The Enemy of What’s Best
It is up to us. We can choose to have optimal (the best) health or just-getting-by health–the best parenting skills or just-getting-by parenting skills. Stress-free Discipline teaches optimal parenting.
Remember, what’s OK is the enemy of what’s best.
“Watching television for two to three hours or more per day is linked to significantly higher risks of developing diabetes and heart disease and dying from all causes, according to a new analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health.” (June 15, Journal of the American Medical Association.)
If it were just health, some parents would ignore the need to change TV habits. But wait! Thinking ability is also at risk here.
A New Yorker study indicates that “A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some…a reader and a viewer even think differently.” (Crain, 2007, 135)
In several cited studies, illiterates resisted giving definitions of words, grouping like objects, and making logical inferences about hypothetical situations. (Crain, 2007, 137) Moreover, “in an oral culture, cliché and stereotype are valued as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon…” (Crain, 138)
Detailed and consistent decline in reading and thus in thinking ability have been reported by the National Endowment for the Arts…
It is much harder to compare viewpoints and ideas between streaming media than to analyze the written word.
Juxtaposed images give the impression of cause and effect where none exists. Logical thinking and learning words become a strain. Social and communication skills suffer. Experienced teachers and social workers have noted the trend. Teamwork, highly valued in the global marketplace and in parenting, is suffering.
According to the scholars Jack Goody and Ian Watt, Crain says, (2007, 138) “it is only in a literate culture that the past’s inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth.” My experience on the Navajo Reservation corroborates all of the above.
Recall is also enhanced by reading, as opposed to merely viewing. Moreover, viewers from the age of eight to sixteen months begin loosing word power for every hour of baby DVD’s and videos they watch daily, according to Crain.
Data on more than a million students worldwide by Micha Razel “found ‘little room for doubt’ that television worsened performance in reading, science and math.” (Crain, 2007, 138)
The N.E.A. reported recently that “readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theatre, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteer.” (Crain, 2007, 139)
If parents cannot read, their children will not be encouraged to learn more than the minimum to get by. Thus, each generation will become more ignorant.
Apply the Bingo test: is reading, good health and the ability to live a richer, fuller life worth changing your TV habits?
Hidden Agenda in Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga’Hoole
What’s a symbol for? Do people merely react to symbols? Can they recognize how symbols move our feelings, motivating us to act, and then can people thoughtfully consider whether their action is right or not?
Symbols are a brain short-cut: they bypass thinking
Because the flag of the United States is a symbol of all our history, struggles and victories, we have great feeling when we see it. Groups of symbols can quietly manipulate our feelings into, for example, buying a car because it is advertised with a beautiful woman who lovingly touches it. Our subconscious mind thinks, “chick magnet!” Desire is aroused by a symbolic association, without words and without appeals to logic. Read the rest of this entry »
T.V.: Functional Truth is no Truth at all.
Teaching a child to know the difference between fact and opinion.
Technorati Tags:fact,opinion,T.V.,truth,Bill O’Reilly,Dr. Archibald Hart,depression,mental health,emotional health.conflict,thinking skills.
When I was six years old I came home to report a fight at school. “I said there IS a Santa Claus because my Mommy told me and my Mommy doesn’t lie!” If passionate intensity is the measure of truth, I had the truth and knew it.
Child discipline includes discernment training: what is truth?
Unfortunately truth is not that easy to find.
Shiprock Stories: Who Will Build on Your Foundation?
Your action or inaction, planning or failure to plan, all sum up your legacy to your children.
Consider my legacy from my biggest career challenge: teaching delinquents at an alternative high school on the Navajo Reservation. I prayed for weeks and got very frustrated before I was offered that job. Than I didn’t know if I should accept it.
I wanted a job where I could express my faith and lead students in meaningful ways. Should I say “yes?”
After three days of especially intensive prayer by my pastor and friends, I dreamed an odd name.: Zerubbabel.
What attracts a good man?
A young friend just e-mailed me a question about the link between fashion and sexual attractiveness in finding a husband. Here’s my answer: I wouldn’t know about the relationship between fashion and romance, but that doesn’t prevent me from having an opinion! It’s your choice, of course.
Personally, I think men are genetically “wired” to respond to a woman’s body (such as not fat and preferably in good shape) as well as other characteristics not related to color of clothing. Energy stemming from good health, for example, is sexy.
Black clothing, however, in one culture will connote one thing (mourning), and the opposite in another culture (joy). What culture are you aiming for?
Black is the preference of downtown business people and, in general, more conservative people, in my opinion. If you’re aiming for a conservative (low risk-taking) man, you would do well to wear it, along with modest styling and longer hemline and higher bustline. Read the rest of this entry »
A Family Plan: dignity, equality, unity
Technorati Tags: family planning, positive peer pressure
How can we create a family of dignity, equal worth and unified purpose? Doing what comes naturally (nothing) will not do it.
As Zig Ziggler said:
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,
How do you plan?
Start with the end, the goal, in sight. That’s good advice from Stephen R. Covey, planning expert (stephencovey.com). If you want to stress-proof your family life, you must make a family plan. Here’s a start.
Consider what we have to know in order to create the best family life.
