Effective parenting

Submission on NZ’s “Green Paper on Vulnerable Children”

2012-01-30T23:35:00.000-08:00

Here are my answers to questions from NZ’s “Green Paper on Vulnerable Children”. You can answer as many or as few questions as you like.

1. Has government got the balance right between supporting parents and families/whanau and protecting children?

Its not a question of balance; its a question of principles held in context. Parents need to be accountable to objective standards of value; and when they default, you do not punitively or judgementally engage with the threat of taking the children away; you do not neglect the parent for the child. You raise the child through the parent. The problem is that I think people with basically healthy values are disengaged; and those with unhealthy values are directing the process.

2. How can government encourage communities to take more responsibility for the wellbeing of their children?

The problem is your emphasis on 'responsibility'; its the wrong approach. The issue is 'efficacy' . You need to ask - how can we improve the confidence and pride of parents as educators, but also as members of the community. It takes a sense of efficacy; in anything to start with, but ultimately in their self-reliance.

3. Should there be an action plan for vulnerable children that focuses the activites of government and non-government agencies?

Of course there should be a plan; but sadly these issues are debated on a false 'politically-inspired' dichotomy between:

1. Altruistic 'save the children' - never mind the parents disempowerment and alienation, i.e. because they are defenseless...nevermind the context of a child raised in uncertain homes.

2. Moral relativism - a renunciation of judgement because these people are intrinsically good and worthy, i.e. Unconditional love.

4. Should the government focus its spending on programmes and services that have a sound evidential basis?

No because what you consider evidence is a form of scientific relativism; and what you consider 'results' is probably dubious in its foundation. The goal is not simply to stop abuse but to facilitate healthy parenting practices. The perspective of govt is too superficial....and politically 'reactionary'.

5. Should we regularly monitor vulnerable children and their families/whanau to see how they are going? Who should do this and under what circumstances?

The issue is not so much who does it; but what is the context in which they do it. Are these agents custodians of the children; in effect acting with punitive disregard for the child; or are they agents of objective standards, assisting these parents lift their game. There needs to be empathy; there needs to be consequences, there needs to be understanding and real skill-building; there needs to be relationship or trust building.

6. How much personal information should be shared between the professionals and others who are working with a particular child or family/whanau?

There is no reason that all information - bar that information which identifies the parents - cannot be shared. Frankly, if there was not such a punitive, politically-motivated policy, there would be less witch-hunting by the public. Politicians and victims fuel this; and the media of course facilitates it. The victim is allowed to 'vent'; and we even empower their loathing with appointments to influential committees.

7. Should some people get priority over others when allocated support and services because they are caring for vulnerable children?

It is not so much a question of 'prioritising' but recognising the opportunity cost of not doing what's required. Poor outcomes are not necessarily a question of spending enough money, but merely, not having the best possible programs.

You do what needs to be done, whether their issues are acute or not; after all they will get worse if they are not getting the support they need. There is an over-supply of labour (i.e. unemployment); so there is no reason why you'd not invest in the resources which will avert financial waste in years to come. Forgotten people cause real damage; but there is a huge opportunity cost is raising an destructive person as well. They are destructive for a reason. Its too easy to spurn them and drop the context of their prior lack of support.

8. How can vulnerable families and children be better connected to all the services that they need?

There is a need for competent professionals with good support from the even more competent persons. They need to express:

1. Certainty - Overcome the suspicion of time wasting and cynicism attached to govt services

2. Empathy - They need to deal directly with the grievances of these people; not dismiss them, or say its not within their control. If this is to work, there actually has to be a process to give these counsellors hope. Otherwise you get bureaucratic cynicism and detachment, falling morale, like we also have in the education system.

3. Trust/relationship building - There needs to be an ongoing relationship.

4. Reason as the standard - The basis for discourse needs to be reasonable and valuing of the people. Spend the money; but for God sake spend it well; spend it the right way, so it is not wasted, because it will be harder the next time.

Frankly, the political system does not favour the right approach; so rest assured, you will fail. But you spared someone's political hide...because they looked like doing something.

This is a long term investment in people. Their could be a Facebook founder among them.

9. Is it appropriate that all government agencies promote and prioritise the well-being of vulnerable children in their day-to-day work?

No, everyone is important; just not intrinsically so. They have to earn it, and they need to feel they have to earn it, and healthy values need to be communicated. They are not.

You too can make a submission or learn more here.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The problem with community support

2011-09-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

by savit keawtavee

I had a discussion today with a social worker. It is apparent to me, though comes as no surprise to me, that the state of society is really in a poor state of intellectual development. I would expect a social worker to convey a great deal of skill in the performance of their task. I don't think this particular social worker is particularly bad; in fact I think he is a relatively healthy individual who has been poorly equipped for his task as a social worker. The problems that were apparent are:

1. False dichotomies: The tendency to engage in these 'blame games'. I fail to see how any person engaged in any endeavour can both or accept a position of blaming others without engaging in the process of problem solving. The problem of course is that the solution is supposed to be beyond us all. I will show that its not. In the future, I will call upon this individual in my community, and a number of others, to support my endeavours....with their agreement of course. The false dichotomies include capitalism vs socialism, conservatism vs liberalism, materialism vs idealism, normal vs pathological, etc. Many others. Society not democratic enough for you? Think again. This is democracy, hook line and its a sinker!

