2334. Suggestions for Raising Children — Part VIII

Tactical Parenting: Encouraging Toddlers

Numbers are only for easy reference.

Toddlers: This part will become more complex than readers may like. Tough to study. However, the toddler phase is the most important to stabilize a child’s personality around the quality that parents expect. Heart and mind are the most open they will ever be to parental input. The earlier a child learns something, the more indelibly it’s imprinted. I advise mothers and yet-to-be mothers to study several times that which follows.

1. A child’s development process begins in the third year of life as a toddler’s conscious mind opens further and further, first signified by the child recognizing who they are. They take on the aura that, Hey, I’m a person too; pay attention to what I have to say. And, they expect to be respected just as they see others respected.
2. Parents produce what they hope to develop by generating the firmest of foundations in toddlers. Teach morality early because toddlers buy in more easily to good teaching before they can recognize examples to the contrary. (Better they know what’s right than to follow deviations of others.)
3. Gently convey parental convictions. Teach principles about life that parents value and each child’s maturity can handle, such as right and wrong, boys don’t hit girls, everyone sits quietly in church, and responsibility comes before entertainment. It’s vital to stay within each child’s level of maturity. Think thrice before expecting toddlers to act as adults.
4. The overriding principle about teaching is this: Match child’s new responsibilities with their maturity so the child can easily succeed. Success is far more important than both achievement and fulfilling responsibility.
5. Lessons learned through success are lasting. Failures impact kids two ways, and they often view mistake as failure. Fail themselves and they learn from experience, which they learn to deal with by improving. It’s part of their self-development ‘package’. Fail to meet parental expectations and they feel inadequate and tend toward unworthiness, which is the birthplace of tween and especially teen problems for parents.
6. Self-image begins to form in toddlerhood. That much of who and what they think they are at any given moment determines their behavior more than parental direction—except as the latter may be forced of course.
7. Additionally, after toddlers realize how boys and girls are treated differently, self-image includes how they like themselves as male or female. Unless parents belittle them, self-like develops in boys as the result of how they do and accomplish things right now, today, this moment. If parental feedback isn’t the opposite, a girl’s self-like develops as the result of how she relates to others according to her hopes, desires, and wishes for today and for doing better next time.
8. Subliminal hardwiring of the subconscious mind that began in infancy continues until the reflection of adult treatment is made less important than the toddler’s appraisal about treatment versus that deserved. Thus, the reflection of how he is treated slowly fades and is replaced by new programming as his conscious thoughts start to prevail and swell over time.
9. Instinctive self-development swells toddler thinking to pay more attention to themselves. It’s the most fertile time for parental expectations to become more guidance than dictate. The latter has the undesirable effect of belittling as unacceptable the child’s expectation of who and what he is. Guidance confirms that he’s openly accepted to compete for his own place in the family.
10. Toddlers make their own decisions about themselves, which form and develop into an ever expanding picture of self, and which instinctively includes the freedom to continue developing.
11. A toddler had no conscious involvement with earlier formation of self-esteem but his conscious mind soon learns from experience. He concludes from how he’s treated plus his accomplishments just how much and thoroughly he likes or doesn’t like himself. It’s no longer one-sided based on treatment in infancy. Self-conviction about successes and failures fulfilling responsibilities determine their self-like.
12. Gifts intended to enhance self-esteem fail to do what’s intended. Self-esteem can’t be changed. Self-image is earned and unearned gifts don’t uplift it either.
13. Toddlers think they deserve to be handled like others treat each other. But yet, parents have to exclude toddlers from certain adult events. It’s much easier to do if parental trust has been given and toddlers have learned to respect parental interests and decisions that are hard for toddlers to accept.
14. Consequently, the environment toddlers live in, together with their accomplishments and relations, helps to form high or low self-image, which is the governor of their behavior for life. IOW, we follow our own; we all choose, decide, and live according to the self-image we develop previous to the moment.
15. The toddler opts to believe what happens to him more than blindly accepting what the actions and words of others try to convey. Although not fully aware of what he does, independent thought about his status and value forms both from and into a revised picture of self.
16. Within a short time boys and girls become more conscious that they receive different treatment. Each comes to deserve their own unique version of adult and sibling interest and respect. In addition, trust begins to show up as different by sex. Self-image forms more intricately around the displays of parental and sibling trust, which improves the toddler’s interest in those around them.
17. Self-esteem, as reflection of how they are treated, slowly stops growing as the toddler’s conscious mind begins to pay attention to its own conclusions. They start to alter with conscious thought the opinions they perceive in parents and siblings.
18. Parents should start immediately—if not before—to respect the toddler as a person. Later, when they identify as boy or girl, respect as such should follow. Parents naturally show interest in their children but it doesn’t mean that respect follows. When child perceives a parent’s trust and not just interest, it bounces or reflects back as interest in parent and respect for what they say and do.
19. Toddlerhood lasts until first grade. Respect in the form of interest, nurturing, and allowing self-development work best. As each child seeks to self-develop, boys expect no assistance. Girls seeking to master the art of relating with others expect guidance but not excessive oversight.
20. Early on the toddler’s self-image is an undeveloped negative. It’s why interest and trust are vital to be shown by parents before the picture starts to solidify as negative self-like.
21. When high self-esteem and low self-like are different or reversed, children proceed conflicted. Alternating, they bounce from liking to not liking themselves. When SE and SL are both high, they confidently face the world as movers and shakers. When SE and SL are both low, confidence seldom finds them except for niches of particular appeal to them.
22. When SE and SL are both super low, kids and adults feel urgent need to resurrect their image tarnished by self-loathing or -hatred. (Out of which can far too easily come depraved killers and others of their ilk.) Super low self-like works similarly with girls but with less dynamic results.
23. (WADWMUFGAO. Teens and adults who loathe or hate themselves feel good about themselves when they make others feel the same way or they make them wish they felt the same. They seem motivated to make someone pay for their misery.)
24. Each child seeks to self-develop. They first explore what they should aim at. As soon as they recognize that they will grow into an adult, that’s what they want to become. Personal and self-image development follow that course. As they figure out what kind of adult, they look for samples, ideas, and models and tend to duplicate those they admire of their own sex.
25. As self-image develops fully as a super-teen, self-like displaces self-esteem. How they like themselves as a person becomes far less important than how they like themselves as man or woman and filling their various roles in life.

