Try at least one of these ways and disprove the old idea that we lose brain function as we age. The last part of this age will be published next week.
Posted in advice, behavior, development, disabilities, handicaps, health problems, learning, maturing, older persons, self-help, Uncategorized, wisdom | Tagged Aging, Behavior, Health, Learning, Mental health, perception, Problem solving, Psychology, Self-Help | Leave a comment
Does it make sense to say life has no sense? Science has theories about life which it proves or disproves. Things we thought were inanimate and dumb actually are not that way. Animals are miraculous animate beings with strengths and skills we have never thought of. Not only are they necessarily not like you, they have their own ways of thinking, communicating and viewing the world. Even plants react to certain stimuli. What about us?
Are we blocking abilities because we think we don’t have them? Who are you really inside? We are fearfully and wonderfully made it says in the Bible. Why do we often reject that? Does everything happen for a reason but we think that we are unable to figure this out.
We are unique individuals. We all have strengths and talents as well as weaknesses. Why do we compete with each other when we can do so much more together? Why do we constantly pattern ourselves against some other person’s standards and achievements?
When I was trying to decide on my career (the most important path in my life at that time). I did not discern and value my own unique qualities. I was always encouraged to consider what other people would think. Individuality was lost in the shuffle. I accomplished many things but society did not pat me on my back and my family had no idea about what I was doing.
Now the meaning of life is to determine your path in life and to allow yourself to meander a little. Also be a little bit forgiving of yourself especially in this critical, hypocritical world. We must combat these forces that hold us back and act as brakes on our vehicle of life. Criticism, fault-finding, and belittling other people as a way of building themselves up by other people holds us all back.
The world is full of manipulations and plots to keep us from reaching our destiny. The average fault-finders only want to build themselves up, not you. This sabotages cooperation and promotes the power and wealth of a few. Their motto is there is not enough to go around and I am going to get mine before you can take it from me. What a grand scheme for these peoples’ lives which leads to substance abuse, relationships that may sabotage them and be unfulfilling, and a focus on things, not relationships. They are not to be trusted and because of this, they think that everybody else can not be trusted. What a flimsy throne that kind of ideology can make. They focus on things that can not make them happy in the long run and backfire. Remember how Scrooge ended up in The Christmas Carol.
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Children are our most precious resource. Don’t waste them. This subject is worth repeating. They need love and affection to thrive. Good self-esteem is a must for all children to have. Nor should they lack support. Enough food and drink so they can grow and be healthy and not be hungry. These needs are often not met during weekends or in the summer. For some kids, all the food they get is in school. How can one study and learn when they are hungry? Security and safety are another need. Children should not be afraid or the innocent victims of crime. Adequate housing helps meeting these needs. Don’t forget adequate schools that can meet these needs too.
Finally and still important is an education on the rights of people, the rules we need to respect so that we can all get along, and the development of an inner sense of right and wrong. History is a necessary part of education so we don’t make past mistakes and so that we can also learn from past successes. Children also need protection so that they are not used only to satisfy other people’s needs when it is not in their best interest.
Last, but not least is creativity. Each individual child has some unique talent or ability that the world needs that should be supported and developed in each child. Children are not useless trash made to be used and thrown away. Abortions support this meme!
Parents or parent substitutes can be valuable assets to our culture. Those who take on the responsibility of providing for their or other children’s needs. Support is often provided for those parents who fail but not for those who want to succeed at doing this. Laws should be created and adjudicated with the child’s rights in mind. Children are not property and are individuals with innate rights. Custody determinations often forget this. I know of one county court system that penalizes the worst of their judges by having them do custody cases. Yuck!!! Children are not property!
Once a child forms an attachment to an appropriate parental figure, it should not be broken unless abuse occurs. Natural parents should not be allowed to slip in and out of a child’s life threatening his or her security and sense of trust. Often such unattached children will attach themselves to anybody almost instantly as he or she is so needy.