2. Compartmentalised education: This guy had the standard social worker education in the UK. He also had some education in philosophy, though he displayed and conceded that he had little understanding of economics, and was unable to integrate or reconcile his practical knowledge of psychology with epistemology. This problem of course is the result of post-modernist philosophy. In the old days, classical scientists learned a great many subjects before they launched into practice. They were often wealthy, and engaged in scientific research. Today, its a difficult culture and framework. People are more inclined to specialise. It is remarkable to me that people can spend a lifetime invested in a specialty, whilst I am able to spend a few months researching their topic, and ring roads around them as a 'generalist'. I'm not the first to highlight the problem of 'compartmentalised' thinking of academics, who really display little interest in solving problems because they can't envisage a system of values that would give them such efficacy. Instead they just pretend to offer service and retire early to some middle age 2nd career; usually far removed from the old one.

3. Normalised population: The problem with our communities is that we are dealing with a social from the perspective of moral relativism. What does that mean? It means that the people at the coal face have no capacity to diagnose or no accessibility to cases of degrading values. i.e. People who have problems are recognised too late. i.e. We wait until people are referred by a court or end up in prison before we recognise that they need support. This is pragmatism at its most tragic. Then we pretend that we are helping them by medicating them; with little causal explanation or understanding of their needs.

4. The political system which has people believing that it will solve their problems. They must believe; they keep paying taxes, and they keep voting for the incumbents. That must be an act of faith if I've ever seen one. Why do they do it? Why do they sanction the unconditional extortion which finances this system which destroys lives? They do it because they cannot conceive of a better system. If I said I have a comprehensive or systematic framework for solving their issues; do you think they would believe me? No. They are too tragic, and too sceptical. They want to believe that humanity has no prospect of being better; they want to believe that there is no solution. This is how your public servants; yes the social workers and school teachers at the coal face think. They damn you as parents! And they damn your kids. They are their for the money; they are materialists like yourself, and they do not believe there is a solution. Why are you financing them? Why are you not demanding that they be held accountable? Why are you allowing individual problems to become entrenched, inter-generational social problems? Do you think the same way?

5. The assumptions. Another big problem I find with people is their superficial understanding of the issues. The problem with how they reflect on these issues is that they basically blame or criticise certain vested interests, and without reflecting on the perspective of the person. i.e. There is a great deal of over-generalising; there is a huge absence of empathy; and there is a failure to think critically about their own value judgements, as well as others. Basically, this means that there is no ability to ground their thinking in problems. I have been doing this for 25years....and only now I am starting to write books about it....work in progress. We need more people to be critical thinkers. I suspect only 5% of scientists are critical thinkers. The global warming hypothesis will be proven to be a sham. You think so too, but that's just because you are cynical. Have you dissected the issues? If you don't understate the issues; look for debates by the counterparties. i.e. YouTube debates.

6. The anti-intellectualism evident in the system arises from a failure of mental health professionals and the self-improvement industry to offer a coherent theory of values.

7. The lack of a strategy: What is most concerning is the lack of a strategy to resolve these entrenched social problems. I have a strategy which I will slowly unfold. It will take time because it will take several years to prepare all the supporting intellectual content to support my program. I don't just have a 'school of thought' which integrates philosophy, psychology, economics, science, history, law, sociology, I have a strategy for developing or applying these themes to people's lives. You do not see the same in government. We are on the eve of an election in NZ. From John Key, we are getting very deceptive, highly contrived, very manipulative political spin. I suspect he is a very insecure man because he doesn't even have to. There is no competition in the Labour Party. He will win by default. Utter no contest. Logic would tell you that there ought to be thousands of people vying for this job; but the barriers to entry are so restrictive, the process so moribund, that the race reduces to two idiots. A detached idealist and an utter pragmatist. Listening to John Key, he speaks like a CEO who knows he will not be able to deliver upon his forecast. In fairness he does not know what he's doing, and he's inherited a great legacy of problems from his predecessors.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Is spanking bad for children?

2011-08-08T01:02:00.000-07:00

Spanking is not injurious to a child, however it does depend on the severity, frequency and the appropriateness of its application. Spanking does not convey knowledge, but it allows a child to correlate bad behaviour with bad consequences. It is an unthinking person's approach to behavioural or moral sanctioning.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The first steps to parenting

2011-04-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

by Stuart Miles

If you are thinking about having a child, you might want to think about a few factors which are going to give your child the greatest prospects for success. Here are some ideas you might want to think about as you plan the future of your child. It will be your parenting responsibility after bonking your partner.

Consider the following:

1. Give your child a useful name: If you want to help them be successful, you might want to spurn famous or popular names because they will never have a good ranking on Google search engine. Better to call your child 'Arrrd' or 'Wtyu' rather than 'Andrew' or 'Oprah'. Yes, we are often confused.

2. Book your child into private school: If you are well-endowed and planning to send your child to a private school, you better start looking because the best private schools have waiting lists which extend past labour. That is right. You have to start thinking about your child's education before you even have one.

3. Learn how to be a parent: Some of you think that your parents were great; but then you only had one set, and the chances are you really didn't know how good your friends parents really were, and your grandparents could have been absolute tyrants before you were born. There is no training in parenting required to become a parent; but that does not mean you should take the lack of hurdles as a blessing. There is a science behind being a good parent. It is not just about love, and even love is over-rated if its the wrong kind. Love can kill.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Sexual offences the price of moral ambivalence

2010-10-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

There was today a story in the NZ Herald today about a disturbing sexual offence in Sydney. People are of course quick to judge in such cases, but thinking is always an after-thought.

