What Is Identification?

Identification can be compared to a traveler who wants to travel from one place to another, but does not know the way. He therefore needs directions. A child who enters this world is in exactly the same situation. He also has a destination — he must become a grown-up man or grown-up woman — but he does not know how to get there. Consequently, he needs to be directed by grown-up persons, who have already traveled along this route and who therefore can lead him to adulthood.

Parents are the primary educators of their children, and therefore the most important persons with whom their children will identify themselves. Children identify with their parents' daily customs and habits, careers and work, social life, religion and beliefs, attitudes, behavioral codes, and their values and norms.

When a child is still at the beginning of his journey to adulthood, either Dad or Mom can serve equally well as identification figures. As the child gets closer to his final destination, however, more specific identification is required. At some point a boy will have a strong need to identify with his father, while a daughter would want to identify with her mother. This does not imply that the parent of the opposite sex is no longer important. As a matter of fact, this parent presents the image of the opposite sex to the child and the parents' relationship with each other teaches the child how a man and a woman are supposed to behave towards one another.

As the child grows older, he also starts to identify with other people. When he goes to school, his loyalty can seemingly be transferred from his mother to his teacher. In due course, a boy might identify with a sport hero, while a girl might identify with a model or an actress. Of course, this happens only after he or she has identified with some comic-strip character, such as Batman (we admit that we are not up to date with the latest fads).

At a certain stage the need for identification with the parent is shifted to his or her peer group. The phase of puberty has dawned, and I-want-to-be-like-you makes room for I-want-to-be-myself. In most cases this is a difficult phase, both for parent and child.

In his desire to attain independence, the teenager often feels that he may not be like his parents, and is often overcritical of his "old-fashioned" parents. The search for his own identity causes great uncertainty, and now he looks for help and safety within his peer group. This need for acceptance with his friends is so great that he wants to prove this acceptance visibly and actively. The teenagers' mode of dress is therefore also a type of uniform. It is the "in" thing to dress, speak, and act in a certain way, to use certain expressions, and to listen to certain music.

The dark side of a person's need for identification is the fear of being rejected. Especially in the teenage years, during which time the young person is painfully aware of his changing body, which causes him to feel insecure even more, the fear of being rejected comes strongly to the fore. He will then sacrifice quite a lot not to be rejected. Mindful of the statistics that drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and delinquency are also the "in" things today, it is quite understandable that many parents dread their children's teenage years way before they have started.

The light at the end of this tunnel is that a child's identification with strangers and his peer group occurs only after the stage of identification with his parents. Parents thus have the opportunity, while their children are still young and impressionable, to teach real values to their children. Even if the teenager does not follow the person of the parent any longer, the values his parents have taught him remain with him and can serve as a compass for his life.