Mentatul Monthly Focus
March 2020 Edition
– Parenting –
This is not about being a mother or father to a bunch of freshly cooked dumplings, nor about how to educate dumplings on how to behave once they arrive in the stomach. This is simply me dumping a bunch of useful parenting articles.
Mentatul Monthly Focus
November 2019 Edition
– Child Psychology –
Some adults lack morality even after an entire lifetime. Yet, as a study shows, healthy ethical values are something that the vast majority of us are born with. So when does one lose one’s moral compass? Perhaps, like almost any quality in life, it has to be cultivated.
About one of the most revolutionary books in pedagogy and parenting alike:
“Schools try to teach children skills and knowledge that may benefit them at some unknown time in the future. But children are interested in the now, not the future. They want to do real things now. By doing what they want to do they also prepare themselves wonderfully for the future, but that is a side effect. This, I think, is the main insight of the book; most of the other ideas are more or less corollaries.”
During the past few years I’ve noticed just how much of my wife’s mind is permanently connected to our son, perpetually preoccupied about how to ensure he gets the best of everything. I think at least a third of her brainpower is dedicated to ensuring his well-being and addressing all possible (and impossible) threats.
It’s not that I don’t try to do the same, but most partners have it so much easier than mothers, not only because of family roles (let’s admit it, they exist even in the most egalitarian of societies) but also because of the “chemical advantage” of not having given birth. The male (or not-mother) body is instinctually less preoccupied with taking care of offspring.
But the mother’s incessant worrying might end up impacting brain health. Even worse, through body-language, it transmits some of this worry to the child and other family members. I’ve come across two interesting articles that highlight these aspects. Here’s some useful knowledge to integrate.
Children do not perceive mistakes the same way we do. They are oblivious to most social norms and cultural taboos. However, children have been found to have an understanding of right and wrong from as early as 19 months old. I believe they can empathize from a much earlier age (depending on the emotional nourishment they received as infants).
The article below discusses how parents sometimes force their children to say “I’m sorry”. It’s a double mistake: first of all, the child is humiliated and secondly, the child doesn’t even understand the reason why the apology is made, hence damaging his or her understanding of the concept of being sorry.
Among the first questions I asked myself when I became a parent was: “what parenting book should I read now? Which is the best one?”. What the article below has taught me is that sometimes even an easy read can be more illuminating than all the books in the world. Make no mistake, there is a lot of knowledge that parents should absorb and parenting books are important. But so are little gems like this one, tiny pearls of perfectly concentrated wisdom, ready for you to integrate.
I consider this article as a must read for all parents or parents-to-be. It’s short and to the point. Both men and women will find here information that few doctors talk about yet it is vital for a healthier family life.
I’ve long believed that the physiological and psychological changes that come with motherhood should be planned for accordingly, long before conception. The mother must have a supportive partner that understands a lot about what motherhood entails. Of course, it’s not impossible to ignore all this, but why not minimize the risks?
I’ve been meaning to write something about what I think regarding having children sleep in their own rooms. Fortunately I found this excellent article first. It says everything I would have said, and then some. It’s well researched and will hopefully give parents and parents-to-be some good food for thought. Key concepts: emotional stability, effective sleep, nurtured development.
The fact that empathy is a career-enhancing skill should give parents enough reason to instill it in their children. The fact that empathy can also stimulate a social group’s technological progress through increased collaboration and innovation should give governments enough reason to implement it throughout the educational system.
Even though we evolved emotionally quite a bit in the past centuries our society continues to often exhibit a severe lack of empathy, especially when it comes to the male demographic. Perhaps it’s time for governments to realize that empathic men are more useful than those whose emotions were twisted in order to condition them to become obedient soldiers, ready to slaughter each other to fill somebody’s coffers. Perhaps that made sense last century, but we’re past the point where we can survive a third world war, so any investment in that sort of competition is a recipe for social bankruptcy.
