Children developing Ego

While watching my kids play in the playground, I couldn't help but notice a pair of slightly older siblings, engaging in the same power struggles that go on between my two. Perfect when alone, they begin to antagonise each other within minutes of being in the same house together. This is a universal thing I am sure, but I still got to wondering if this isn't something I am supposed to be teaching my kids to avoid. They are building their ego, their sense of self. By learning the best tactics to gain control over the situation, and often their sibling, they set up their patterns for preserving the ego illusion for the rest of their life. Depending on their environment and their place in the family, they learn which behaviours get the most attention, and they learn from us how to manipulate someone into doing what we want.
The Celestine Prophecy broke them down into four major strategies. The Intimidator, uses aggression and fear to keep people on their toes. You end up paying attention to them to stay safe, emotionally or physically. The Interrogator, is always probing for more information, making you feel exposed, again you pay attention and stay on your toes, to avoid feeling over exposed and giving away too much. The Aloof, withdraws and shuts off from you, requiring you to pursue them for information to draw them out of themselves, by doing this they drain your energy. The Poor-me, is a victim and by drawing attention to their pitiful state, draw you into feel sorry for them, which will hopefully make you do things for them. Everyone has one that they fall into most, and it's even easier to see these traits in people around you. Usually if a child is presented with a grown up or sibling proficient in one of these strategies they will try it's opposite, completely subconsciously. If being interrogated a child may withdraw and become aloof. If intimidated they try to encourage mercy by playing poor-me. A withdrawn parent will encourage a child to niggle and harass to get attention so become an interrogator. And a Poor-me parent may not respond to anything but an aggressive child. So the drama's become a vicious circle. Young children have not yet taken on their dominant drama, so in play together, they switch between the roles in order to gain the upper hand.
How then, to teach a child that they are perfect as they are, without falling into unconscious behaviours. James Redfield would suggest perhaps, teaching them how to access the universe's energy from nature and beauty, so they would not feel the need to steal it from others. Is it even fair to throw them out into the world without having these coping mechanisms? Neale in CWG mentions shedding the illusions, and has a book for teenagers, I think. Teaching them self esteem would have to be a big part of it. The hardest bit is not having control of these things myself! I still react to these dramas in other people, with my own. Usually aloof. I only now recognise the behaviour of one of the workmates I was having trouble with, as being interrogator. Now I know why I always felt annoyed by the constant talking and questioning. I instantly react by becoming more aloof and distant, which only encourages the questioning, and makes it worse. Can you teach a child strategies for disarming someone elses dramas? How to send love and diffuse the situation? I think I remember reading about Madonna's child Lourdes calling her out when she fell into unconscious habits.
I think the only time I use aggression is with my children. I never raise my voice at anyone else, but sometimes feel the need to scare them into doing it my way....or else. I hate that I do it. I know that when I am grumpy with Daren I will sulk and clean and stomp around the house, feeling like He should be the one to have to work out what's wrong and fix it. Which is aloof I guess. I punish my mum's poor-me by not buying into it and waiting for her to ask for help directly. Aloof again. I know my kids have to nag me for attention sometimes, so their strategy with me would probably end up poor-me (my son?) or interrogator (my daughter?). I'm pretty sure my brother ended up aloof like me. I think my older sister is an interogator, but I'm not so sure. I can't pick my younger sister, mostly because we don't seem to feel the need to fall back on these with each other.
It makes it easier to be forgiving of other people, when I realise we all do this unconsciously to survive. They are only getting by the best they now how. My next trick will be to learn recognise the behaviour as survival tactics sooner, and then not react with my own. I see now, that when I perceive a client as difficult, they are showing me one of the other control dramas. This instantly puts me into aloof mode, so I pull back, and then miss the opportunity to get to know them. The artist client was interrogator and asking lots of questions, so I shut each one down with a short answer, until I felt more in control of the situation and dropped the ruse.
Years ago, as an apprentice we learned the personality types of our clients and colleagues. Again four categories, which would correlate with the dramas I'm sure. We divided a page into quadrants, with the top two being cool personalities, and the bottom two being warm. the left side were askers and the right side were tellers. Using these questions as guides each person became
Analytical Driver
Amiable Expressive
The analytical always has to break a task down into it's details, and do it thoroughly. The driver just wants to get it done, and promptly. The amiable wants to do the task in a way that makes everyone happy, and the expressive doesn't mind as long as it's a whole lot of fun and creativity and talk along the way. There is obviously a lot more too it, but that narrows it down for simplicity sake. I always associate myself as analytical and have been typed as that by managers too. Analytical is cool and asks. I would think they are mostly aloof. Drivers are cool and tell. They would be Intimidators. Amiable is warm and asks. They would be poor-me, and Expressive is warm and tells. That would be interrogator. When I was shown these personality types for management purposes, I was made aware of the inherent benefits of each type, as well as the downfalls. I think the strategy was to think like them, and mimic their traits to get results with them. If I look into the positives of each type, that should help me with the shadow work in accepting these traits as my own also. So that gives me a whole new line of research to re-examine. I'm still amazed how every seemingly new line of thought I have, seems to very soon gather in all the other information I have accrued over the years.