The toddler instinctively develops the picture of who and what he is in his world of people. As a subset, it includes his determination about liking and disliking himself as man, woman, and their roles in life. Throughout life, each person’s continually changing self-image, unchangeable self-esteem, and consciously derived self-interest guide their speech and actions and in effect govern their behavior.

2174. Dating in Mid-life — Part B6: Chaste vs. the Adultolescent

If a man indulges in a “side dish” while dating a woman to whom he has not pledged his exclusivity, what does it say about his character? Is he worthy of respect, and does he have the potential to be Mr. GoodEnough?

If a man is after a woman rather than just chasing her for sex, her insistence on chasteness works in dating and courtship. Some men, however, are unable to satisfy the expectations of women for physical fidelity during the dating/pre-courtship stage. They can’t remain loyal enough while a relationship develops, and they find ‘side dish’ (or two, or even three) for interim enjoyment. A reasonable but ultimately unsatisfying alibi exists, with roots that extend back to his childhood.

As an example, it happened to Her Highness Tooconfused. Nearing a year into a satisfying courtship and following the guidelines described on this blog, she discovered that he was wandering on her. Regular contact slowed and then stopped for a week. He returned without explanation. As she says, “He had been busy chasing and bedding a friend of a friend (small world heard it through the grapevine). Did they end up dating? No. The ’side dish’ was a once or twice night stand for him.” Judging him as insufficiently loyal, Tooconfused broke off. He kept trying to come back, but she declined without explanation.

What follows is mere speculation about her man. But, I describe an upbringing that will produce an adult male who thinks her man’s kind of dating behavior is normal.

This man appears to be an ‘adultolescent’. That is, physical adult and mental adolescent. He grew up without learning to be a mature adult. Parents are usually blamed, but it’s not the whole story.

First, children do not primarily shape their values, standards, and expectations from the examples set by parents. Absorption is only partial and can be very small when not exposed to parental care that includes these qualities that are admirable among boys: respect for the child as a person albeit a little one; respect for him as self-developer looking for ways to satisfy his self-interest; nurturing that satisfies but is appreciated only for real hurts; and leadership handling that the boy dislikes in the short-run, learns to admire before puberty, and then appreciates when delivered in coaching form during the teen years.

