Submission, Obedience, Compliance

Some children choose to submit to the authority of their parents for reasons that are not usually well understood. They cope through submission, obedience, and compliance. This response to parental authority often occurs when the parents have been very severe in their use of power. Particularly when punishment has been strong, children learn to submit out of a strong fear of the punishment. Children may react to parental power just as dogs become cowed and fearful from severe punishment. When children are quite young, severe punishment is more likely to cause submission because a reaction such as rebelling or resisting may seem to risky. They almost have to respond to parental power by becoming obedient and compliant. As children approach adolescence, this response might change abruptly because they have acquired more strength and courage to try resistance and rebellion.

Some children continue to be submissive and compliant through adolescence and often into adulthood. These children suffer the most from early parental power, for they are the ones who retain a deep fear of people in power positions wherever they encounter them. These are the adults who remain children throughout their lives, passively submitting to authority, denying their own needs, fearing to be themselves, frightened of conflict, too compliant to stand up for their own convictions. These are adults who fill the offices of psychologists and psychiatrists.