No behaviour is negative unless one is willing to identify it as such. That, for me, implies that the person placing a tag or an identification on a behaviour is just as much responsible for defining what is or is not acceptable behaviour as the person who is displaying the behaviour.
This is one of the issues which came bubbling up yesterday evening, after a discussion with an unknown person on internet who endorsed a blanket statement about the "entitled" children of today, who were unwilling or seemingly unable to pull up their socks and play their part in a family or in society. I found it a rather short sighted commentary, in that it assumed that a child that was unwilling to pull its weight in a social setting was being deliberately obstructive in whatever way.
The traditional modes of thought are generally still that the parents know everything and that the children need shut up, listen and be taught. Too often it doesn't occur to people that we can all learn from each other, parents and children alike. Children need to learn life skills, coping mechanisms and be kept out of harms way for many years, parents can learn much of the same in their ways of interacting with children. Learning doesn't stop when you become an adult, it's a lifelong process and once one reaches maturity I feel that there is even more obligation to continue learning, being observant and taking in that nothing is what it seems in the world around us, that there is always room for doubt and error. In the end, what is needed is a broad sense that one is not able to fathom the depths of another person's psyche, that you cannot understand anybody else on the basis of your own convictions and that the most useful ways of interacting are giving the other the benefit of the doubt, and not letting one's own perceptions and wishes get in the way of our doings with other people. If we fail (or refuse) to learn this lesson, we are effectively trying to mould the world to our own sense of reality and denying someone else the same right.
I take exception to the world view of adults who figure it is up to grownups to determine what children should/ought to be doing and that we parents had the right to order children around according to our own perceptions and inclinations. There are, of course, certain limits since adults have more life experience and more insight into what is useful and what is not. A child needs to develop, in his or her own way according to it's own needs, and needs to be guided. That implies that in any two cases, the same approach is inapplicable to attain the "required" behaviour.
Of course, nobody ever askes themselves what the basis is of the socially acceptable behaviour, that it can also be a societal thing in which we all take part. No two children are the same, no two children have the same needs and no two children are able to cope on the same terms in life. This is one of the greatest fallacies of our time, that we expect everybody and everything to be the same at all times. Ordered, predictable, controllable.
I get to wondering if this is also an offshoot of the Fordist production line mentality, which became popular in the first half of the 20th century, in which identical goods are produced by people doing the same thing over and over again, allowing little room for flexibility or creativity. The same mentality seems to have taken hold in a social setting, the "one-size-fits-all" mentality, that everyone should conform to a set standard. This, of course, opens up a whole new discussion about who sets the standards and who enforces them. I'm not going there right now. ;-)
Children are not products in the sense that they can be moulded to the required societal vision. Children are unique entities which need to be treated with just as much respect as adults require for themselves. The same goes for parents, since they are also somebody elses children, only moving through different stages in life and hopefully learning new skills to develop themselves further and make the world a better place.
This has turned out to be an interesting little rant and ramble in the meantime. In one way it's a little crystallisation of some stuff which has been floating around in my mind for a long time, now it's all suddenly come together in a strange way. I think I should be thankful for the person which whom I interacted yesterday evening, in some ways I guess it was a bit of a serendipitious encounter which was very useful for me. In this way I see, once again, that all people need each other to trigger new insights, gain new knowledge and make sure that we dont fall into the trap of thinking that we know it all. We don't, and we should never assume that we are the masters of the universe, that everybody and everything is at our beck and call. We are small, ineffectual and hopelessly lost little creatures at times, all we can do is stick to guiding each other and making life as good as possible for our fellows, so that everybody benefits. There is no point in power plays, these only lead to delusion and sadness for some and a misplaced sense of entitlement for others.
Have a nice day, keep well...