Children are self-developers. They learn and absorb what they want to. They follow their self-interest as far as adults permit. And they develop from what they learn and absorb, which usually comes mostly from other children, and some or many may be older. You can see it begin in three-year olds; they more easily pay attention to and associate more comfortably with children than adults. Consequently, kids are primarily the personality products of who they grew up with other than adults. (Old school moms knew it intuitively and restricted associating with certain kids. ♫ I remember it well. ♫)

Second, parents apply growing-up pressures but often the wrong kind. Parents, especially adultolescents themselves, often reinforce immature peer pressures. Tooconfused’s man likely experienced an upbringing similar to the following.

• His parents may raise him to be a good or great child, rather than a prospective adult. They focus on how he performs and appears to others in fun and games, sports, grades, popularity, self-esteem, and childhood likeability rather than guiding his motivational urges toward adulthood. The difference in pressures that parents apply (outperform a cousin or the kid next door in sports, grades, popularity) and expectations he should meet (make mom and dad proud, make an all-star team) make parental life more involved and beneficial for parents and seemingly a more enjoyable upbringing for him. A good child reflects well on parents.
• Or, his parents may ignore guiding his self-development so that he absorbs the values, standards, and expectations from TV idolatry, celebrity worship, and children with whom he associates. If neglected, parents may wonder but don’t much care that immature values govern his life.
• Either way, his standards and expectations are shaped by trying to live more for the moment and less for the future. It reinforces the males’ primal urge to focus on the present and let the future come as it will. Live to think and act as a child rather than try to learn, absorb, and emulate more mature values and adult-like expectations, such as better planning for his future.
• Raised to focus on short-range thinking rather than practice for long-range achieving, he enters puberty with no more guidance or parental expectation than to continue as a good kid. Perhaps he was indulged and spoiled, perhaps not. For the most part, the responsibilities up to which he is expected to step leave exceed his abilities. His sense of responsibility is too weak or short to prepare very well for his future. The present remains too simple or enjoyable to think of how to improve the prospects for adulthood. He can continue as he does now. He can handle it, or so he’s been conditioned to think.
• He enters adolescence unprepared to exit as a mature adult. Too little assignment of responsibility that over time strengthens his sense of duty (making his bed, cleaning his room, helping mom without her asking). Too little reaching out for adult-like achievements. Too little stimulation of adult ambitions. Too little success achieving long-range goals. Too much enjoyment of teen fun and games. Too little self-discipline. Too little earned self-respect. Too many self-imposed pressures that push toward immediate rather than deferred gratification. Too much time spent learning to bend female thoughts to his will. Too much time studying how to convince girls to uncrossed their legs. Too much time spent indulging the irresistible attractions among females. All of that morphed into his normal behavior.
• The adolescent focus just doesn’t aim at affirmatively learning how to be a responsible adult. It remains focused on immature behaviors and lessons learned that work well and improve popularity among peers. Thus, he passes through the emotional turmoil of puberty only to adopt beliefs based on peer associations and immature values and expectations. He confirms his childhood preparation and superiority as more desirable than parental hopes and dreams for his adolescence.
• His early childhood prompted by the desire for him to be a good child left him with less than a full bag of adult values and beliefs, which was exacerbated by teen-peer influence focusing typically on excitement, adventurism, activism, and today’s sexual freedom. After age 21, he has little or no internal guidance except from childhood values and beliefs reinforced by mounting immaturity among his associates. (Leadership by example, even poor influence by peer associates, is always the most effective.)
• Mature adult values not inculcated before puberty leave a vacuum to be filled by teen peers. His belief system finishes filling up with the only values he’s willing to accept, those more like his own. He seeks and associates with peers who think and act as he does.
• Values and beliefs embedded before puberty last for life if reinforced in adolescence. In his case, beliefs based on values about being a good—but turns out to be irresponsible—child leave him handicapped with women. Unless adultolescent themselves, women expect to associate with men mature enough to be husbandly responsible and fatherly dependable.

In the end, both parents and peers shape the personalities of kids. Parents lay the groundwork, and once lain, peers influence heavily the shape the personality takes. Actually, peers by a wide margin predominate in the process. In the case above, his presence in the adult world is physical, but his heart and mind remain habitually influenced by teenage thinking and habits. Having a ‘side dish’ now and then is perfectly normal for his deeply embedded adolescent-minded values and beliefs.

