How To Spot Your Adaptive Child
As we continue into April, our theme is Radical Ownership.
At its core, Radical Ownership means keeping your side of the relational street clean. No matter how your partner shows up, you commit to being your best self.
Simple idea.
Not always easy in practice.
Because if you’re anything like me, your best intentions can still go sideways. And when they do, it’s often a sign that your Adaptive Child has taken over — that old, learned survival mode that pushes us into reacting instead of relating.
These patterns were formed early and, in their own way, were trying to help us.
But they don’t serve us well in adult relationships.
And here’s the challenge:
Your Adaptive Child does not want Radical Ownership. It wants control, comfort, and things its own way.
So if you want real relational growth, you have to learn to spot it.
Try this:
Think about your current (or most significant past) relationship and ask yourself: When conflict shows up, how do I typically respond?
Identify 2–3 patterns that tend to come out of you. Write them down.
For me, mine looks like this:
I feel resentment
I withdraw warmth
I expect to be rescued
Not great—but it’s honest.
And once you can see it, you can work with it.
Because in those moments when it starts to rise, you get a choice: React from your Adaptive Child…or make a relational choice.
That pause—that moment of awareness—is everything.
Here’s to doing the work to spot your Adaptive Child. I’ll be right there with you. 🙂
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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