Posted in child development, development, learning, love, parenting, responsibility, self-actualizing, self-worth, Uncategorized | Tagged Children Youth and Family, Family, Learning, Parent, Self-esteem, Violence and Abuse | Leave a comment
Would you, if you were a man, wear a suit that was tailored to fit some other man. I had a husband who was very particular about collar sizes and sleeve lengths in his shirts. I have discovered I only like music that is sung a certain way and any other versions almost offend me. Am I right or wrong? Or have I discovered music for myself?
Posted in advice, bullying, control, creativity, decisions, development, feelings, guilt, identity, judging others, learning, lies, maturing, mistrust, older persons, perception, perspective, power versus force, problem solving, relationships, self-actualizing, self-esteem, self-help, self-worth, stress, trust, Uncategorized, wisdom | Tagged Anger, Decision making, Family, Interpersonal relationship, Passive–aggressive behavior, Problem solving, Self-esteem, Self-Help | Leave a comment
Remember when you were not supposed to share your private parts with anyone, but a parent, or with someone else usually a medical person when your parents were present. Later you were told you could choose to share them when you were an adult; but not with someone you didn’t want to share them with.
Now we can view others’ private parts anywhere on the street, in magazines, on the internet, and in advertisements. It is hard to say, “No, I don’t want to look at that, I don’t want to see you that way, and if you are going to do that either you must leave or I will leave myself.”
It is still alright to feel icky and to refuse to view things that you don’t like. As a long-time psychologist, I thought I had seen everything and nothing surprised me or offended me. If viewing something does not have to be done in the line of duty, I still can say it is inappropriate and switch channels or walk away or if it is my space, tell someone to leave and possibly not to return.
Private parts are your personal possessions and they are there for your satisfaction and enjoyment. This can be spoiled when someone tries to use another person’s private parts for their satisfaction and enjoyment only and will say anything or do anything to make it happen.
Feelings can become detached from the event and the victim may not remember what happened. This is a form of self-defense and possibly a form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). This makes it difficult for the victim to bring up from inside him or herself what happened in order to digest it properly. This also can interfere with a person’s appropriate sexual development.
The victim has a large price to pay. What about the offender? Usually as long as he or she can do it, he or she will do it to more and more victims and in worse and worse ways. It could be called an addiction. It usually has to do with what an offender needs to do to get sexually excited and to reach orgasm. Like alcoholics need more and more alcohol, the offender takes more and more risks and does more and more damaging things to his or her victims. The frequency and intensity of the abuse also can increase.
Posted in addiction, behavior, child development, date rape, development, sexual feelings, Uncategorized | Tagged Children Youth and Family, Violence and Abuse | Leave a comment
Social interaction is crucial to children learning language. Watching a video or listening to an auditory version is not enough. Are children becoming autistic because people in our world are becoming less and less involved? What about a good old fashioned conversation or a satisfying read? Being unable to interact with others is a very real problem and I can see the day when children have virtual play dates? How removed from reality is this? Will we all sit home and rely on clouds and the internet to keep us in touch? Will the ethers be doing our talking? It will no longer be necessary to read or write as computers will communicate for us just by talking and ultimately will thoughts and images not words be used to share ideas?
This just started out as a blog about how children need human contact to learn and ultimately to thrive. Scarey isn’t it? For example, someday people will not sign their names, not just because they did not learn cursive writing; but because reading and writing are no longer considered necessary. We have done this since the dawn of the machine age and eliminating the human factor in creating things that we need and use. Is it possible we are also eliminating the good vibrations that many skilled, dedicated craftsmen and craftswomen put into their work.