The dish of chaste loyalty that Tooconfused served up, which required both delayed expectation and gratification, was not as appealing to him as the temptation of a ready-made side dish. After all, how important is loyalty to adolescents? She was mature; he was not. She was ready to exchange mutual loyalty; he couldn’t meet her expectations for very long.

Could he ever become devoted to one woman? Could he qualify as Mr. GoodEnough? That’s another story waiting to be told by the woman who tames such a man sufficiently well that he wants her more than any other. Tough, but it can be done. A few women are that determined, patient, hard-headed, and soft-hearted. I’ve made my best effort to explain what she faces.

P.S. You’re blessed today. Her Highness Cinnamon worked extensively to make this article more easily readable. I’m responsible, however, if you find fault with content. Guy

 

2170. Chivalry — Wherefore Art Thou?

We need to teach children there is no shame in acting chivalrous, and no shame in girls welcoming and appreciating a chivalrous boy. Why wouldn’t a girl or woman, for example, love and appreciate that her male friend or potential suitor fixed a flat bicycle tire for her?

Parents should teach sons to NEVER stop acting chivalrous, no matter how many figurative slaps to the face they receive. Teach each boy to never stop trying to be the one who is first to help the damsel in distress, first to pay a compliment about a girl’s appearance, first to open a door for her, first to brave up to bullies on her behalf, first to put down boys that demean her, and first to ignore the taunts of boys for paying chivalrous tribute to girls.

And parents should teach little girls to pleasantly accept kindness every time it comes their way. It’s a blessing when males extend the chivalrous hand of help or friendliness that lacks sexual overtures. It doesn’t need to happen; males have other things to do, other and easier ways to earn self-admiration and respect. OTOH, the chivalrous boy CHOOSES to give unconditionally and make something come out to some female’s favor. Just the attitude of chivalry in the hearts of boys is sufficient to uplift the worthiness of females after both pass into adulthood.

As one of the most important character traits, parents should teach that no shame attaches to chivalry, even if and when females denigrate offers or the deliverer of help. It happens because of unwillingness in the modern pop culture to accept being called the weaker sex. Yet, accepting that pretense produces guys putting themselves at the disposal of women. However momentarily it may be, a chivalrous act confirms unconditional respect, unconditional willingness to please, and eagerness to earn female favor. It may be duty to him, but he acknowledges with action her self-worth in his world. It’s the beginning of mutual respect.

Our present-day pop culture continues to become more unfriendly for females.  It’s a small factor, but disclaiming being the weaker sex fuels the female ego contrary to the best interest of women and the natural propensity of men to win their favor. Yet, feminists and their followers continue to demean men and boys, which causes other women to miss the good old days of chivalry that so boldly confirms females as important.

Women feel awkward when faced with chivalry. They have little confidence. Some think they don’t deserve it, others wonder how they can adequately express their gratitude.

A ‘thank you’ is fine but it means little to men. Words just aren’t that meaningful to men; actions are. Women should provide more encouragement; they can reach a man’s heart with an action statement of admiration. Such as, ‘Men are never more handsome than when they please a lady.’ Or, ‘Wow, who taught you to be such a pleasant gentleman’? Or, ‘I measure a person by their deeds, and you make your deeds special.’ Note that each statement praises indirectly; nothing direct enough to be taken as a hit even so much as ‘You’re likeable.’

He’s admired and that makes her gratitude meaningful to men. Such admiring remarks are significant. But at least some acknowledgement must be paid by women. No recognition of chivalrous action shames the woman as ungrateful.

If we ever restore chivalry to society, women have to do it starting with boys and girls and blending it in over future generations. It’s amazing how the principles and practices of chivalry please both sexes with the other.

Tomorrow we return to dating in mid-life.

 

2031. Female Blessings at Birth — 40-42

I continue asking for your agreement/disagreement on the long list of blessings that women inherit at birth. This is the 14th group of three blessings, and I’m grateful for your earlier responses.

With each item, do you agree that you and other females inherit it at birth? Or, is it something you and others learn later in life? False means that the item is missing completely from your heart, it’s something you learned during life, or you just don’t think women are born that way.

