Many people have difficulty tolerating ambiguity. This may be just why our nation is so polarized right now between the left and the right, Trump haters and Trump supporters.
Actually, ambiguity is often the state of knowledge. We just can’t get a clear picture of how things are and just when we do, we find out something new. Young twenty-somes often do not feel comfortable with ambiguity and this is the reason why many of them are seduced into cults which claim that they have all the answers like Scientology.
I am satisfied that I don’t know all the answers and that some answers will never be extremely clear although they may become clearer over time. I believe that I don’t know all the answers and that I won’t know all the answers in this lifetime. People who do not believe this way makes me very nervous as I don’t totally agree with everybody and everybody doesn’t agree totally with me.
College was the place where my fellow students were encouraged to disagree and to debate many points of view unlike most of the students of today who are reinforced for accepting the beliefs of certain professors who are deemed politically correct.
Gaining in knowledge should encourage surprises and new
ideas not consistently reinforce all beliefs presented or taught. Science should constantly explore and evaluate conclusions made from current experiments and past knowledge. Many scientists often currently skip the phase where they develop a naturalistic understanding of the area of knowledge that they choose to evaluate. This often involves acquiring personal experience which has been typical of anthropologists in the past who went out to live among a people that they proposed to study. First-hand experience can sometimes be better than book-learning.
How many child psychologists have ever had first-hand experience bringing up children? or have spent time playing with them after they themselves have entered high school or college? Getting down on the floor and participating in a child’s imaginary world is often different from observing and taking measurements from an experimental psychologist’s perspective. I especially like to have the child have me draw a picture of an experience he or she has had. Also, suits and ties and tight skirts and high heels get in the way of making these observations.
I once was a participant in setting up an experiment about snake phobia. I was not
particularly worried as I didn’t think actual snakes would be used even though I was snake phobic and didn’t tell people because they then would surprise me with one of the real snakes used in their experiments. I knew that when I saw someone carrying a shoe box in the rooms where my fellow students had study carrels there usually was a snake in it and I would leave the room without saying anything.
After I was strapped into a recliner with leads for physiological responses in a room with no windows and the only door behind me, and shown slide pictures of snakes, I was told this was when the actual snake would be brought in a glass aquarium from behind me. If this had happened, I (or any real snake phobic) would have gone “ape-shit” and that would have been the end of the experiment and the start of a lawsuit if I and/or they had survived.
No one knows everything and we never will. We just have to live with ambiguity in our lives. Concrete knowledge is desired and claimed by some, but can not usually be true in actual reality.
Another supposedly concrete example of ambiguity is the spectrum of colors. The is no such thing usually as a pure color and the changing fashions in fashion design and interior decorating illustrate this. For example, a color of green that is fashionable in yarn for crocheting and knitting goes out of style and it goes on sale. Someone making items from this yarn for sale at craft fairs might not get many buyers. This color of green no longer is fashionable. Or pick up an old or vintage handmade throw at a flea market and it might not go with the things you currently have where you plan to use it. Did you know that the color green or other primary colors can be ambiguous?
Children are like African violets. (A type of small very ticklish house plant which housewives of my mother’s generation raised.) They are very sensitive in terms of their response to the environment in which they are planted. Children were known to die in orphanages when they were physically taken care of but not emotionally taken care of. Yet some people give more attention to the African violets in their life than to their children.
As each African violet is individual in its needs for light and air and moisture so is each child individual in his or her needs for attention, love, and support. When this is neglected, the plant or child withers and dies inside if not outside like the plant. The payoff of proper care can be great in either case.
Perhaps one can afford to lose many African violets in this process but not even one child. Children can be resilient but still, can be greatly damaged and become of little use to themselves and furthermore to the society that child dwells in.
Moisture, light, and soil and the addition of fertiliser is needed for a violet to grow; but what is needed for a child to grow in the right direction? Love, support, attention, and unconditional love appear to be necessary for this to happen.
Caregivers can not neglect one child while caring for another, This has been shown to happen when a child has a seriously ill sibling. This child needs attention and care too especially if this child gets neglected while the ill child gets urgently needed care.
The sibling does not need to be seriously physically ill to take attention and care away from another sibling. Some children are more attractive to one or both of the parents than other children. How important is it for a parent to have an athlete or gymnast or beauty queen or a scholar over a wallflower, a geek, or any child who is not particularly gifted or attractive
Worse yet are parents who really shouldn’t have any children (P.S. I am not opting for abortion, but I am a champion of adoption in these cases). Sadly what welfare does sometimes does not necessarily encourage parents to be actively involved in bringing children up right.
Wealth is not necessarily the main factor in bringing children up right. The things that are needed to do this often can’t be bought. They often cost more time than money. First is unconditional love which occurs when a person often gives another person love no matter what he or she does or says.
Children need support, not just physical support, but emotional support. A child can do well at something, but this accomplishment might be ignored and/ or at least not supported emotionally by the family or guardian. The child can say to themselves, “Oh, what’s the use?” if the effort that he or she puts into something is unnoticed and they receive little or no help with it on top of that!
Prize winning entries at the county fair can go unnoticed and wining or losing a coveted position on a team or in a play can also be ignored. “You did what?, when said, demonstrates that at least part of a child’s life has gone unnoticed. Worse yet, a child can be hurt or sick and this goes unnoticed until the child is in serious jeopardy.
Psychological needs that go unmet can cause great harm to some children. Children that survive such circumstances can be very resilient but those who don’t are a drain on society and can be lost. Too often the people who make these decisions are incompetent as well. The judge in my family says that custody decisions in his court are given to the least competent to decide.
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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.
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.
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual even though you deserve one. You have to write your own!
Criticism is the little voice in your head that holds you back and hinders your performance. Even though others say it is for your own good, sometimes it isn’t.
Reality is not always what you think it is or what you were told it is. You can miss seeing, hearing, feeling and experiencing some things because someone told you that you just were imagining things.
Sometimes as people get older they don’t get wiser, they just get more set in their ways. Sometimes a strongly held theory or opinion becomes a person’s life jacket when he or she is drowning in new information.
How hard is it for a person to change his or her mind? This may be why people are told not to bring up religion or politics at the dinner table. Maybe this is a good reason to think outside the box. Many inventions were created this way.
Remember people are natural born originals and can’t be easily shaped into something that they are not. Gemstones have to be cut into shapes that work with their natural structures. What about individuals who are being shaped into contributing citizens?
There are some things a woman should look out for when establishing a new relationship with a man. Don’t believe that his last girlfriend or wife deserved to be labeled as the “bad” one in the relationship. Be careful if either you or he came from a family where violence was common or accepted if a woman or child did not do the right thing according to the man of the house. Be aware too that men or women can come from families where violence was common among the women of the family.
There is no real excuse for violence. When anger is considered “justified” because the person who is angry thinks that someone or something made him or her feel that way and that is enough to justify acting it out. This can lead to a very explosive situation. Add alcohol to this in some people and the situation becomes even worse.
Being the only man in the family, besides my elderly grandfather, my dad was called upon to “handle” his brother-in-law when he was in an alcoholic rage in order to protect my mom’s crippled sister and kids. My dad had been quite an athlete in his youth but this did not always help when my uncle was threatening them with a butcher knife. Also, my younger brother was still at home and had to witness this. I don’t think Police usually made domestic violence calls back then.
Women and children and even some men are not punching bags and it can leave a strong impression on some children even if they themselves don’t get hurt. “Don’t hit him; hit me” was a brave statement made by a sister when her brother got hit, not her. How helpless does a child feel when they watch their sibling or parent get hurt on purpose when the other parent has a “mad fit” and takes it out on him or her?
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