TOLERANCE FOR EVERYTHING LEAVES NOTHING SACRED

TOLERANCE FOR EVERYTHING LEAVES NOTHING SACRED By Domenick J. Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist The United States has moved away from right and wrong to a society that tolerates almost anything. Our Christian Bible clearly spelled out sins for specific actions. As we moved away from hearing and reading the Bible on a regular basis the specific punishments for these behaviors are missing in action. Religious preachers have been replaced by university trained ultra-liberal teachers and newscasters who have taken too many psychology and sociology courses. These have taught them to believe that the environment of the individual has an incredible impact on their actions and thinking and should excuse any deviant behavior. Every daily news program in every local community reports the human failings of that day. Killings, robberies, kidnappings, sexual abuse, and general perversion are featured stories on news programs. Robbery is shown by a video of a store being cleaned out by a gang of thieves. Murders in a community although frightening are tantalizing to the audience. This is a message to the audience that neighborhoods can be dangerous, and they need to be aware or what is happening around them. Too often crime filled neighborhoods lose control of preventing escalating crime. Because of the physical danger police officers often stop walking the neighborhood beat. The number of informants dwindles which limits the police’s ability to take the bad characters off the street. This leaves the criminal element to convert naïve kids to follow them into crime. Every devious behavior becomes attractive to these naïve youngsters to try it out. It starts with petty crime then moves up to more sophisticated crime including embezzlement, drug dealing, cooking the books, forgery, kidnapping, or bank robbery. When these easily influenced young people see that they are not receiving consequences for their serious illegal actions but a litany of psychological excuses for their harmful psychopathic behavior they become more brazen in their crimes. They become creative in excusing all types of their antisocial actions. Forgiveness and tolerance for intolerable perverted behavior does nothing except erase the clear difference between exemplary and disgusting thinking and actions. Crime is no longer limited to petty crimes but expands into ways that will bring criminals much bigger paydays. Everything becomes a possibility even extortion or murder. Nothing is out of play for the criminal mind is open to anything that will make them richer and more powerful. As they get deeper into the criminal world nothing in their life is sacred any longer. Tolerance for everything and anything is not something that one can build an exemplary life on. Tolerance for everything leaves nothing sacred. Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglioblogspot.com.

TO BE SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT CHILDREN HAVE TO INTERACT WITH PEERS

 TO BE SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT CHILDREN HAVE TO INTERACT WITH PEERS 

By Domenick j. Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist

 

 

The primary responsibility of parents is to teach a child how to be functional in the world. They have to train the child in basic interactional skills such as emotional appropriateness, responsibility, decision-making, perseverance, talking clearly, independence, manners, and moral values.  Most of these tasks have to begin early to have the children gain the confidence and necessary skills to be considered normal. This is an incredible agenda to establish in the first three years.  

 

Once the groundwork is seeded the child is ready to branch out with his peers but not before the parent’s instructions for their children. This gives them a heads up in becoming socially acceptable. Children become more isolated and shunned if they have not learned appropriate responses from their parents before going to preschool. 

 

Around the age of three years the child learns from studying and imitating other children in the environment. Preschool children select certain youngsters as role models. The choice a preschooler picks to be a best friend is often surprising. There are too many variables, which depend on the child’s particular circumstances. The new found friend may be similar to one of their siblings, a media character they fell in love with or have certain personality traits like laughing or smiles that makes her feel happy and comfortable.

 

The maturing of the individual child is a mixture of innate attributes, family and other authority figure expectations and standards as well as the knowledge learned especially from their peers. The child they admired the most, consciously or unconsciously, is the individual most likely to be imitated. As their idol changes so do their attitudes, thinking and body language. These modifications are not readily noted but serve to slowly shape their social skills and overall personality. 

 

This interaction with peers is a growing process for children. However, in our current culture a major deterrent for children getting together is parental fear. Modern parents view the shielding of their child from any danger as their top priority. An unsupervised peer interaction of their child with other children is frightening to them. The media highlighting of bullying in our culture has created neurotic parents. They believe they have to hover over their children to protect them from traumatic bullying episodes. 

