Mirrors

“Maturity is that time when mirrors in our minds turn to windows, and instead of seeing the reflection of ourselves we see others.” ~ Author Unknown


If my middle son and my daughter were closer in age, people would think they are twins; not only because they look so alike physically, but mostly because of their identical characters. You see, in my life I was blessed with a royal pair, the king and queen of stage drama.

Naturally one would think the two are peas in a pod, since they are so like-minded, but I can assure you they are quite the opposite. With skin as thin as air and an everlasting primadonna attitude, both could be cast in an Othello performance. And of course, as all artists worth their salt, they nearly drive everyone else to the bottle.

The most maddening and equally hilarious side of their performance is the way they complain about each other’s behaviors when they know perfectly well they both behave exactly alike and have been guilty of the same action in the past. I found it quite entertaining when my son came up to me the other day and informed me that his sister was chasing the cat; the moment I chastised her about leaving the poor soul alone, I turned around and saw Michael chasing the cat himself! When I asked him what he was doing he simply answered that he only wanted to pet him. Never mind the fact that the cat was trying his best to blend in with the furniture to escape both of them. The same happens with anything else – Morgan will say something about her brother misbehaving at the table, without even realizing that she is doing the very same thing at the moment she turns him in. Or, Michael makes fun of her for losing an item and then will raise Cain because he can’t find something “he is absolutely certain” he brought home from school which miraculously materializes in his desk the next day.

They are just kids - and siblings at that - and it is normal for them to lash out at times since they are still trying to work out better ways to handle conflicts. By criticizing their own actions reflected in others, they are able to assess reactions and determine necessary adjustments to their own behaviors.

Many of us, however, don’t outgrow this stage of learning, and even in our adult years, we continue the pattern of only seeing our own flaws reflected in others, although we quite rarely recognize we are judging ourselves. It happens often that someone obsessed with control criticizes someone else with the same problem; or that someone who feels insecure about their appearance or intelligence lashes out at another person they perceive lacking those attributes.

Assessing and criticizing our flaws in others allows us two different opportunities – for one, we are able to openly talk of what bothers us about ourselves without standing under the spotlight, and for second we usually annoy others enough that they will lash out in return; being the object of someone’s anger validates the flawed image we have of ourselves, and fills our need to self-punish.

As Ken Keys wrote: “A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.”

The Singer with a Fat Voice

“Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by.” ~ John Sales


Yesterday morning I was working on one of my sites while my daughter was drawing a picture beside me. Since I had turned on the sound on my laptop earlier to listen to a song, the soundtrack of the novel video trailer came on. Without even lifting her eyes from the paper, Morgan said: “I like that song mommy. Is that guy fat like a teddy bear?”
Caught by surprise at the random question, I asked her what she meant, so she looked up at the screen and said again: “Where is the guy who is singing the song? I think he is big like my teddy bear.”

Since the only images on the video are related to scenes in the novel and don’t show the song performer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJPL1wqlV_Y her assumption gave me food for thought. Why would a four-year-old think someone is overweight just from hearing a voice in a video, if she had no visual trigger that would support that assumption? I showed her what the singer really looked like in another video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8CNmEUVDjE, and she seemed surprised - the image she had conjured in her mind and the actual person didn’t match at all.

One of the greatest flaws of human nature is to assume facts before we even bother to check if our impressions are aligned with reality. We create a mental picture of someone and seal it in our mind with the fire of prejudgment, ready to jump to unsupported conclusions that are nothing more than shaky speculations.

The fact that a four-year-old was ready to prejudge someone’s appearance from the sound of his voice suggests that this type of behavior is a product of nature rather than nurture - to my knowledge nobody has ever taught my daughter that large men have throaty voices and small men don’t. If nature is at fault, it is twice as important to condition ourselves to never assume and prejudge, at least until we have gathered evidence to support our assumptions.

I believe this concept applies to most areas in our lives. Stereotyping leads to undesirable and unwarranted drama, and it explains nothing about the unique personalities of the people we encounter. When we meet anyone, we should only be clear on one thing: we know nothing about them, and prejudging an individual’s potential, character or lifestyle can only blind our ability to see the real person standing in front of us.

By conjuring a mental image we feel in control and less vulnerable to surprises. We are naturally inclined to categorize and label our experiences, and we are afraid to give strangers the benefit of a blank board, even if what we rationalize is not necessarily reality.

After watching the two videos, Morgan went back to her picture, not giving this matter any further thought, but I hope that some day – when the time comes for her to step out into the world – she will benefit from having learned that what we assume is not always what is.

Discipline: The Building Block of a Functional Society

The main goal of discipline is to teach children self-control and remind them that there are natural consequences to their actions: by repeatedly associating an unpleasant consequence to an unwanted behavior, the children are able to learn the difference between what is acceptable and what is not.

In generations past, the rearing of children was stricter when compared to the standards our society lives by today, and most of those children grew into responsible and creative adults.

Today, in an era of psychological expertise aimed at telling parents how they should raise their children, parents don’t know how to act any more. A new school of thought teaches that parents should praise their children for good behavior and not discipline them; because all children thrive on praise and acceptance, if rewarded for the good actions, they will try to repeat those behaviors to earn even more positive attention.

Yet, our youth is not thriving. Juvenile crime rates are rising at frightening speed, and our children are caught in a spiral of self-destruction.

As parents are losing their grip on the ability to keep things under control, and feel that society is promoting a new generation of weeping, uncontrolled criminals, new fundamentalist groups are sprouting like poisonous mushrooms on a field. Michael Pearl, the minister who advises parents to beat their children with plastic plumbing supply line, is only one of the radical advocates of parental rights who, sadly, appeal to the weary and frightened parents who no longer know where to turn.

So, parents ask, is there a right way to raise happy children who will become well adjusted, productive adults?

One of the main things to remember is that our children are being raised in a world dominated by societal and peer pressure, and parental skills are compared to those exhibited by theatrical parents on TV sitcoms. Those forever smiling television parents-always available and never losing their cool-are not real and it is unfair to use them as a scale to measure real life parents, who are weighed down by financial burdens and tighter schedules.

Also, the demands on children are doubling with each passing day, as they are expected to behave like pint size adults in a society which no longer allows children to be children.
If a child is rambunctious, he or she is quickly diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD, and is medicated to numb the excess energy which no longer has an outlet through creative play and physical activity.

In the old days, children were able to go outside and play from sunrise to sunset, and were therefore allowed to use the endless supply of energy that they are naturally equipped with. In today’s world, children are increasingly kept inside and forced to channel their energy into indoor entertainment, often with the result of living their childhood through the virtual adventures of video games characters.

With that said, it is important to understand that discipline is just as important today as it was yesterday, and children need limits and boundaries that will control their natural tendency to go overboard.

There has to be a balance of praise and moderate discipline, so that the child will feel loved, accepted and appreciated, but will also understand what areas of behavior need improvement.As parents, we have the responsibility of maintaining the reins of this balance, if we ever hope to set the building blocks of a functional society.