How to Educate Children

Overly critical? You’re ‘blaming’ parents for being ‘overly-critical’? For real, dude?! Geez, I’m now sorry I stepped into this pity party. The high pitched shrieks and screams just don’t want to stop. Let me go and hit my head one more time. Maybe I’ll become more humane and compassionate.
(Oh, you love and comfort depraved creatures!)

For the record, this does not read like it was written to objectively describe cause and effect.

It sounds like it is a personal issue with you, Magnus.
So I don’t buy your ‘I’m just describing cause and effect’ argument, because any spoiled or overly attached/needy child can say this.

…to distinguish cause from blame, assessment from judgement, and wisdom from condemnation.

As I explained, it has two distinct forms:

  1. being over focused on the idea of being a victim to the point of self-defeating outlook
  2. using public sympathy to blame-shift and/or gain profit.

But you are right about the fact that overly condemning/judgmental parents do instill anti-social behavior and often many learning disabilities. Although, parents are only one small part of modern affectance upon children. The greatest sin of parents is not what they do, but what they could have done, yet didn’t. Leaving education and hypnosis up to society is one of those deadly sins.

Yes. Any spoiled or overly attached/needy child can say it. Therefore, anyone who says it must be a spoiled and/or overly attached/needy child.
This is not the first time you do this. Actually, you do it all the time.
All too often.
This betrays your inability to discriminate between the two.
Between those who are honest about causal relations and those who lie about them (say by exaggerating them.)

James agrees that excessive criticism can ruin children.
So do countless psychologists.
Are you saying they are all suffering from “victim mentality”?

That’s primarily the sin of society. It is them, and not parents, who have a negative affect upon children.
Parents merely lack the ability to prevent that negative affect.
I think that blaming unwanted effects on something that did not happen is very dangerous.
It’s precisely that which leads to entitlement.

Here’s a quick example.
I currently do not have a job.
From my point of view, this is an unwanted consequence.
I am really mad that I found myself in this situation.
And it’s all your fault.
James, Pandora, Urwrong, Ecmandu, Fixed . . . all of you posting on this forum and beyond.
It’s all your fault because you could have prevented it.
If only each one of you made an effort to secure me a well-paying job you could have prevented it.
But you didn’t.
And because of that, you should feel ashamed of yourselves.
You’re utter failures.

This is why I do not separate the concept of blame from the concept of cause.
Blaming works only if it is realistic i.e. if it is grounded in observed causal relations.

When you are not fed and you feel hungry is it your parents that are the cause of your hunger?
Nope, they are not.
They are as much of a cause as anyone else.
You may as well blame the entire world for not making an effort to prevent your hunger i.e. for not feeding you.
Including yourself.
Your parents simply did not prevent your hunger – because they couldn’t, for some reason.

Parents are not obliged to protect you.
Noone is.

It’s a good thing if they do.
But if they don’t, then you have to accept that.
Instead of blaming them.
They did all they could.

Oh, so this was just your way or style of making an objective observation; and for convenience purposes cause and blame are the same thing, huh?

Nope. Not buying it.

Blame is for the purpose of initiating a correction. Cause is merely identification of a preemptive situation. At times, it is wise to blame something that wasn’t actually a cause because better correction takes place. Most often, blame falls upon the most simple minded presumption and very often becomes the guilt of the blamer and accuser.

If parents do not teach their child to avoid the snakes, lions, traps, roadways, society, or whatever danger is laying outside that door, they have failed their responsibility.

Parents get the first crack at teaching their children (to not be kids). When they do not do that task, for whatever reason, society takes over. It is parents who could have prevented society from having too much effect. Parents are “response-able”, yet often irresponsible (usually out of ignorance of their situation and/or what they could have done).

James, you and Pandora are contradicting each other.

If a poisonous, rattlesnake, bites a child then it is the child’s fault and not the parent’s.

The parent is not responsible for the child, whether the parent does inform and teach the child about poisonous snakes, or not. It doesn’t matter. Pandora has made it clear that any presumed responsibility by the parent, over the child, is false, and to blame anybody except the child for being bitten, is “victim-mentality”.

Children must not be victims. However, she provides no explanations or reasons as to why or how a child can become responsible, or any individual goes from a state of victimhood to responsibility (adulthood?).

This is where the thread is at currently.

Not entirely true, if at all, but so what?

That pretty much depends on how you define “fault”, doesn’t it? If a meteor strikes Earth an kills everyone in Africa, it is the “fault” of the Africans? If USA’s global satellite surveillance systems detected it far in advance but didn’t report it to the Africans, wouldn’t that be a “fault” of the USA?