I however want to say that these sex offences against this child are completely compatible with contemporary values. Hard to believe? Well let’s break down the story. Firstly, let me say that I am no way condoning these actions. My point is that – if we want to stop such acts, society needs to change their values. Clearly these parents went another 'mile', but fundamentally their values are compatible with a great many 'civilised' people in your community.

Firstly, let’s acknowledge that the man was probably sexually abused as a child. Let’s acknowledge that his partner was probably abused as a child as well, however in any respect they both had diminished self-esteem. Let’s acknowledge that they had reason to snub society because society is scornful of such behaviour, and tends to treat such offenders as ‘creepy’ rather than as victims. Sadly victims give rise to victimisation. Their whole value system has been distorted by their child experiences. The scorn of society was only destined to result in those values being pushed underground. i.e. They would initially have performed their acts as a clandestine act; eventually becoming more daring.

More interesting and shameful was the fact that the man was streaming the footage of his wife and son having sex. Sure he would have been doing it for his own sexual gratification, however it appears moreover he was turning it into a spectacle. This was probably normalised behaviour for him. We need to appreciate his perspective. He was showing signs of ‘control’, the same control that he wished he had when he was abused as a child.

The response of the judge was to lock him away for 9 years. This is silly for several reasons. There is no evidence of violence. The control was a reaction to his childhood. It would make more sense to place him on an island with other sex offenders rather than release him into the community in 9 years. The US has such a facility. Australia ought to have one as well, though I don't think it needs to be as high security as the $170,000 per person per annum would justify. Simply give them GPS trackers. If they escape the island, they go to a higher security prison.

So in what sense is this reflective of contemporary values? Well, we would like the man to have some sense of empathy for the boy. We would hope he would have some respect for the law. But consider the following:

1. The lack of empathy people have for paedophiles – it does not mean approving of their values – on the contrary it means understanding how they came to fall in their position, such that we might prevent others. This did not happen in this case...until it was too late. Why? Scornful social values resulted in this man doing as he pleased because he was invalidated by society.

2. The fact that there are too many kids in Australia or NZ who are placed in positions of risk by custodians who have no ideas; who are not conceptual thinkers, who don’t anticipate problems....because it’s not their problem...until it happens.

3. Consider how easy it is to spurn the law when it comprises the arbitrary, self-serving laws enacted by politicians. Might 'commonsensical' common land be undermined by the nonsensical statutory laws which are all too common.

4. Consider the first cause of the custodians, who enabled by lack of responsibility or insight, enabled their child/children to be abused. The reality is that its too easy for a pedophile to pick up kids. Parents really need to be vigilant. These predators are systematic is their objective, whilst you are perhaps distracted by other things. The sad reality is vigilance is the only protection.

The acts of his wife are not unbelievable. They are entirely logical from her perspective. She has low self-esteem, so the worst thing that could happen would be alienation from her husband. She has therefore a subjective sense of reality. It is therefore easy for her to place her appeasement of her husband’s demands before her child’s security or interests, which she can conveniently rationalise away if there is a greater value. If society had greater respect for objective values...this would be harder to justify. She doesn’t, they don’t, so abuse persists in society, and thus more innocent people become victims.

This is of course not a justification for sexual offences....it’s an explanation for why it happens. In this instance, there is sufficient evidence to develop a psychological profile for the offenders.

Society’s view is of course to be scornful of such acts....but why not take the next step and understand the causal nature of such offenders. The fact that such instances occur in society is evidence enough that we need greater moral vigilance. This is not how people think. Instead people just compartmentalise their life and do their own thing....concluding instead ‘what is right for you if your life, what’s right for me is something else’. i.e. This is of course the subjective values that these offenders endorse.

In society, we all face acts which test us. When we have bad role models around, its all the more probable that we will make bad decisions and be defined by those. i.e. If you have a prison sentence, you define yourself as a 'criminal' and you are tagged for life. Really, we are never so invested in people. This is part of the problem. We maybe it very easy for people to opt out of life, and very hard for them to join the human race. The whole structure of society needs to be rewritten. What I can tell you is that we are so off the course that you have little hope for a better world. With the power of the internet, let's give the world 50 years at least to turn this around. I might just live to see it. I guess I'm clinging to optimism.

You might ask why I am so empathetic of pedophiles. I think its because I expect so little from them....and so much more from you. I think that is why I like Japanese people more than foreigners. When you look at their social context, you kind of expect them to be weird and am more impressed when you meet a sane one. Try living in Japan and you will realise how perverted collectivism can make a society. This is not to imply you should have contempt for Japanese people. Even if their values are collectivist, they each have a personal context. The richness of your experience relating to them comes from empathising and understanding their particular context, not alienating them with scornful judgement. Of course we ought to appreciate that they are all individuals. I have met some very impressive Japanese people. Some might say 'very Western'...or simply 'normal', if you like that relativist standard.

The focus of this article is sexual or physical assault. The reality is that psychological assault is just as concerning, and its even more concerning when its perpetrators are the government, whom are systematically imposing their values on you through the education system, through the political system, and other institutions. More on this topic in our political blog.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The importance of information

2010-08-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

One of the early lessons from my life was the importance of information. Actually my parents gave me very little guidance in life. They did model a strong work ethic, they did make sure I never lacked any material possession. The role of information was important in the following ways:

1. When I was 6-15 years of age I was working in my dad's printing factory, so I always had too much money as a child. This prompted questions of what to do with it. Of course I invested in passions like geological maps (after a fossicking trip) and canoeing (after a school adventure).