We need to know what every family member considers most important, and what each person needs to do and be (willing? organized?) in order to get there. Read the rest of this entry »
Socializing The Bully, Part 2
Technorati Tags: parenting,
peer pressure,violence,pain,sex,power struggles,self-confidence,attention,parenting
A bad mouth and a bad temper with pushy behavior are marks of a bully. We may feel the bully cannot change.
That bully may be any age. He or she rules a corner of the world by constant harsh “put downs” or taking advantage of others.
A bully feels peer pressure to change, but is stuck in a hard place.
Confrontations are constant when the rights of others are squashed and they fight back. This may be the bully’s only way to relate to others!
The bully may be a loner or a gang leader, since he or she looks for trouble and responds to all interactions by fighting, criticism or arguments.
Sometimes a psychologist will suggest that the bully sit next to or work with the opposite sex in school if relationships are obviously off base and needing modification. Good counseling is essential if your child has progressed from small bully behavior to serious criminal behavior.
The bully rules by intimidating others but sometimes protects weak friends from other bullies.
At school, the bully often has learning problems caused by emotional distress.
At home, siblings become emotional and easily upset.
The bully leaves a whirlwind of pain behind his or her own pain.
Parents may be promoting fighting, saturating the bully in violent media or setting a bad example by dealing with problems by violence.
Parental Responsibility In Bullying Behavior Read the rest of this entry »
Inattentional Blindness: Personal Jihad
Technorati Tags: Jihad,inattentional blindness,Personal terrorism,child discipline,Walid Shoebat
Moderate Muslims, we are told, consider jihad a personal struggle for spiritual purity.
Americans ignore the facts that over 100 references in the Koran refer to jihad as genocidal slaughter of unbelievers with only one quote referring to an internal struggle[1]. (Source: www.shoebat.com)
Muslim violence (jihad) supersedes peaceful contemplation in every country now ruled by Islam. Americans are too distracted, too comfortable, to pay attention while Islam gains a strategic foothold.
The American approach to Islam is a perfect example of inattentional blindness.[2]
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, psychologists, first showed that people who were paying attention to something else in their line of sight were “blind” to something that was right before their eyes.
Raising a Cheater
It is easy to do. Raise a child to want success without teaching him or her the skills that bring success.
Make everything easy for your son or daughter. Do chores for them rather than teaching them to do for themselves. Serve them without asking them to serve the family. Let them watch four hours of media every night, the American average.
Those hours are lowering their attention span, making them less able to compete in the world marketplace, and reducing their ability to think logically. (Check out Caleb Crain, the New Yorker Critic at Large ,Twilight of the Books.) This is a recipe for failure. Cut off your child’s thinking skills at the knees by plugging them into media for hours each day.
That will take away self confidence so your daughter does not believe she can achieve without cheating.
Feed your son junk food or let him skip breakfast. Let him go to bed any time, even though the Harvard Sleep Study says children through age eighteen need eight or nine hours of sleep per night in order to learn. (Check out Matthew Walker, October 17, 2002 Harvard University Gazette Archives. Also see Beth Potier, December 11, 2003 of the Harvard University Gazette Archives.)
Intimidate your daughter by criticizing her weak first steps so she will not risk running. Take away your son’s responsibility by saying the teacher is picking on him rather than holding him accountable. Let the children have after school jobs and cars even though their grades are suffering.
Cheating in college is on the rise. The pressure to succeed is great. Give your child tips on how to steal essays from friends, frat brothers and the internet.
If you want a child to cheat, make success everything, the learning process nothing.
Teach your child that he or she is just an accident of nature, so moral behavior is no longer a useful choice. (See Crosswalk.com, Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint 2/29/08)
Your Challenge
Be close to your child. Know his or her attitudes and actions. If a teacher says your child has cheated, use the “worried-concerned” approach. Express your doubts and disappointments quietly and privately, not in front of siblings or friends. Remember that to your child, success is everything. Say, “Son, I don’t think you’re being completely honest on that test.”
Punishment for cheating may or may not help your child.
Remember that your goal is to support the right behavior, preventing a character defect from developing into further lies and loss.
If you want to change the cheating behavior, punishment might only make your child determined not to get caught.
Use Adam and Eve as examples. Adam and Eve appear to be sorry for being caught, not for their own responsibility in their fall. Your honesty as you talk with your child will encourage changes. Shallow, knee-jerk punishment may reinforce a failing, cheating cycle. Decide what you want to happen.
Accusing your child bluntly, ignoring the problem, and emotional reactions will reinforce a failing, cheating cycle.
Instead, realize that needs are not being met. Help your child learn the skills and earn success. Help her assert herself or himself and be responsible in every aspect of family and school life.
Walk with your children through their mine field of uncertainties until they can navigate on their own.
Make sure they are eating right and drinking enough and getting enough rest. The Harvard studies prove that learning is a lot more effective when you sleep on it. Chuck Colson’s research shows that a strong moral foundation prevents cheating.
Parents, go for the gold!
Feelings vs Truth: Parent Discipline
As manager of a senior apartment complex, I learned a lot about the pressures, perks and pitfalls of aging.
One resident, call her Mary, has focused for years on life according to her feelings. She dwells on her son’s murder, her husband’s infidelity, T.V. and slurs, imagined or real, on her heritage. The bipolar critic who lives downstairs has added to years of unforgiveness, swelling Mary’s bag of complaints. Mary drops that bag on anyone sympathetic enough to stay in range.