Trust, a Two-Year Old and the Pacific Ocean
Watching my two-year old son today at the beach in Hawaii made me think about how trust actually develops.
Is it there until it isn’t? Can and do we relearn how to trust? How do we develop trust in ourselves, in one another and the larger world? Why is it that some of us are more trusting and why do we trust sooner than others?
In the 1950’s, psychiatrist Erik Erickson developed a model of social and emotional development. The process of socialization, the Eight Stages of Development start with learning basic trust vs. basic mistrust. This occurs in infancy through the first one or two years: the nurtured and loved child develops, trust, security and a certain optimism.
Back to today. We’ve been to this beach before, so familiarity made us both more comfortable. Comfortable enough to settle close to the shoreline and immediately play in the wet sand, about a foot above the line where the surf rolled in. Previously we would start in the dry sand quite a ways from the ocean and slowly make our way to the seashore over the course of an hour or so. Today, it was just a few minutes after our arrival that my son wanted to go in the water.
But the waves were a bit bigger and the tide was higher than our previous visits. We waded in a bit, holding hands. My son is not a huge risk taker, at least not yet. I’d say he is somewhat cautious. We were fine until the the third wave. It wasn’t much bigger than the others, it came up to his chest, but it was relatively bigger than what he was used to. He cried and we retreated. And that was the end of going in the ocean for today.
This made me wonder if he trusted me, himself, or even the waves until the situation proved to be different that he expected. And I’m wondering how much of today’s experience will impact our next visit.
This made me think about leaders who trust from the get-go until there is evidence not to vs. those that withhold trust until other people have earned it.
What do you think? What kind of leader are you? What kind of leader would you want to be lead by?
Tags: leaders, self-awareness, trust
