Why is he frowning?
Nov 15, 2016
As a child, do you remember ever feeling like your opinions and feelings were not being taken seriously? Did you ever hear a version of "If you are going to cry, I will give you a reason to cry?"
Were you ever told "Children are to be seen but not heard?" when you felt you had something important to say? How did you feel when you were dismissed like that? Did you develop any skills for interacting with others, for handling conflicts, or learning how to compromise? Probably not.
When past generations were growing up, there were different rules, different beliefs as to the rights of different populations. Children were often considered property to sell off to others as laborers. Women had no rights. Neither did many minorities. Education was somewhat optional but most didn't go past elementary school, which was all that was required as late as 1918 across the nation.
But this is the 21st century. We have learned first from observation and testing, to technology which can monitor the brain and body as we observe the same behaviors and test results, that a change in our beliefs of how we see and interact with children is needed. And yet, we are still seeing biases based on uninformed observations, focusing on the surface most impressions of the behaviors with no understanding of the whys and hows below the surface. Many don't feel that they have to take into consideration how a child's temperament, brain development (and disorders which might have been there since birth) and community effect how secure a child feels, how calm he can remain in the face of the unknown, and how appropriately he acts.
It is time to "think slow" as per Daniel Kahneman's work says, to analyze, plan, test, and review our responses. "Thinking fast" is for life or death situations, not for raising and teaching a child. Let's begin using our advanced brain and give our limbic brain a rest.
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