Posted in advice, behavior, career, child development, computers, control, creativity, development, happiness, identity, intelligence, languages, laughter, learning, nature, parenting, perspective, reading, reality, self-help, self-worth, success, Uncategorized | Tagged Child, Children, Children Youth and Family, Communication, Education, Family, Interpersonal relationship, Learning, Self-Help, Student, Teacher | Leave a comment
The problem is that in your garden you may have been taught to see certain plants as weeds and which should be “weeded” out and others as flowers which should be cultivated. Many people when they plant their gardens expect to get flowers but the truth is that when you plant a seed, you may get not get what you expected which is someone like you and you don’t know how to cultivate them. How do you handle this mystery seed as a disappointment or as a wonderful new discovery if you got what you were hoping for. Why take it out on the plant, because you have to learn new cultivating techniques and, for example, provide different amounts of water, different amounts of sunshine or shade, and different kinds and amounts of plant food as well as protection from different types of insect infestation. Some require more space than others or grow taller and block the sun getting to other plants and/or your view of them. You can look on this as a pleasant surprise or as a serious disappointment and/or you might learn new things about growing different “plants”.
The famous Kennedy family had their developmentally disabled daughter unsuccessfully operated on to deal with her unconventional behavior and then institutionalized her because they couldn’t cope with her unfortunate behavior changes after surgery and her perceived inability to benefit (they thought) no longer from family life with the other children. Could she who was seen as an unfortunate weed that needed to be changed been raised successfully (at least for her if not for them) in the in the Kennedy family compound? They felt that they couldn’t cope with her behavior and poor ability to comprehend and benefit from what was going on around her. It was an unfortunate decision and at the time, they didn’t know that the operation would not help her, but injury her further.
Did you get what you individually needed to grow and flourish as the flower that you actually were or were you treated unfortunately as an unwanted weed? Also what were your parents considered to be by their parents, teachers, and even peers? Flowers or weeds? and how were they raised? Taking account of the differences as well as the similarities is important in raising your own off spring or the children you have contact with, students, nieces and nephews, etc. . Consider such happenings as a pleasant surprise and as a splendid way to learn new things and see life from a different point of view and not as dealing with an unwanted pest and, at best, as at least an inconvenience to have such a child and set them the child up for the rest of his or her life to be seen as a failure or to be at the least second best when compared with a sibling or or siblings who might more meet your expectations and fit your style of dealing with life itself.
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Old rolls or old roles? Which are staler. Have you changed even so you might fall back into old roles when you are back in an old situation. The expectations can still be there and you can’t resist them. Does everybody eat at the dining role table when you eat in the kitchen even though you are not a child anymore. Do you wait until everybody else has eaten before you even attempt to eat your food? Anticipating a family visit can take you back to childhood, adolescence and possibly young adulthood. and when you actually get there it can be even worse. The cues that used to set you or family members off, still do. Okay, it doesn’t happen for you. What about your partner when they visit their family.
Do we ever grow up in spite of our families? Daddy’s girl or mama’s boy are roles that are easily taken up again when around mommy or daddy again. Do you or did you have a sibling that used to boss you around, always got their way , or could beat you in a fight verbal or physical? Were you the “STAR”, the one always recognized for your accomplishments or were you invisible and if you you did anything that achieved recognition, did certain or all other family members ignore it or worse yet not even know that something like that happened?
Old habits die hard. Do family members that were used to giving you orders still order you around effectively when you are around them? Do you pick up the check, wash the dishes, mind the little children while the rest of the family doesn’t even thank you and may even go off without you. Enabling, double binds reassert themselves. Do they order for you, refuse to get you a drink, or comment on your hair or what you wear or even go so far as to pick out what you wear.
Worse yet do you become sick or somewhat spacey when planning to make a home visit. Worse yet can be family reunions where you are given no choice as to what happens or do you do the opposite and wind up planning the whole thing with everybody else’s wishes, preferences, and time schedules in mind, not yours, because it is easier for you to just give in. Do you find yourself not making a fuss even when you are grossly inconvenienced. If it is your partner’s family reunion, do you get taken along for the ride and have a miserable time. Do old dramas reoccur like Uncle George drinking all the spiked punch and getting sick and puking all over someone’s pants or carpet.
