Friends, sure, and hopefully family, are different. We are a social species. Beyond that, it sounds like you have a lovely child and some wonderful kids in their orbit.

Below is a long winded way of getting to this point: people stuck at Kohlberg’s stage 2 are not behaving maturely, they’re behaving like children. This arrested development helps to explain why a person would put people into their phone contacts as transactional arrangements rather than as humans with names. Its jerkyy, childish behaviour

Notably, however, in an intensely transactional world, such behaviour is REWARDED. As such confers a selective advantage. So does throwing a well-timed tantrum, playing dumb, lying, flattering, and being intensely selfish.

That said…

Watch your children closely. Mind their interactions. The more people they know, the more they realize they dont know everyone, and as they see more interactions and develop a wider array of desires, some people will become a means to an end.

Taking Kohlberg’s view, children are pre-adolescent. The next stage of moral development takes place during adolescence. For some it’ll be earlier. For some, later or never.

When your 5-year old, or 15-year old, hates you and screams at you for not being the means to their achievable end, that’s stage 2. Same when a 45-year old berates a server for getting their drink order wrong. Or, when people are reduced to their functions: If they’re using you for your pool and trampoline, and refuse to learn your name, that’s stage 2.

Keep in mind also there are overlapping theories of development, some of which describe behaviour better than others in similar situations. Hence, “theory” and not “law.” Eric Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, Lev Vygotsky’s theory of social development, and more are out there.

As the parent of two kids under 10, as a teacher to approximately 5000 variously-aged children in the past 19 years, and as a former sales and customer service rep, all people are capable of behaving like “ones who are not psychologically, physically, socially, or legally mature enough to be held responsible for their own actions.” There are adults with diminished capacity, or who can be held not criminally responsible under this definition. However, for the most part, it will serve.

• Psychologically mature: ability to regulate internal emotional states while simultaneously interacting with exterior stimuli including others’ psychological states; affected by physical, social, and emotional conditions moment to moment.

• Physically mature: let’s go with 21 for this one. For legal reasons. 24 for Montessori reasons. 25 for insurance reasons.

• Socially mature: able to let go of the “main character” perspective and recognize that society is made of many main characters. Sonder, as defined by the Dictionary of Obsucre Sorrows, is not a problem for socially (and psychologically) mature people.

• Legally mature: follows from most of the above, but still affected by the previous statements about “diminished capacity, or … be[ing] held not criminally responsible”.

Any of these immaturities can be problematic. All of them together is the license we give children as they develop. If, by adulthood (25 at the OUTside), they’re really struggling to exhibit maturity in more than one of these, I’d wonder what happened in childhood to cause that. Anti-social or asocial? Sociopathy risk. Psychologically immature? Risking psychopathologies.

This is a long winded way of getting to this point: people stuck at Kohlberg’s stage 2 are … wait, I moved this section up top. But the next part bears repeating:

Notably, however, **in an intensely transactional world, such behaviour is REWARDED. As such confers a selective advantage. So does throwing a well-timed tantrum, playing dumb, lying, flattering, and being intensely selfish. **

The world is broken we just live in it.

They are using people as a means to an end; **selfish narcissists with diminished capacity for empathy, responsibility, and reason who want what they want when they want it **— and will kick, scream, cry, yell, and engage in spite until you give in and they give nothing in return. Like a newborn would. We don’t blame newborns.

(And, I don’t really think newborns engage in spite. It’s just funny to think it. After the fact, of course. Because, as you know, when you have a newborn, you might think they pooped three times in three diapers in three minutes, and once on the floor, out of spite. You’d be wrong. But you wouldnt be faulted for the thought.)

The first book I ever read about psychopaths and narcissists is still my favorite. My partner struggles with her narcissism. She gave me the book. It’s probably why we’re still together. It bugs me, still. But, since I’m an introverted masochist who has first-daughter tendencies (exampled by this very post), challenge accepted.