2. At the age of 11yo my father bought me shares in a company called Abroholis Oil, an oil explorer. I lost money on this, but I was soon following the stocks daily and eventually I was charting the stocks. I would simply buy low and sell high. Today my investing is a lot more sophisticated, but it gave me a strong reason to save, and to keep learning.

3. The biggest lesson was gained by reading the Australian Financial Review. In those times, it was far better with quality investigative journalism. Today, newspapers simply reprint press releases and political banter. There is no good lessons in newspapers anymore. Fortunately then my mother was studying marketing at university and so there was always a financial newspaper in the house. The link between following stocks, saw me devouring stock announcements.

This interest gained traction when I was 14-15yo and I was really incredibly ambitious about my main interests. By that time, I was still working at my dad's factory, but I was using all my savings for stocks and canoeing and geological maps and equipment. I had graduated from the newspapers to the Dept of Minerals & Energy library in the city, or I was going to the library at the Australian Stock Exchange. Info was very cheap then. I could read Stock Reviews for 50c each, but I learned quickly to use a whole set and basically read every review in every alphabetic letter in the day. i.e. I reviewed 20-30 stocks in a day, by which time I was exhausted, but without a doubt I had discovered some appealing stocks, whether they had moved yet or not. I quickly learned what was a good stock.

Some weekends I was going canoeing or exploring old mine adits looking for minerals. Actually I did not like field work so much, so I went into consulting, but in my university degree I studied everything I needed to set up a mining company. I had studied about so many mining entrepreneurs in the 1980s, I knew all their methods. I studied geology, geophysics, geostatistics, accounting, economics, accounting, mining engineering and finance. Then I was introduced to philosophy, and that passion took me off on a big tangent....which is only being expressed in the last 5 years, but it did not stop me developing this interest as a hobby for the last 20 years. I might have been working as a mining analyst and trader, but I was thinking a great deal of politics and philosophy. Analysing global problems and writing up solutions.

Too much is accidental for parents. Perhaps its time to develop a coherent strategy for how you are going to raise your kids. I would start years before they are born. The awareness of the issues and the strategic value are critical. It becomes second-nature.

The other important aspect is to preserve a critical perspective. That means trying to preserve your personal integrity, both so your ideas are personally coherent, but also so that reconcile with the facts of reality. Much science today is nonsense, so critical interpretation or appraisal is warranted....not just for science supporting commercial products like orthopedic shoes, but science supposedly backing political agendas. Kids seem to accept these assertions, so they need to be taught to challenge such claims.

I guess all of this started with a school boys natural curiosity, a set of encyclopedias in the home, a comfortable fireplace for reading, and a practical expression for using the information, i.e. The stock market.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

How to educate or model behaviour to your children

2010-08-27T20:14:00.001-07:00

When I read about successful entrepreneurs, it is interesting to reflect on the factors that impacted on them as children. They cite particular instances in the 30s, 40s or 50s which they remember being told to them with children. If these dialogues were so important to these successful people, it might behoove you to cite them to your children. Consider the following example from a Filipino entrepreneur:

"I grew up in a family where talking about business over dinner was a common practice. When I was 7 or 8, my father often went overseas on business. He would always bring back souvenirs like toys for me. He would say to me, “Out of these 10, take one for yourself and sell the rest to your friends.” In this way, he taught me how to do business".

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/info/100-next-era-ceos/contents/073.html

You might not be able to discuss these things with your children..maybe you can frame the quote and hang it on the wall of your house, and every time there is a concrete life situation which pertains to it, you could refer your children to it.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Using religion for a moral education

2010-05-12T04:08:00.000-07:00

There are a great many parents who think that by sending their child to a Christian school or 'play-school' after church, will result in them developing a 'good Christian ethic'. I would like to repudiate this suggestion. The reason is that parenting lessons ought to convey reasons why something is good or bad. It is by conveying such lessons, and being proven right, that the child earns respect for the parent. More importantly, they develop knowledge, so they become a master of their own destiny. If their moral education is dogmatic assertions or disciplinarian action by parents, several problems arise:

1. The child does not develop knowledge, but fear of parental reprisal, or self-doubt because of their inability to deal with the situation.

2. The child does not learn to integrate their life experiences into principles, thus to be able to differentiate when to do what in different specific contexts. Fortunately, religion is not the only education they get, but to the extent that it dominates their 'moral education' is the extent to which it will impact upon their value judgements.

3. Their intellectual development is impaired. Faith is not an education, its an assumption of it without evidence, without foundation. It can only incite delusion and arrogance.

Image by Africa

It does not help that society's values are consistent with a Christian education. This makes it harder for people to develop more reasonable values, as they can't discern Christian values from Christian pretense. For more insights on religious education for parents, refer to my religion blog.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Should you love your child unconditionally?

2010-04-30T15:20:00.001-07:00

From my blogs you will be struck by the need to fight an intellectual war against many facets of society. There is a great deal wrong with society. Those flaws are a product of our education system. Education however starts with parenting. Misguided psychologists are misleading parents into teaching parents that they ought to give their children unconditional love. The whole concept is a rationalisation for the following reasons.