Do you wonder why you went. Was it just to go and put in an appearance. Did it even mess up your schedule and cause you to miss something else that you would have preferred to go to another family reunion, or a planned event with hard to get tickets. Do the people there smoke, drink excessively, or cuss outrageously even in front of children? How many of these events have you enjoyed? in the past ten years.
Are you still the scapegoat at these events like a school reunion, etc.. Or worse yet do you still get bullied or even worse yet emotionally , physically, or sexually abused. Some times sexual abuse by a family friend or member does not stop when the victim reaches adulthood. Do the people there go off into their own groups (old school friends) and leave you on the fringe. Or instead do you lapse into old negative behaviors deliberately talking about things and doings while openly leaving someone out and who has a miserable time.
I suggest a spa visit before to get ready or better yet after to pamper yourself. Aim to just live through it and give yourself some quiet decompression time possibly both before and after the visit. Reward yourself for getting through it even if you only went out of obligation such as “Honor thy father and mother.” You might even go so far as to do or not do one thing that that you usually don’t do or do (almost helplessly) on these occasions. Stand up for yourself, but be totally prepared for what might happen if you do this. These people can still push your buttons even if they have not been pushed in a long time.
Okay you are strong; you wouldn’t let this happen to you. What about letting it happen to somebody else just because this was the way it always used to be. You don’t want to cause any conflict. Worse yet then they might pick on you too. Have you really matured and do what you think is right rather than falling back into going along with the crowd. “The crowd” can exert a lot of pressure and you may be seen as spoiling their good time.
Posted in drama, family Therapy, family ties, judging others, maturing, narcissism, perspective, relationships, self-worth, stress, Uncategorized | Tagged Family, Relationships, Stress, Student | Leave a comment
When I was in school I was expected to learn how to do something and to master this skill on my own. There was no teacher utilizing a method of instructing in math or reading. Tutoring and such additional help is common today but was only used then in extreme cases where the student couldn’t master the subject. If they were given extra help in class, the rest of the class would fall behind. Memorization skills and good handwriting were expected and competitions were held in these areas with winners and losers. To the gifted student, it was motivating and now we know it created brains filled with much knowledge and good problem solving skills.
Such students still exist. My son and I both figure out how to do math problems on our own. I never was very good at helping with the “new” math homework when my kids were in school. Surprisingly I took advanced math classes in high school and did well; but calculus was never offered. I never did master calculus but I memorized derivations in graduate school when calculus was used in statistics class.
When methods are used to teach math, they often do not “click” with every student. This is like with using the computer. You need often to figure it out for yourself and when someone else teaches you, they teach you their way which may or may not work for you. Everyone’s wiring is different and what works for one person may not work for another person. There are many different ways to do things on the computer and how something is done in one program may not be the way something is done in another. Frequently programs on the computer assume that you will already know something and skip explaining this step. If you already know how some things are ordinarily done on the computer, you may be able to almost automatically fill in the missing step while a novice won’t be able to do this.
Assuming that somebody knows something or knows how to do something may make somebody look like an “ass” whether it is you or the other person depends on who determines the winner of the argument you or the other person. I frequently find this a problem with men who feel that if you can’t convince them of something that you are automatically wrong. Who determines the winner is the problem here. As a result, I refuse to participate in such arguments.
Posted in learning, teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged Calculus, Education, knowledge, Learning, Problem solving, Student, Teacher | 1 Comment
Chinese proverb. It says, “Study till old, live till old, and there is still three-tenths studying left to do.” Meaning that no matter how old you are, there is still more studying left to do (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Perseverance breeds possibilities. Possibilities make themselves visible when we are optimistic about doing something. Self-confidence breeds success. Developing solutions to problems can become our constant mod us operandi if we think positively. Thinking something is hopeless blocks our thoughts and cripples our creativity. Being judgmental, especially of one’s own self and one’s abilities, can be self-defeating. Is the first thing you say to yourself when faced with a problem or decision, “I can’t.” Stops you in your tracks doesn’t it and you immediately give up trying to do something about the problem. Also at a certain point when you get older, you are often told that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Perseverance is the key and we now know the brain can and does make new connections as we learn something new no matter what our age. This is called neuroplasticity.
