• FrankGSterleJr
    94
    Unfortunately, people will procreate regardless of their inability to parent their children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. Many people seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they [people] will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.

    One wonders how much child abuse and long-term suffering might have been prevented had some crucial child-development science via mandatory high-school curriculum been taught. After all, dysfunctional and/or abusive parents, for example, may not have had the chance to be anything else due to their lack of such education and their own dysfunctional/abusive rearing as children.

    Still, in the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal it’s written that “[even] well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24).

    Regarding early life or adverse childhood experience trauma, people tend to know (perhaps commonsensically) that they should not loudly quarrel when, for instance, a baby is in the next room; however, do they know about the intricacies of why not?

    Since it cannot fight or flight, a baby stuck in a crib on its back hearing parental discord in the next room can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state … This freeze state is a trauma state” (pg.123).

    This causes its brain to improperly develop. It’s like a form of non-physical-impact brain damage. Also, it is the unpredictability of a stressor, and not the intensity, that does the most harm. When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg.42).

    Furthermore, how many of us were aware that, since young children completely rely on their parents for protection and sustenance, they will understandably stress over having their parents angry at them for prolonged periods of time? It makes me question the wisdom of punishing children by sending them to their room without dinner.

    Yet, general society perceives and treats human procreative ‘rights’ as though we’ll somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.

    Meantime, in protest to newly mandated elementary school curriculum that teaches something undoubtedly controversial, a picket sign read, “We don’t co-parent with the government”. But maybe a lot of incompetent yet procreative parents nowadays should.

    Owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support social programs for other people’s troubled families?’

    While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

    As a moral rule, a physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter.

    I believe that high-school students should be educated for the most important job ever, even those who plan to remain childless. Understanding the science behind every child’s healthy/functional development can at least enable a prospective parent to make an educated decision on how they wish to go about rearing any future children.

    If nothing else, child-development science curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.

    It would also teach how children’s mind/emotional development begins as early as gestation. Inside the womb, children are already aware of their mother’s emotions — and perhaps even later emotionally damaged by them.

    According to a 2003 online article by Linda Marks [a body-centered psychotherapist]: “When a mother both consciously and subconsciously wanted to be pregnant and welcomed her baby, the child thrived. When the mother either consciously or subconsciously wanted the baby, the child was fine.

    "When the mother neither consciously nor subconsciously wanted the baby, the child felt the effects of this hostile emotional climate. I remember a story of a woman who not only didn’t want her baby but also resented his intrusive presence in her body.

    “When the Italian doctor would use an ultrasound to view the baby as the mother talked about her resentments of him and the pregnancy, the baby would curl up in a tiny ball in a corner of the uterus, trying to make himself very small.

    "Even in-utero, a baby can feel the power of his/her mother’s heart. When considering having children, making a thoughtful, heartful, integrated decision is important for the overall wellbeing of a child.”


    Since so much of our lifelong health comes from our childhood experiences, childhood mental health-care should generate as much societal concern and government funding as does physical health, even though psychological illness/dysfunction is typically not immediately visually observable.

    Every parent should be knowledgeable about factual child-development science, thus they’re more enabled to rear their children in a more psychologically functional and sound manner.
  • BC
    13.5k
    Every parent should be knowledgeable about factual child-development science, thus they’re more enabled to rear their children in a more psychologically functional and sound manner.FrankGSterleJr

    Lots of good ideas in your post. Who is against good parenting?

    I think we have all seen parents carrying out horrible child rearing practices at one time or another. Maybe we were the unlucky child or the horrible parent. We usually don't know whether the bad practice is a reflection of the parent's upbringing, stresses acting on the parent, regret that the child was born in the first place, or what. We have also seen parents carrying out very good child rearing practices, as well (even without instruction on child development).

    A large percentage of parents manage to raise reasonably happy, healthy children without child development instruction.

    I am not entirely sure what to classify as "good" and "bad" parenting. Beating children is bad; what about being overly permissive? Subjecting children to various risks by putting them to work as children is a bad idea, but what about parenting that is overly protective? Is so and so's parenting too rigid, too disorganized, too religious, too anti-religious, too what?

    Children who I observed being abused (by overly harsh discipline, for example) grew up to be healthy, caring, gentle adults. How?

    Parent - child relationships are a critical influence of course, but then people go on to experience other influences--good, bad, and indifferent. "On average" people tend to reach adulthood as reasonably effective, reasonably happy, reasonably healthy adults. A substantial number don't, of course, and a substantial number experience above-average lives. Lucky them.

    I've heard of some high schools offering child development instruction. Good idea, along with drivers' training, money management, and the like.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    Unfortunately, people will procreate regardless of their inability to parent their children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. Many people seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they [people] will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.FrankGSterleJr

    I'm with @BC here. Children deserve to be protected. I also agree that some sort of parenting teaching in school might be a good idea. On the other hand, looking at the problems there are with sex education, I think there would be serious difficulties in implementation. Child rearing methods come with psychological, moral, and political assumptions and values built in. These days people can't even agree that reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" or learning about Rosa Parks are proper.

    I am of the Good Enough Parenting persuasion. Children don't need great parents, they need pretty good parents - people who will provide at least basic levels of protection, security, and attention. I come to this understanding at least partly on the basis of my own experience as a parent. My children are in their 30s and 40s now. I was not a wonderful parent, but they are wonderful. Humans have gotten by without formal training for at least 200,000 years.

    I am also of the persuasion that in the great majority of cases, parents are better equipped to raise their children than government is. There is a bond between mothers and fathers and daughters and sons that shocked me when I first felt it myself and shocked me again when I saw it in my own kids.
  • BC
    13.5k
    One of the forms of 'bad child rearing" concerns language. Children are exposed to many millions of words by the time they reach the school house door. The more words they hear their parents speak (television does not count) and the more positive words their parents say to them, the better. White and middle class children are the beneficiaries of higher and positive word usage. Black and poor children hear their parents speak fewer words, fewer positive words, and more command words. Clearly cultural and education background matters.

    Children who receive the least (and least positive) language from their parents generally do considerably less well in primary school, and often fall further behind language-rich children as time goes on. Once the language deficit has been created during the first 5 or 6 years of life, it is very difficult to remediate.

    Fortunately there is something that can be done. Researchers have shown that when poor mothers are taught to speak more words to their children, use more positive words, and use fewer command words (like, "shut up", "sit down", "stop that", and so on) the children's language skills develop better.

    This isn't a quick fix. Teachers need to periodically work with the parents and their children for an extended period of time, not just a few weeks or 3 months--more like 2 or 3 years. It's expensive, but there does seem to be a pay off. The children receiving the education enrichment did better when they reached kindergarten or first grade.
  • LuckyR
    480
    Well I too am in agreement with improvement in childrearing, though I look at how to get there a little differently. In my experience, prospective parents, or to label it more accurately: folks having sex without Birth Control, generally fall into three groups. Those who will be acceptable to excellent parents, those with good motivation but poor skills and/or habits who will benefit from instruction and/or support and those with no or reverse motivation who account for the vast majority of the really egregious problems. I'm not convinced instruction will benefit most in the third group, rather IMO subsidized access to effective Birth Control and the removal of societal messaging that parenthood is expected would be a more effective strategy.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.