They establish an unhealthy dichotomy between mind and body. They say that the child is not bad, that they did bad things. This notion of course comes from reality, where man is a sinner and has to renounce material possessions. Philosophers have developed many such dichotomies to explain or justify their flawed conceptions. The reality is that bad actions are the consequence of bad values or flawed thinking. The consequence of such thinking is that a child is able to rationalise that 'I am not morally responsible' because I am a good person, who happens to do bad things. It also allows a parent to live in self-denial, which is sure to get worse as the parent's unconditional love is demonstrably flawed as a parenting strategy.
The other issue is the idea that values are intrinsic. Things are not good or bad for a reason, they are just good or bad....because someone said so, or because you feel it. This is of course the first step in sabotaging your mind because it causes you to discard any justification for values. It results in people not developing a theory of values. In relationships I have had tremendous difficulty dealing with partners with whom you cannot negotiate values because they have no underlying reasons for theirs, and see no need for reasons. My precondition for negotiation is thus a basis for their condemnation of me, as I am making them feel vulnerable. This is the same damage you are doing to the self esteem of your child.

The question then becomes how does a parent morally 'condemn' their children without destroying their self-esteem. I suggest there are several steps:

Stop making your values the standard of value. Treat them as if they are independent moral agents, and are expected to be so.
Stop conveying the fact that you are always right, even if you are, as it creates a self-righteousness which implies (in the context of society) the sense that you give primacy to your consciousness at the expense of the facts of reality.
Negotiate values rather than impose them; i.e. Convey that you are both searching for truth. Morally condemning a child does not convey any respect for facts, and creates an unhealthy focus upon their flaws.
Validate the child when they get things wrong. It is a matter of justice to convey when and why people are good and bad. There is a load of nonsense which says you should praise 100x more than you criticise. Arbitrary nonsense. Just have reasons, and empathy and you will be ok.
Do you disparage a child, and convey arguments like 'When I was young I made the same mistake...but I learned that....".
Teach a child to anticipate - that is to think. My neighbour said of his child when he crashed the car for the second time "He'll eventually learn". My guess that so long as the parent and society don't teach kids to think, to anticipate problems, to prepare, to plan, he probably won't learn, or he'll be so diminished in self-esteem, he will fear learning and acting, and will pursuit concrete self-indulgences which make him feel good in the moment.
Don't be a hypocrite. Live the values you teach. It ought to be apparent to most parents that kids have a keen sense for picking up any discrepancies in their parents thinking. If you model hypocrisy, you will be modelling self-indulgence.
Don't disparage your kids. My parents modelled argument for me. When I used it against them because of their inconsistencies, they did not disparage me; they simply denied me validation (i.e. justice). You are not in competition with your children. Preserve some respect for reality, and yourself by not disparaging them. Intellectually lazy. Your kids can be your best teacher. Don't kill the messenger.

From this last point I hope you can appreciate the difference between good and bad conditional love. Healthy or objective 'conditional love' is about conveying logical values. Just as you should be giving objective conditional love, so should the child. They ought to love you for reasons, as you should love them for reasons. Logically asserted values conveys knowledge to the child, and gives the child a basis to love and respect the parent. You would be surprised how agreeable or reasonable a child can be when they respect a parent. Some of you have no idea...so in 10 years, when they leave the home, you are glad to see the back of them....for decades complaining about it. Oh my wife turned them against me. Incidentally, your romantic relationships ought to be founded on the same principles.

One needs to acknowledge that just as the field of philosophy is perverted, so is the field of psychology. There are good and bad psychologists. It all comes down to underlying values of the person. My favourites are Nathaniel Branden (self esteem) and Mark Levine (child psychology). It is rare that I can read a science book and not find flaws. These are two scientists who affirm in one's mind that there are intelligible rational people in the world. I'm sure they are others, but only 10% of books leave me thinking I have nothing to say to improve them. These people tend to be more empiricially or evidence based, i.e. They have recognised patterns in children, etc, but they have also retained healthy values. In more abstract topics, the 'pickings are slimmer'.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Why Bill Gates should not be president

2009-01-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

I think kids need to understand that adults are not perfect, that they make mistakes. It doesn't matter how important people are, they all make mistakes. There are a number of reasons why people make mistakes:
1. Negligence or carelessness - whether because of low tolerances for truth, a lack of curiosity or a time deadline
2. Contradictions in their thinking - We all possess a pool or hierarchy of knowledge. The extent to which we are able to frame reasonable or valid responses depends on the extent to which we are able to integrate our knowledge into non-contradictory ideas, as well as our ability to tie those ideas to concrete reality. By doing so we become consistent and grounded.

Children need to recognise that parents lead highly specialised lives, so they are inclined to develop a sense of pride in a specialised area of their lives, particularly their careers, but often neglect other areas of their lives like being a good parent, partner, etc. Another reason people fail to act effectively in these roles is that they were not well prepared to take on those roles because they were not developed as effectively as might be ideal. This will also impact on your standards and expectancies as children of your parents, so its important you maintain a 'sense of reality' as opposed to just pleasing your parents. The best approach is to accept them for who they are, and attempt to understans why they are like that so you can learn how to differ. In exploring those issues you might touch a raw nerve, but persist on another day after your parents have had a chance to frame an answer. Your persistence will force them to deal with the issues, and help them to be better parents. There is no reason why parents cannot learn from children. Paradoxically as it may sound, the answers like within the parents, but often the kids might be better at framing the questions. Because the parent is likely re-visiting the thinking they failed to do as kids.
I want to explore some of the errors by Bill Gates on parenting.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Parental repression

2008-10-20T23:49:00.001-07:00

One of the favourable developments over the years has been the reduced level of repression in people. Do you find that your parents just refuse to engage? There are certain topics that they will evade or dismiss? The chances are they are repressed. By that I mean they refuse to acknowledge facts of reality or premises that contradict their 'world view'.

