In the next section, Robin and John talk about the stages of childhood
development. Robin explains that a child needs reliable love and care
(so we learn how to love and care for others), loving firmness and
control (to learn self discipline and how to exert authority
correctly), brothers, sisters or friends to play with (so we learn how
to share and to cope with the rough and tumble of life, and how to
stand up for ourselves), and they need to learn about the opposite sex
(so they know how to deal with them later on). Then we need to learn
how to become independant of our parents.

If you miss a stage you can go through it later, and are often drawn
to situations where we can catch up and learn what we've missed, but
John raises the question that if that's the case - why do any of us
have any real problems?

Hiding a missing stage

Robin: If we miss out a stage, we can catch up on the lessons by
seeking a substitute experience, right?

John: Right.