te to his crisis. "First, he learns to move around more
freely and more violently, and therefore establishes a wider, and so it
seems to him, an unlimited radius of goals. Two, his sense of language
becomes perfected to the point where he understands and can ask about
many things just enough to misunderstand them thoroughly; and three,
both language and locomotion permit him to expand his imagination over
so many things that he cannot avoid frightening himself with what he
himself has dreamed and thought up. Nevertheless, out of all this he
must emerge with a sense of unbroken initiative as a basis for a high,
and yet realistic, sense of ambition and independence."[19]

Initiative is the power that moves the individual to take over the role
of others; the boy, his father; the girl, her mother; later as the
driver of the car, and later still, leadership roles of various kinds.
The struggles in the process are accompanied by feelings of anxiety, of
inadequacy, and of guilt. Feelings of inadequacy in relation to the size
and powers of the adult can be considerable; and the feelings of guilt,
in response to the daydreams about replacing Daddy, for instance, are
crucial, and too often are unrecognized by many parents and teachers.
They need to recognize and accept the developmental reasons for the
child's preoccupations and fantasies about himself in relation to them
and their roles and functions. Furthermore, it is entirely appropriate
for him to be physically aggressive toward others, to overwhelm them
with his incessant chattering, his aggressive getting into things, and
his insatiable curiosity about everything. The objective of love at this
time is to provide the child with a reasonable freedom within which to
develop his initiative with a minimum sense of guilt in relation to its
exercise, and with the hope that by so doing he will become a person
whose creativity will not be frustrated by an overdeveloped sense of
guilt.

In contrast, many people are embarrassed by recognition of their
achievements, and are prevented from achievement because of guilt
feelings that block their creative efforts. Unfortunately, too much
religious teaching has made people feel guilty about initiative and
aggressiveness, both of which can be expressed creatively. From
childhood on, lives are hedged about by prohibitions in relation to
persons bearing authority, by belittling attitudes toward themselves and
toward their drives to compete a