I think this is interesting because there are some countries which are refreshingly not like that. The southern Mediterranean countries like Greece being one of the best examples, along with the Philippines. These countries have their own issues, in the sense that values are skewed towards emotional self-indulgence. the polar opposite is Korea and Japan, which are rigid, but highly organised.

You might wonder - Why is this important?
The reason its important is that repression has consequences. It is going to result in a number of behavioural patterns:
1. Needy kids who require validation
2. Self righteous kids looking for validation and to disprove the parents

You might argue that this can be healthy in the sense that it motivates kids to be better. But the reality is that positive role modelling can do the same without a legacy of these issues.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The importance of parenting

2008-09-07T04:51:00.000-07:00

I think most parents would appreciate the importance of parenting, but I would suggest parents differ a great deal on how to parent, or what they are prepared to do. There are of course different approaches that you could take:
1. Traditional: You might take the attitude that 'I will teach my kids the same as my parents modelled for me because I didn't turn out too bad'. I actually consider this a variant of the next approach.
2. Pragmatic: You might take the attitude that I will do whatever works. I would suggest that most parents take this approach, and it tends to involve the provision of sustenance, clothing, shelter, security, and if you are lucky private school and a bit of a leg up buying the first house or car. I consider this a very low-maintenance approach to parenting, and its not a bad approach if the parents are good role models and have good communication skills. It fails abysmally if they don't because they end up resenting their kids for any burden they place on them. Effectively they are saying 'I didn't ask for this', but implicitly they did; by not being engaged in their kids lives. This dubious approach to parenting tends to define very limited notions of what constitutes parental responsibility. What they never realise is that its not a matter of quantity, but the quality of time for their kids. Kids can amuse themselves, interact with others, whether siblings, friends, or others, but the interaction with a role model is more important. The other failure of the pragmatic approach is its failure to establish any standards of what constitutes good parenting. They have no measure, or more likely very superficial measures, and often those standards are 'peer pressure'. Oh what would the neighbours think if they knew my son stole stereo equipment, or if their daughter got pregnant, or their son was arrested for some indiscretion. These are calls to action, but parents that need to wait for these hurdles to be breached really are disengaged from their children. Usually its due to a failure to communicate or to provide effective role modelling.
3. Loving: There are those whom argue that all that a child needs is unconditional love. I am not a fan of this approach. These people are in effect saying that humans are intrinsically worthy of love regardless of their actions or character. To be is to be valued. Of course they can't consistently apply that philosophy because life requires choice, thus preferences and standards to differentiate. How do you differentiate if you don't have standards (reasons). So these parents end up defying their 'causeless' love. Life is about the pursuit of value in all its forms, material, spiritual, romantic. The earlier a child knows that the more self-reliant they will be. A child is not maligned by a lack of 'causeless love', they are maligned by a contradictory or causeless absence of it. That absence is likely to not undermine their capacity to be loved, but undermine their efficacy in their thinking at a time when their capacity to articulate their fears, or to understand the pertinent issues is beyond them.
4. Rational: This approach might strike people as cold, but actually there is no dichotomy or contradiction between thoughts and emotions in a person (or couple) with integrity, with good self esteem. Generally the people who exude such confidence are those people who were raised with structured, goal-orientated lives. Some people are better than others. Some got the message too late, for others it was contradictory, for some it was compartmentalised, and for others they had to discover the principles from books, and thereafter struggled for years to correct their erroneous thinking, knowing that it was wrong but not fully comprehending why. A great many people just lack the mental efficacy or ambition and give up. And their is a relationship between those values. The rational people is the person who recognises that life requires deliberate rather than arbitrary action. They realise that what man is (his nature) determines the type of action he should or ought to take. There are a great many philosophers who struggle with the idea that you can get a value proposition from a fact. Does not the fact that humans have a rational faculty imply that one should use it? Of course. All the time? Maybe not. Answering that question is the role of philosophy.

I of course support the last proposition that 'man should be understood in order to define what is the best approach to parenting. This might sound commonplace, but its surprising the extent to which this is not done. The reason why this approach is not heralded as the 'best approach' is political. If you imply an 'ought', a lot of people get scared that government will impose values on parents. Of course this arises because you have a collectivist government imposing seemingly 'objective' principles on people. No good ever came from imposing things on people. The 'good' is that which is understood rather blindly accepted. That requires negotiations. Governments and corporations tend not to take the time to do that because they think that its not productive. The problem of course is that they think short-range. They fail to see that once you 'really' change a person, you have an advocate who is much more powerful than the sponsor because they are an existing relationship or come from the same perspective as the other prospective adherents. The failure to grasp this is the cause of all the world's brutality, whether perpetrated upon kids, armies or terrorists. What do we know about Bin Laden. We know he was trained to fight by the Americans. The American military - the so called defenders of freedom - are the fascists. Arab cultures are just poorer cousins. America is a dying star. Unless it rediscovers its founding values it will continue to go backwards, and of course I mean that in a collectivist sense. There is nothing stopping Americans from being successful however, since they can always export their wealthy. That's one reason why governments support globalisation. The other reasons are not pretty! The problem knowing so much is you easily go off topic. :)
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Is it wrong to hit your children?