Parent’s inherent a natural and social obligation to care for and forewarn their own children. That is the “fault” of nature. More modern manipulative society distracts that obligation while using it as blame-shifting from sophisticated social media manipulations. One cold say that such is the “fault” of society, society would love that because it obscures the blame such that no one gets convicted of their crimes. But the fact is that parents are in a position to circumvent society from continuing to obfuscate and blame-shift the guilt. So in the long run, it comes back to the fact that parents had the obligation yet, for whatever reason (social-obfuscations in most cases), did not protect their understandably far more naive children from the malevolence at hand.

The obligation of the children is simply to learn and grow as fast as possible so as to be able to deal with their hostile environment on their own. But it is not a “fault” that such takes time and the cooperation of others. Who is to blame: Children, Time, Others? Who had any hope of actually responding to the need? Who is “response-able”? And more importantly, who can actually apply a correction (the only purpose of applying blame)? Parents.

Really - doesn’t sound like Pandora.

Pan was merely pointing out that Magnus was over-focused on parental blame. Not everything can be blame-shifted onto parents. Magnus was talking about merely one trauma issue as though it was the only issue and Pandora was emphasizing that one cannot blame everything on parents without making themselves out to be victims.

I agree with both of them when considering what they were actually meaning.

Because that wasn’t the question at hand.

Not any more. :sunglasses:

And btw, “Fault” means that something was supposed to function a particular way yet didn’t. Parents are supposed to function such as to prepare and forewarn their children, yet don’t = “Fault in parents”. But then again, maturing children are also supposed to function in certain ways and yet don’t = “Fault in children”.

One is to blame the parents until the child is no longer a child (for most modern western males, that’s about the age of 40). Once an adult, the blame rests upon the former child to fix his own problems regardless of their source (same applies to being a parent).

And that^^^ is “how to educate children” on the subject.

Pandora has not been presenting her case nor defending her claims well. She is at fault. I blame her.

I generally agree with your points about fault and faulting. Fault, blame, cause, these are all essential qualities and ingredients to morality and individual responsibilities. Morality is social responsibility. Humanity and all species, really, have natural, instinctive cooperating mechanism as well as competing mechanisms. There are “infighting” and “out-fighting” among all creatures. Infighting is obviously among ourselves.

Concerning responsibility, I generally divide it into two, a dichotomy. There is personal responsibility, and social responsibility. People can mature and become ‘individual’, autonomous, moral agents (self-responsible). And/or people can ‘sacrifice’ themselves, selflessly, and give their lives over to others and “society” in general, socially-responsible. These manifest as political ideology. Left-liberalism focuses on self-sacrifice, in the name of “social justice”, hence the SJWs “Social Justice Warriors”. Right-conservatives focus on self-interest, selfishness, and competing to “get ahead” of others. Both are righteous. Both have their own points and ideologies.

It is selfishness versus selflessness. Some humans are individualistic, most others are socialistic.

So responsibility and morality is a complicated topic, especially when it comes to blame. Most people re-direct ‘blame’ to the legal system. People are innocent or guilty, hypothetically. It is up to a “Judge” to dictate, by authority, who is to blame and ultimately accountable (religiously the ‘top’ judge is God).

:laughing: More like world over…please give us a break, says all the mothers of very adult children. :mrgreen:

I couldn’t say “world over”. Some certain groups seem to not have a maturation age. When do you choose to blame the retarded for not repairing their child-acquired retardation? At what point does one blame the dead horse for not getting out of the road?

Morality requires an exceptional imagination and intelligence.

Blame is a creative process. People try to locate Cause in life and existence. People try to perceive and recognize natural patterns, Order. Based on human understanding of nature, order, and patterns, then people begin to formulate associations and decisions. I blame X for A. I blame Y for B. I blame Z for C.

Average and lower intelligent people are not very creative, and very willing to accept whatever an authority tells them. “It’s the dead horse’s fault for resting in the road.” Okay, a child will accept that. More intelligent, wiser, reasonable men will not. Context is huge. Wisdom represents an extension of context, to Omniscience. To know all contexts. The horse died there, for many reasons, for many previous causes. Why was it left there? Is the road well traveled? Are people irresponsible? Who will move it?

With age, experience, maturity, come wisdom. Adult men and women, are not so quick to blame, but rather can extend and devote much time to apprehending causality.

A superior Judge, ability to judge others, requires that type of mentality and wisdom. To withhold judgment, to receive as much information, knowledge, and council as possible, before a final ruling and decision. Thought before action. However most humanity remains childish and infantile, passing authority, judgment, morality onto somebody else (a priest, a Saint).

Oh my goodness, you too?! The answer is any-whichever-way-you-can because that’s how life works. No book or manual can teach one how to be himself in the world. If you want to learn how to swim, you get in the water and start swimming.

