"Comparison Of Child Development Strategies: An Individual Perspective"
Thomas Hobbes was his generation's premier thinker and arguably father of child development whose core principles I cannot debate in a public sciences paper (Lang, 2020). Instilled original sin is biblical. Using anecdotes, I could site instances of "bad seeds", those without provocation bent to bad behavior from the beginning. What I CAN claim is the consistent dueling nature of people. I have observed with ongoing vision most everyone is a wondrous creature yet in other paradigms a monster. Likewise with certainty children are genuine individuals upon arrival. Ergo, original sin can be scientifically solvent if God's face is obscured revealing nature's facade.
Necessary then is approaching kids as adults case-by-case. No greater unequal than equal treatment of unequals. Hobbes' beliefs involved desiring what's best for the targets. Believing in an oblivious corrupt starting line, I would argue Hobbes dogmatically was convinced not only of his righteousness, but strict policies towards kids held their best interest.
Children can gain security off of authority. My home had a bipolar father with an ofttimes aggressive temperament authoritarian-style. Resenting him before and after his suicide when I was 12, the line between discipline and abuse was straddled more than once. Always, he kept me safe from the unknown, feeling protected. Once or twice a month he would sleep beside me until age 8 for that reason. This provided a spine to what I perceive as love to this day.
Particularly, I appreciate Rousseau, Hobbes' polar counterpart imparting play's importance in a child's life. Approaching senior status, compliments caught most often involve the contrast I display to my age. Overall movement, speech, demeanor, and appearance deny its number. I attribute this to perpetual motion begun with now vintage hands-on toys. Most mornings are ritualistic movement, momentum, and music. Literacy underscoring my existence stems from a lifelong love affair with comic books. By four, I moved miles most peers had yet to travel regarding written competence.
Encouraging youth engagement is antithetical to our current model resulting rampantly in violence and self-harm. Habitual horror sums from incessant modern digital babysitters. Interaction typically breeds independent, empathetic, capable, and far less fear-fueled grown folks says past a half-century's experience.
Writer-cartoonist Lynda Barry is a recipient of the 2019 McArthur Foundation fellowship - AKA "the genius grant". She teaches creative workshops, delivering testimony to the efficacy of play. Our switch to static screens has nullified coordination resulting from that loss says a chief tenet of her philosophy. Replacing handwriting with keyboarding allays development, Barry believes. "Handwriting, that thing we think is no big deal, there's so much dexterity in it. Not just the hand you're writing with but the non-dominant hand is always in action, moving the paper, paying attention... there's a reason people gesture while they talk". Merging generations to correct issues, the author paired PhD students with kindergartners to offset chronic upset she observed the seniors suffer. Child's play led to problem-solving. "I had my students copy what the kids were doing, or I got the kids to draw the answer to questions like 'What are microbes?', and my students had to be on the floor working with them together...you find that something has loosened up. You get away from that laser-focused, worrisome way of being." Barry credits creative play as a major coping strategy for her lifelong depression (Marchese, 2020).
John B. Watson, behaviorist, entered in the 1920s (Lang, Lumen Learning, 2020). Strongly I believe children are deeper reservoirs of resilience than we currently culturally do. Encouraging victimization via development disturbs me. Detachment that Watson supported I feel is likewise unnecessary. Affection in proper doses gives many kids feelings of reassurance and importance. Balance is key, like the difference in physical reprimand some kids respond to and outright torture. I support the strength of nurturing, and "better brought up babies". Environmental influences are potent.
Observable in prison's microcosm is a dichotomy of criminal populations. Sex offenders versus the standard lot. While Northpoint's yard was segregated, the sex criminal community was primarily middle to upper middle class Whites. The remainder, a mix of vastly drug-related, rarely violent, or robber felons are a blended family, largely lower-class Whites, Blacks, and Mexicans. Literally a couple of Asians dot the map. Big numbers guaranteed are "paychecks" owing existence to a mother drawing government subsidies for every child produced minus a nuclear father. Raised without any tools - play, affection, or engagement winding up an arrival here. Conversely, a situation populous with hyper-sexualized men sprung from distorted boundaries and hidden family agendas safeguarding predators morphing innocents into the next generation of the same. Natural bad seeds are here, but the usual suspects are that with good reason.
Watson's folly mirrors those moms producing people-paychecks. His experiment "Little Albert" where a raucous racket banging an iron rod to a 9-month old boy alongside a white rat demonstrating behavioral fear response also showed how Watson cared most about himself. Never going back to comfort the tyke he potentially warped proved a point: adults grow from children to those monsters I mentioned, like ladies producing lives to get income. Working in a car crash clinic I had pregnant women admit this was their vocation.
Styles of childhood development are valid every one because there exists a child for each. We see through historical lenses approaching kids as treasured individuals is a proper tack. With its stakes this is potentially society's most important opportunity.