2008-06-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Parents since time became have debated the issue of whether it is appropriate to hit your children. There is no question in my mind that there is no need to hit children. There are several reasons for this:
1. Striking a child does not convey an argument: It tells the child that they way adults achieve what they want is to impose their will on others. This is the foundation for creating a bully rather than a compliant child. The parent of course feels compelled to raise the stakes as the child becomes desensitised to physical threats.
2. Striking a child conveys low regard for the child: Parents generally strike a child not for gratification but because its easy. Its a simply solution to a problem. It conveys the notion that they are not invested in their children. You might ask why? Well I dare say they didn't think having children would be so much work. They didn't think their child would be so rebellious. The fact that they are is a reflection on the parent. It shows that a parent is out of their depth, that they draw no sense of efficacy from raising a child. This has to impact on their self-esteem, if they already didn't have self-esteem. Parents with low self-esteem tend to produce children of low self esteem.
3. Striking a child shows no understanding of child psychology: Parents need to understand the motive power of children. The intent is no to manipulate them but to guide them. A child is a human being, and as such they have certain needs. They want to be loved or appreciated, they are curious, they want to explore and understand, and they have certain capacities to understand certain information at a certain age. It goes without saying that parental guidance has to be age-appropriate. If the child is not getting the message, its more likely because your message or approach is not age-appropriate. For older children, its readily apparent that kids appreciate their toys, they like being active, they like being the centre of attention.

Might the argument be made that confining a child to a bedroom or denying them toys is equally damaging to their psyche. I think that is true to some extent if the parent fails to convey to the child the reason why they are being punished. It it also important that a parent conveys the information before the child misbehaves. A great many parents will strike a child for not fulfilling their expectancies. This is not an instance of educating the child, but of externalising responsibility. If a parent does not give the child queues they can't expect a child to get it. The most important point is to empathise with the child.
The biggest mistake parents can make is to think that parenting is a natural gift bestowed on them. It is a choice and it is a challenge that requires skills. You have no built-in parental instincts. You need the tools to perform the task well, and if you are prepared you will derive a great deal of efficacy and pride from the task. The reward will be darling children that have every chance to become productive members of society. Children are pretty reslient, but get it seriously wrong and you will be in constant shouting matches, breaking up fights with their siblings, bailing them out of jail or identifying their body at the morgue.
I'm not suggesting that this is purely the result of striking your child. No parent is all bad, if only because they need moments of appreciation or love from their child, those maybe there are parents who resent every monment with their child, and vice versa. The implications are clear though - if you put junk into a child's mind he will unlikely come out a genius. If he is a genius, its not because of you, but inspite of you. Its because he developed positive standards of comparison, not from reflecting on your skills, but by comparing them with the skills of parents with good values. Children born into gettos I dare say have less possibility of developing such positive standards of value, but its not difficult. People are poor for different reasons.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Take it or leave it, or comment on it

2008-05-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have not yet placed a lot of content on this page. Actually there are a great many notes I've written over the years which will take time to post. In the meantime I wanted to acknowledge that I am not a parent, but I have been a child, and have certainly observed parents in different countries.
The argument will be made by someone that "How can you offer advice on parenting when you dont have children". Well I would make the point that I dont profess to be an expert in all areas, if any, though I think I could offer insights that would stretch a great many experts for their lack of thinking skills.
I would make the point that the US managed to fly to the moon without having done it before. Was that really a great leap? I believe it was. It was an exercise in critical thinking because it demanded a great deal of contingency planning. For those not convinced, then I would make the point that most space shuttles explode because of small issues like loose tiles.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Why Bill Gates should not be president

2008-04-27T22:18:00.001-07:00

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: “Life is not fair - get used to it!” Why? Life was less fair 200-300 years ago and it was because of those valiant people who just didn’t accept things that they made a difference, which is why we have the freedoms we have today. That’s not to say we should hedonistic do as we please or neglect our long term survival for the sake of current causes, but isn’t there a place for dissidence. Bill Gates advice actually shows the hallmarks of a ‘politician’ who has been compromised by the process that has consumed him. Might he be pursuing a political career. What other challenge is there for someone of his standing?
Rule 2: “The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself”. True. But then would it not serve the world to have greater empathy for others since enlisting others is an important aspect of leadership. If you want to enlist others, then you need to have concern for other people.
Rule 3: “You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both”. True. But I don’t think many kids have such expectancies. More likely its parents who offer their kids such perks, afterall it is the parents who are empowered to offer these benefits.
Rule 4: “If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss”. False. Actually your teacher has more power because as a child you don’t have full mental capacity, and few legal rights to do as you please. You are obliged to go to school. If you are not satisfied with your job, you can easily leave if you can find another, if you live at home, or have savings. Should you? Not in the first instance. I ‘talked too readily’ so I would advice kids to negotiate like an adult. My experience was however that I didn’t have such good role models so I lost confidence in them. Still looking for them. The problem is – the more I learn – the higher my standards rise. Even Bill Gates doesn’t qualify.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity. True, but not convincing advice if you don’t suggest why. ‘Flipping burgers’ gives you immediate cashflow that serves your goals. It is a menial task that does not define you, just as ‘taking out the garbage’ does not define your worth or identity.
Rule 6: “If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them”. False. Parents had a responsibility. A great many of them default for lack of personal development, which stems back to their parents. I think the more important point is that it does not serve you to externalise responsibility for your life. I see nothing wrong with raising your dissatisfaction with your parents as its part of conflict resolution. Actually I think the response of the parents is more telling.
Rule 7: “Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room”. Nonsense. Parents become ‘boring’ because they did not expand their minds to match the challenges of society or parenting. Instead they resorted to ‘discipline’ rather than explaining, and in the process they lose the child’s respect. We are not discussing pre-teens here. They are a different case. The problem is growth is becoming even harder. We need to know and do so much more today than in the past, which demands higher levels of ‘social organisation’ but the ethical framework is not in place to handle these challenges. Kids are going to be the biggest victims as a result of these changes because they have the least voice.
Rule 8: “Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life”. True. And why is that wrong Bill? It is wrong because its an objective reality. Life requires challenge, demanding a realistic self assessment of your capacity to accomplish tasks. Such schools as Bill describes are actually setting children up to fake reality. There are a certain type of ‘fake’ parent who would we want to delude their kids as well as their own sense of reality. What they need to know Bill is that its the ‘parents fault’ – see Rule 6 Bill.
Rule 9: “Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time”. Nonsense. Adults established the summer break. This rule would be better framed. Life requires you to have a purpose. Perhaps the most deprived person is the person who has yet to frame a purpose. A purpose exists at many levels though, and much depends on whether they have the basic character values which will allow them to identify and pursue a purpose when they see one. Parental support helps. A child with a purpose is more inclined to pursue that goal after school and during summer break.
Rule 10: “Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs”. Wrong. I don’t think there is anything wrong with television per se, I think the problem is that the content is not helpful. There is too much content that reflects the values of Bill’s generation. So it might not reflect our lives, and certainly we should not attempt to mirror the lives of actors, but as a medium of communication, its conveying someone’s values. The problem with TV is that it does not serve you if you have an appropriate long-range purpose. The answer for parents is to help their kids find a purpose, and then you might be surprised by how little TV they actually watch. But there is nothing wrong with TV.
Rule 11: “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one”. Inaccurate. Well I don’t see much value in being ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ because neither conveys how you really feel. One is attempt to please; the other is an attempt to vent anger. Better advice would be to recognise the value that people serve in your life, and to understand them. But really its more to do with failure to develop a child’s independent intellectual development.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The ethics of parenting