Some children have councellors, psychologists and child specialists catering them day and night, and prescribing them medication X,Y,Z; and other children only get to enjoy the company of homeless dogs as they rummage for food in dumpster sites. Who defines what is abuse and why do we have double standards when it comes to raising children? By modern 1st world standards probably 80% of all children right now are already “abused and neglected” by their parents and society at large. And I’m not even talking about raising kids in the past.

thank you.

except what often happens when the child is not ready to be weaned (delayed in maturing) he starts accusing his parents for being too harsh on him and any so called correction just ends up being a postponement of taking on responsibility. Remember, kids are also natural manipulators and will have no qualms in having it their way if only parents yield. (The kid who cries when his candy is taken away from him; or the kid who throws a tantrum in a grocery store)

Pandora-approved child rearing tip

It is the parent’s obligation to remedy that behavior early in their life, for several reasons, only one of which is to allow them greater joy in life.

:laughing:
That was good. =D>

I hate to say it, Pandora, but… you’re wrong.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590jdUT_W-A[/youtube]

Pandora’s argument: “There are no victims in life.”

Biologically, everybody is helpless and “a victim” as infants. Therefore responsibility and moral ability, accountability, are factors of age, education, culture/nurturing, and many other factors. Pandora has ignored all of this, and she has done this throughout the thread, providing no insights or depths into her claims that “grow up” and “learn how to swim on your own”. These suggestions are empty without context.

It’s true that in nature, realistically, infants and children are weak and targeted first by predators. Thus they deserve the most protection, which women cater too naturally as well, instinctively. When a mother does not, then people recognize this as a flaw. Why did the mother abort her own fetus, or give her own child up for adoption? Why did the mother neglect or abandon her own child? In some instances, why did the mother harm, abuse, or even kill her own child?

Now I do not promote victim-mentalities. I want this to be clear. I say, in my opinion, it is best to raise and uplift people in such a way as to strengthen their character and morale, to become self-responsible. But this is not an overnight process. It is a lifetime of work. And many people fail. Many people succumb to weaknesses; it’s easy to blame others for your own mistakes in life. And people make a nasty habit out of it. It’s an addictive psychological compulsion, to blame others, when you-yourself are wrong.

. Just make sure you don’t do more damage in the process. (Like encouraging your child to live out your own dreams and visions, or delusions for that matter). A lot of child rearing also really amounts to enculturation and brainwashing, disguised as becoming a responsible member of particular society, as is seen through parents eyes. So parents may mean well, but end up only crippling their child in the process. What exactly does it mean to be responsible or independent and exactly what context do we use for that?
For example, Trump thinks he’s a self-made man and he may truly believe it, too, but his own vision of self-reliance may have been implanted in him by his own father; by that, I mean, his idea of responsibility and self-reliance itself, or what it means/what it entails. I bet in his world-view, he probably thinks he’s self-made in the same way as warren buffet too.

That is why it is important to “identify the nature of the thing”. Children are drawn to particular interests, some of them healthy and some of them unhealthy. Parents can ‘direct’ their children in many ways. Forcibly training a child in music, while they hate it, may be detrimental in the long run. From my experience, children need to study, practice, and be passionate about a craft or interest. But passion comes later, during adolescence, when pubescent children really get a better understanding about themselves, friendships, and life in general.

Liberal Arts education is beneficial in this aspect, offering choices and allowing exploration, to discover what fields children excel at and demonstrate superiority. Some children are better at writing, better at math, better at art, better at science, etc. than others.

When it comes to morality, responnsibility, autonomy in life, a general ‘humanitarian’ education is best. Children must learn to interact with each-other while young, rather than learn as adults, when it can be too late to change behaviors and attitudes. The strength of a society exists in its moral fiber and character, the ways in which a population cooperates among itself, and competes against an exterior society. Some cultures are more dominant, sophisticated, and “higher class” than others. Class, in terms of morality, implies noble distinctions. Some people are more trustworthy, accountable, reasoned, and wiser than others.

These would be society or humanity’s “leaders”, heroes, legends, those who aspire the rest of humanity. While an average person may never become self-responsible beyond a certain point, a rarer type and mentality can. It’s a type of spiritual strength and identity. Religion and church appeal to average people seeking morality and leadership. It has to do with a “higher calling” in life.

To simplify all of this into a point,
A few, rarer individuals can and will become much more responsible, accountable, and moral than everybody else: The Authoritarian. The one who others would pass their own victimhood, blames, and problems onto. It could even be a type of scapegoating. Somebody to “suffer on behalf of everybody else”. Somebody who can handle it all, carry the weight, and burdens of the rest of society.

This is the essence of ‘humanitarianism’ and “what it means to be human”.