Tom’s parents, like most, largely ignored their son's short-term learning. They didn't call their friends when he differentiated his head from his eyes, nor pull out the camcorder when he integrated his pelvis with his toes. They paid attention when he approached a milestone.
Indeed, Tom learned 90% of rolling over all on his own, beautifully coordinating his eyes, head and pelvis with his arms and legs; yet as he approached the final 10% his mother couldn’t resist nudging him over the edge; not just once, but repeatedly until he no longer “needed” her “help”. Sure, he soon completed the roll by himself, but since he hadn’t yet learned to fully differentiate his pelvis from his hips, he compensated by pushing extra with his arms and legs.
The same pattern repeated itself with crawling. Tom learned to lift his head, scan the horizon and slide on the floor - all on his own - but as soon as he neared crawling, his mother again couldn’t resist “helping”. As she cheered him on - “You can do it!” - Tom willed himself toward her, not wanting to disappoint, yet since he still hadn’t learned to fully differentiate his pelvis from his hips, he again compensated with extra effort in his arms and legs. His motivation for physical comfort collided with his motivation for parental approval - and the latter prevailed.
With the next milestone - standing - Tom was interrupted before he even learned to balance on his knees. So eager for her son to succeed, Tom’s mother held him by the arms like a puppet, his legs flailing and flopping to the floor. With her “help”, he eventually learned to stand on his own - “Such a big boy!” - yet once again without proper differentiation of his pelvis from his hips so he spread his feet wide and locked his hips and knees in order to maintain his balance.
On his back and stomach, Tom spent ample time exploring movements with total freedom to fail; no such luxury was afforded to him in standing. Right out the gate, he was pressured into walking. With his mother again cheering him on, “Come on Tom. Almost there!” he felt no choice but to stumble toward her. Unable to fully differentiate his pelvis from his hips, thereby smoothly transferring weight from one foot to another, he instead lurked like Frankenstein, spreading his arms and swinging his pelvis and hips as a unit right and left.
This mechanical defect - incomplete pelvic-hip differentiation leading to excess effort in his arms and legs - grew with each new movement Tom learned. While he deviated only slightly from a mono-motivated body in rolling, he deviated more and more in crawling, walking, running and, soon enough, in touching his toes. Indeed, in order to touch our toes, we must be able to move our pelvis relative to our hips, yet years and years of cross-motivation had tied Tom’s pelvis and hips in a knot.
More than that, Tom internalized his mother’s doubt. Even though he was fully capable of learning to move with ease - all on his own - he assumed that he lacked the flexibility, coordination and motivation to do so - that he needed “help” - so he forced himself to do things he otherwise would have done with pleasure had he given himself - and been given - the time to learn and the freedom to fail. The praise he received for this “hard work” - from parents, teachers and coaches alike - only reinforced his habit to seek their approval over his comfort, even after he no longer relied upon them for his survival. Indeed, he came to view “hard work” as a virtue in itself, rather than a necessary evil to avoid whenever possible.
As Tom reaches for his toes, now decades later, all of these elements reveal themselves: his inability to differentiate his pelvis from his hips; his self-doubt; his unnecessary strain. In a word, his cross-motivation.
In this case, cross-motivation from doing things he didn’t (yet) want to do - mostly through reward and sheer physical force - but in next week’s blog we’ll take a look at Tom’s cross-motivation from not doing things he did want to do - mostly through punishment.
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