to be responsible for a certain amount of chores each week, without being told. Of course, in the beginning, we may have to help them and remind them many many times before the habit sinks in. But I think this is an excellent way to start. For older children, making them responsible for one meal each week - the planning, the preparation, the clean-up, everything - is a good way to reinforce their feelings of being dependable people. It's not really important which particular household responsibilities that our children perform. The important thing is that they do some - regularly!

A splendid way to help build family unity and feelings of inclusion in our children is through the practice of family traditions. Family traditions are an ideal way for parents to play the role of nurturing teachers in the lessons of emotional bonding that take place in emotionally healthy families. Just make sure that each family member participates in some way with the planning and preparation of each tradition. If your family already has a number of long standing traditions, that's great. But if you don't have many, it's a simple matter to start your own. Family traditions don't have to be old to have meaning and value; the ones that you honor now were new at one time.

In their book, Three Steps to a Strong Family, Linda and Richard Eyre write:

A family tradition is a 'habit' that is both anticipated and remembered . . . The best traditions are built around shared values and teach and exemplify correct principles. They often also enhance communication and build responsibility . . . they offer opportunities to create memories, share love, and build strong bonds between family members. They will not only help your family life be more peaceful and rewarding, they will also give your children memories they can draw on no matter where they go or who they grow up to be.