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Why Our Kids' Live in a Troubled World
"Erik, stop climbing up on the bookshelf! You'll fall and break your neck!"
"I'm so disappointed in you, Sarah. What's with this B in math? You made an A last time!"
"Bobby, I'm so proud of you!"
On the surface, this parenting style seems okay, but is it? Look around us. The world is an obstacle course of temptations and threats for our kids. But, is there a connection? Does the way we raise our kids today really have anything to do with the mess we're in?
Sure. The reason our kids face more serious challenges growing up now is that for centuries, we've been raising them to make choices that are shaped by the expectations and approval of the outside world. How in the world did we let that one slip up on us? If you delve deeply into the fundamental roots of human behavior, the answer becomes clear:
Human beings, like wolves, are pack animals, especially kids. And being pack animals, second only to our urge to survive is our urge to belong to a group, whether it's our family, our classmates, our circle of friends or even the entire human race. So how have we chosen to satisfy that urge? Two possibilities:
The externally directed way
Begging for acceptance-pleasing the pack by conforming to its standards (including its warped set of priorities-beauty wealth, fame and power.) This faulty choice-making mechanism relies on external influences to make decisions-decisions shaped by and contingent upon the approval of others. As a result, the inner choice mechanism withers, leading us vulnerable to all those tools that can distort our decisions in an effort to make us believe those decisions are right when they aren't-tools like self-deception, denial, rationalization, justification, and excuses. These same tools then make it easy for the externally directed to succumb to their own temptations and emotional impulses.
The self-directed way
Earning acceptance-finding a unique contribution or carving out a meaningful role within the pack that will better its welfare. Here, choices are made because they are right, not because they may prove to be a means to win pack's favor. Since these folks rely so heavily on internal dialogue to make their choices, they are resistant to those tools of distortion I mentioned above.
Why did humanity tragically choose this last path? It's certainly the path of least resistance, because it's easy to let someone else do the thinking for us. Furthermore, by adopting someone else's choices, we don't have nearly the sense of accountability and responsibility we would if the choice were truly our own. And historically, funneling people down this path was a very convenient way to dominate the uncivilized masses by requiring them to think and behave a certain way.
Once people began to rely on external influences to make decisions, the dominos started to fall in the wrong direction. The result: a quagmire of troubles in our families, among our children, and in society as a whole. It's clear to see how external direction creates a lack of accountability and responsibility ("Hey, it's not really my choice, so why should I be blamed?") the over-bloated sense of entitlement ("I lived by the packs standards, so I'm owed,") welfare fraud, body image and eating disorders, underachievement, the lack of creativity, relative or absent morality, the pervasive fear of failure, the presence of gangs and cults, substance abuse, rampant consumerism, the winner/loser mentality, a warped sense of sexuality, violence, bullying, violent and nonviolent crimes, racism, war, the rat race mentality, cynicism, apathy, indifference, suicide, and so on.
The way we've been handling these problems today isn't working. Sure, we throw money into anti-gang efforts, cook up a thousand different ways of battling crime and declare war on drug traffickers, but this is like pruning away at the withering branches on sick tree. Why aren't we questioning why the tree is sick to begin with? We need to look to the roots, not the branches, to cure that tree. The way we raise our children is at the root of our societal problems, and if we want to truly address those problems, we must raise them to become self-directed.
In Raising Children Who Think for Themselves, I offer seven strategies that make raising self-directed children a cinch. But we can aspire to go a step further by incorporating self-direction strategies in our school curricula, by offering self-directed parenting classes through schools, churches and other community sources, and even by launching a national initiative for choice reform that gives everyone the opportunity to learn how to make better choices.
Copyright © Dr. Elisa Medhus, mother of five and author of the provocative new book Raising Children Who Think for Themselves, has thirteen years of experience dealing with the biggest problems families face. Her new book gives parents concrete, common-sense tools for getting through to their kids, with seven effective strategies for raising independently-minded children.
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