 

On the other side of the equation, the more contact children have with peers, the more opportunity they have to experience, experiment and learn from others. This enables them to identify what they want to do in shaping their own emerging personality. Children begin to unconsciously copy their own new friends’ smile, way of speaking, walking, laughing, actions, and almost anything that strikes their fancy. They try out new behaviors and attitudes to see how it feels for them without input from adults. They are learning to be more interdependent while building their own personalities. 

 

Most children are incredibly opinionated and critical about peer’s actions. They are unfiltered and hold back no punches. If another child looks weak, an aggressive child will quickly test him to find out how far the fragile child will let him take advantage by pushing him until he realized the other child will not cease. Finally in frustration and anger the naïve child returns the favor by pushing the child back. The game stops at this point. The innocent child learns the reality of peace through strength. This is a concrete lesson in standing up for oneself. It is an unfiltered, direct means of learning the rules of the child-jungle, which helps them establish their behavior patterns in dealing with peers. 

 

This is a major reason an only child is at a significant disadvantage compared to a child coming from a family with siblings. Children tell and show each other things that would be ignored if said by an adult. They learn from each other how to act appropriately. “Don’t cry when you get hurt because you are acting like a baby.” This statement coming from a respected group member is more powerful than having to endure a lecture from a significant adult. Crying is like honey to a bear. It is a signal to the bully to attack.

 

The best protection a child has is himself. By interacting he will develop the social skills and abilities to handle peer issues. Excluding a child from independent relationships with his peers will not only delay his social maturity but could cause the child to be awkward or even a misfit among children.

 

 

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN  and a new just published book, entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DISCIPLINE IS NEEDED IN CREATING A CONSCIENCE

 DISCIPLINE IS NEEDED IN CREATING A CONSCIENCE

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD. --Traditional Realist                                                                           

 

Parents often talk about discipline or the lack of it, especially in others’ children. The foreman on a job wants to instill discipline in the workers for the best productivity. The CEO in charge of his staff wants them to start work at a specific time and work diligently until the end of their workday. 

 

If the employee does not follow the employer or the self-employed does not follow his own discipline rules, this will hinder his own production and may lead to losing the business to a more disciplined person. The same results happen with parents who are sincere in their commitment to raising a child with a strong conscience but do not insist on the child following their rules. Almost every parent believes their child is faithfully following their teachings even when they are not present.

 

On the news daily we see youths roaming the streets committing senseless crimes. Obviously, these adolescents are lacking a conscience, or they would not behave like this. What was needed was strong punishment that caused sufficient pain when they were young to be remembered and to lead to self-imposed correction of behavior.

 

Often parents tell their child there will be a negative consequence if they do not behave properly or a positive one, if they do well. Some parents say they will take something away such as using a computer, tv, or other electronic device but never follow through on. This means the child learns to disregard the words of the parents which does nothing to motivate the child to develop a conscience. Instead, it destroys the integrity of the parents and their word. 

 

There are some parents that keep their word to show the child it is better to do it right the first time instead of playing games. Discipline becomes a habit in their child’s life which helps them to keep their word and actions on the same page. Self-disciplined children mean they are becoming mature and self-correct before they make any decisions that would be harmful. 

 

Well-thought out and executed discipline serves the person well and poor discipline serves the person badly for the rest of their life. A mature person carefully weighs the pros and cons before making a decision. At the beginning their parent’s gave examples and explained why a particular behavior was wrong. Besides telling why a behavior would hurt the child, they are given a corrective punishment to reinforce that their choice was wrong and would be remembered. Besides choosing an appropriate consequence, the parent shows the child how this could become a habit they would be stuck with throughout their life. 

 

As the child learns to think about the long-term consequences of their behavior, their decision making improves. They mature into well behaved adolescents and eventually into reasonable adults. 

 

Children become productive adults with the assistance of an adult who holds them to high decision-making standards at an early stage in their life. Developing a conscience in a child is the most important responsibility of a parent. By the person pointing out the negativity of certain behaviors and the importance of doing the right thing this conscience development keeps the person on a healthy path.

 

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN  and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglioblogspot.com.