You probably wonder or have forgotten, why have I compiled the list? I hope to close the gaps and shortcomings in this sequence of results that women seem to be achieving so poorly.

• A woman’s happiness depends primarily on the gratefulness that accumulates in and shines outward from her heart.
• Women can only be as grateful for others and things as they are individually grateful for who and what they are as a person, woman, wife, mother, girlfriend, granny, church-goer, encourager, Christian, Jew, American, Korean, employee, and on and on and on…. The key term being grateful for self, self-gratitude.
• Women will or should be more grateful for themselves as individuals if they are aware of just how magnificently they have been designed, endowed, and energized to be the key players in life and compatible with themselves, others, and especially a lifetime mate.

Where I explain or add, I could be wrong. Feel free to challenge me. I’m not trying to be right, just searching for truth—as close as we can get it. I search for the blessings that contribute and encourage women to use their irresistible force to override the immovable object of male dominance.

These are the blessings for today.

40. From the earliest age it made perfect sense to me that men provide and protect their families. Thus, as the family faces the outside world, the man is the primary foundation upon which everyone depends. [Guy adds: Compared with the other (currently) 88 blessings, I am less sure that this one arrives with birth. However, it becomes evident so early in toddlerhood that it fits in as if it does.]

41. My fear of being abandoned has always energized me to promote the interest and seal an attachment with the man closest to me, first father followed by boyfriend and husband. [Guy adds: The female nature is designed, endowed, and hormonally driven to associate with others. Isolation scares the independence out of them, and they feel isolated not so much when they don’t have a man as they do at the loss of whatever man they ‘possess’. It brings to attention this generality about the sexes. Women fear loss of something, more than not earning it. Men fear not earning things more than they fear loss of the same things. When men are unable to earn—respect, money, dependence on their worth, self-admiration—it devastates their spirit. When they lose something, they know they can recover it through their inherent ability to earn whatever they choose.]

42. Even when I heard discouraging words in girlhood, I knew that I would do certain things of my own choosing, that someday I would be the primary facilitator (self-developer) to make my future become what I wanted. (Later, my girlhood dreams told me that it would depend on the choices I made, husband I chose, and relationship we developed with my relationship expertise.) [Guy adds: Children are born with the firm conviction that they intend to develop themselves. Boys don’t concern themselves with the HOW, they just do it. Girls seek more precision and comfort within themselves. Self-development starts in toddlerhood and continues for life. Admittedly both sexes exhibit it too immaturely for most parents to understand and many to refuse to accept. But the primal urge is there. Girls will seek advice and assistance; they want to have someone go along with them either in spirit or company. Their low guilt threshold makes them cautious. Boys seek to single-handedly figure out and overcome restrictions and obstructions. Choosing playmates is a major test bed, shaper, and refiner of self-development efforts, which is why it causes much grief for parents.]

Thank you for your opinion. More blessings to follow in a day or two.

 

 

738. WADWMUFGAO

The abbreviated title won’t become popular, but that’s okay. It serves here to represent We All Do Whatever Makes Us Feel Good About Ourselves. Sometimes it costs us, as with these examples:

• Anytime women provide knowledge about their sexual willingness outside of marriage, they become disadvantaged to capture whatever they’re after except for sexual union.
• Egotism reflects out of low self-esteem. Brought on by difficulty making Self feel good about Self, egotists use other people to inflate their sense of worth.
• People memorize and use trivia to obstruct others from upstaging the trivia-master on broad or deeper matters. It helps change the subject or regain control when conversations make the trivia-master uncomfortable.
• Parents and teachers try to improve the self-esteem of children by indulgences that make the adults feel good about their selves. They mistake self-esteem for self-image, and do the wrong things.
• How uplifting are tattoos? After a few days the uplift goes away, as does one’s attention to a new picture hanging in the home. If done for fashion, fashions change, so what follows? No tattoos? If done to make a statement, time makes statements obsolete.
• How inadequate a man’s self-image, if he resorts to tattoos to perceive himself better off? How low, disrespectful, or perhaps self-hating is a woman’s self-esteem, if she tattoos her body?

It’s our nature: WADWMUFGAO. It often explains how we produce mistakes, regrets, or unintended consequences.

632. Mothering Sons — #04

Parents—The way to earn respect is to give it. If kids have to show respect out of fear, it never grows in their heart.

