The Cause & Effect Relationship Between One's Beliefs & One's Behavior

Imagine a mother and her young child at a playground; she is talking on her cell phone while her toddler plays nearby. At one point while running, the child loses his balance and falls down on the pavement. Freeze that image in your mind and let's consider how the mother might respond to this event. Will she 1) run to the child, screaming, "Oh, my poor baby! My poor baby!" and call 911, or 2) wait until she is finished with her phone call before she even checks on her child's welfare, or 3) walk quickly to her child, kneel down to examine the "damage," reassure him that he is OK, and encourage him to go back to his playing? Remember, the child’s falling down is a factual event in the mother's life. How the parent interprets (i.e., gives meaning to) this fact determines how she will behave in response to it. And how she interprets this event depends, for the most part, on her beliefs about children, about parenting and, to some extent, about the world in general.

For example, if our young mother believes that the world is a scary and threatening place and that children are fragile beings who must be protected during the first twenty or so years of their lives, chances are she will interpret the falling event as something awful and react much like the mom in number one above. On the other hand, if she believes that children are nuisances and that just because she's a mother doesn't mean she has to give up what she wants, she will probably react like the second mom and continue talking on the phone. Finally, if she believes that young children need to learn that falling down is part of life, as is picking yourself up, and that being a parent means putting your child first, she will behave like the third mom and end the phone call.