2008-03-24T01:09:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a post in response to a book review. Th article started on the ethics of capitalism or markets, but somehow I managed to stray into parenting. I'm quite the contortionist. See this post.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Social attitudes to parenting

2007-09-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

The decision to have children is one of the most important decisions that a couple can make. It is often argued that we need a drivers licence to drive a car, but all a girl needs to do to have a child is get impregnated. One might argue that poor driving (which threatens life) is indeed more important than poor parenting (problem child relationships). Well I guess a choice need not be made. In fact we can invest resources in both areas. But the reality is that society plays little attention to family (or parenting) values until too late - until a child is incarcerated. And even then the solution is often to externalise responsibility - to say this person is not a fit member of society and belongs in prison. Prison is the place where they learn to become good criminals - where they learn not to get caught from experienced compatriots. More importantly its a place where criminals can build friendships.

This approach to education strikes me as insane. The rate at which prison populations are growing strikes me as evidence that something is very wrong. Yet this problem is not addressed because the problem is locked away - out of sight, out of mind. The electorate is not at all interested because they are just criminals...so why should we care since they are detained. Well I can think of several reasons why we should care:
1. The recidivism rate - the rate at which criminals reoffend upon release from prison
2. The cost - the cost of building and operating prisons, compensating victims and rehabilitating criminals
3. The opportunity cost - the lost profits that could have been generated by criminals and their administrators if they had played a positive role in society
4. The escalation rate - the rate at which the system is reinforcing crime and the severity of crime

Part of the problem is that crime is simply viewed as a statistical certainty. There is a rather 'pragmatic' perception that there will always be criminals, and that their existence is simply the culmination of a number of demographic trends in average incomes, education levels, economic growth, unemployment rates, divorce rates. There is no question that these factors correlate with crime levels but they are not in themselves the 'causes' of crime. There are factors that can give us a better correlation to crime such as:
1. Mental efficacy
2. Self esteem
And using crime as a measure of productivity is really a poor measure. Consider that a good parent is not one that doesnt refrain from abusing their children. Hopefully we have higher standards than that. It is understandable to have some concern for the right of parents to have and raise children by their own standards and judgement, but is there not a public risk concern to also consider. Is there not a reason to believe that parents need training, that any self-indulgent approach to parenting is likely to do more harm than good, that there are potentially alot of parents having children for the wrong reasons, or that pregnancy was entirely unexpected. Is this the basis for sound parenting?

Good parenting really starts with good personal character. There are several keys for preparing to be good parents:
1. Good values: We have to understand that we convey values through our words and actions, and they should be consistent
2. Security: We should offer a secure and comfortable environment for living - not just financially
3. Respect: We should recognise and respect the individuality and rights of the individual to the extent that their actions convey sensible behaviour.
4. Communication: We should be able to have a meaningful and effective method of communication with other people before we attempt to develop one with a child.
5. Empathy: This is the culmination of respect and understanding the needs of the child. This understanding can come from personal experience (as a child), education or analysis of empirical evidence.
6. Love: There should be a deep seated love for the child which will stem from self-love.

I think when a person can display these values then there is a basis for a healthy family environment. Of course the prospect for a healthy family environmnent is more likely when there are 2 parents. Children are pretty resilient despite poor values and inadequate preparedness for parenting. There are however a number of reasons why children might not get a fertile growth environment:
1. Negative affirmation: Poor values might be reinforced by all role models
2. Lack of standards of comparison: The child would benefit if they have some exposure to good values which they can compare with poor, so they might understand right from wrong.
3. Lack of intervention: The child would benefit from government policies that sought to intervene where their is evidence of child neglect, whether in terms of abuse, provision of support or education. I dont think governments perform this role very well.