Helicopter Moms—Whether from ego satisfaction, fear of harm, or good intentions, continually hovering over son kills initiative, stifles growth of self-image, and likely makes him co-dependent on someone or something. (You may win his extreme allegiance for your old-age care, but he won’t be valuable to another woman.) 

Toddlers—The drive for male independence and freedom starts earlier but becomes obvious in toddlerhood. It’s son’s opening statement about the picture he has of himself, his self-image. 

Mothers—A reminder: Our self-image sits like a governor on our life. If we think we can, we do. If we think we can’t, we don’t. It keeps us tracking down the road of life that we visualize for our capabilities and interests. If we venture off that road, accidentally or deliberately, we correct ourselves and alibi or explain it even to ourselves, if correction is beyond us.

Infants—Dad’s primary responsibility lies with taking care of, encouraging, rewarding, and entertaining mom. The baby can become drudgery, when father shows apathy about mom’s needs, wants, and expectations for support and caring for her.

Teens—Son’s independence hormonally shuts out the authoritarian leader roles of mom and dad. Coaches are authoritarian only in a narrow window that involves their game. Coaching for parents means authoritarian about specific things and allowing freedom off of that ‘playing field’.   

More follows.

474. What Moms Never Hear — E: Parents develop too

There’s no such thing as motivation, there’s only self-motivation for both parents and, except in the earliest years or under threat of hurt, children.

Parents inclined to see their parental roles as ‘motivators’ may want to consider other methods. Love and nurturing fade in effectiveness for influencing and changing a child’s mindset as a child ages. Common sense counsels parents to develop new skills and techniques. These work: leadership guided by principles in the tweens and coaching guided by respect and trust in the teens.

Ø Self-interest is the psychological force that energizes self-motivation. The same psychological function motivates each child, albeit underdeveloped, unpredictable, and often nonsensical.

Ø Except to relieve anxiety and assuage hurt, both love and nurturing become increasingly ineffective to energize children after age six or seven.

Ø A leadership hierarchy, one parent more powerful and respected than the other, shapes toddler thinking best as the little ones transition toward the tweens.

Ø Leadership overpowers love and nurturing in the development of tweens.

Ø Good leadership specializes in respect and trust downward before it’s earned and upward after it’s earned.

Ø Parents that split leadership roles into primary and secondary functions enable their selves to balance practical hard-headedness with loving soft-heartedness—the essence of raising tweens. 

Ø Effectiveness of both parent leaders depends upon acceptance, endorsement, and backup of each other in front of the kids. Otherwise, respect for one or both weakens, and kids pick up more details for later getting their own way.

Ø After puberty, love and nurturing don’t work well in the teens, although they can help with angst and hurts. Leadership also weakens. Consequently, coaching works best to retain parental leverage.

Ø Mutual respect and trust exchanged between leaders and followers in the tweens provides the best foundation for successful coaching in the teens.

Considering only parental leverage in the teens, leadership principles provide good guidance for parental development in the tweens.  

NOTE: More later about leadership principles and coaching. Nurturing is addressed in the series of that name listed in the CONTENTS page at blog top.

Details about the perils of co-equal leaders follow as next post facto.

468. What Moms Never Hear — A: Intro

I dedicate this series to Her Highness Marianne. Dealing with teen boys concerns her, as it does others, so this series will look at prepping boys and girls for the teens.

Raising kids can be simplified with clearer terms and concepts. I place on the table the following high-impact themes as openers:

M RESPECT—How parents respect and treat each other is more vital than how they treat their children. (This presumes conscientious parents and the absence of abuse and maltreatment.)

M AUTHORITY—When parents disrespect adults and discredit authority figures, kids learn and will act the same way toward the parents.

M ROLES—By not specializing in distinctly different roles, parents generate unneeded confusion, mistakes, resentments, and power struggles that confound parental development. It compounds to weaken child development.

M VALUES—Children inherit, adopt, and otherwise absorb their values from three sources: parents, heroes, and peers. But it happens respectively in three phases of development.

M DISINTEREST—Mental growth causes disinterest with techniques and ‘motivators’ that parents use. One impact: Love and nurturing lose their energizing influence after the weans. This mandates that parents develop themselves.

Next post facto: Mom’s Song.