Perseverance is also necessary when seeking help. I have come to rely on others who I think know more than I do about somethings like computers and technological devices or who, I think, have more mechanical abilities and even those who I think are physically less challenged than I. They’re taller and stronger. Sometimes, however, I still must rely more on myself. For example, when it comes to computers, I have done two things: When I do rely on others for help, I review my problem areas and compose questions whose answers I hope will help me get the answers I need to do what I do. That way I can help myself to some extent and better use the help I get. Or I try to figure it out by myself with the aid of any material I can find which will explain what I need to have explained at my level. Even though I feel at times that the time I have spent “trying” to do some things has been useless, I have found that I did acquire some basic knowledge that helps me to understand and use the information I do get if any from other sources. Learning is a complex process and to achieve it you must persevere.
Sometimes people do not appear to have to persevere at something to master it. Somethings appear to come naturally to others without perseverance, but that is often so because they want you to think that when actually it took blood, sweat, and tears.
For example, after I had finished my graduate schooling, I had to take a comprehensive exam in my area of study in order to be licensed by the state. This required perseverance. It was very strictly regulated and offered infrequently in a distant city. I remember my former boss told me that he had taken it and passed it without studying for it. I studied anyway for several months as I had been out of school for a couple of years and needed to refresh my memory about important concepts and applicable research studies. The exam was very difficult and I would not have passed it if I had not persevered and done all the studying I had. I now think my former boss was setting me up to fail by saying what he did. I doubt whether he had passed it without studying or that maybe even if he had passed it at all.
Posted in competition, learning, lies, maturing, problem solving, Uncategorized | Tagged Comprehensive examination, Doctor of Philosophy, Education, Graduate school, learning new things, Neuroplasticity, perseverance, Student, Study skills, studying, Test Preparation | 2 Comments
Most of us have trouble controlling our own lives so why do we think we can do a good job of controlling someone else’s life, especially that of someone we really don’t know. It seems that our media encourages this and hour upon hour of television news is spent speculating about people who are in the public spotlight and garnering opinions about them, who they are, what to do about them, and why they did what they did. They survey dozens of “experts” and whether these experts know what they are talking about is often not very clear.
Usually this speculating starts before the facts about the situation (if we ever really get them) are all in and often the initial information from which people are drawing conclusions is sketchy, at least a little inaccurate, and sometimes just plain wrong. This jumping to conclusions can lead to actions and reactions that are not just inappropriate, but downright harmful. Mob violence, for example, can be such a thing. There is something to be said for delays in reporting some of the news until all the facts are in and for taking the time necessary to put together a full and unbiased report. Even then should people, consumers and “experts”, be called prematurely to offer ideas as to how they would describe the motives of possible “suspects” and as to what should be done in terms of punishment and in terms of changes in the law that should be made.
How can some of us who may have similar problems of our own that we can’t or won’t solve and/or who have little knowledge of the problem in general tell others with that problem what to do? In college, the sophomore who was taking introductory psychology always knew the most about the subject and was inclined to offer other college students who had not yet taken the class, friends, and family unsolicited advice and opinions about others’ behavior and psychological problems. “Don’t look at me; look at them,” the person seems to be saying and often following this with unsolicited and unsound advice. Control yourself, not others, unless you are officially responsible for them as a teacher, law enforcement officer, judge, or parent.
Posted in communication, drama, emergency, judging others, maturing, responsibility, Uncategorized | Tagged Expert, Law, Law enforcement officer, Psychology, Speculation, Student | 1 Comment
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