Weekly Psyche

Ahh the quick and dirty. As the title indicates something sinister and nasty. I have always contended that the human being is motivated primarily by Lust and Fear. Fear keeps us alive long enough to procreate the specie, lust. Lust and fear each deal with immediate gratification. But immediate gratification is a child’s game that one must grow out of. It is the crib we are born with to survive on this planet as naked and defenseless suckling mammals. Unless the human being learns delayed gratification they will never be joining the harvest season of life. It is the bridges we learn how to build across the rivers of life and not the walking across the bridge that builds the self esteem of living. Ah backstairs and love affairs.

A parent called me the other day frustrated over their children’s performance on tests. They wanted to boost them so Ivy league schools would take notice. But the parent is still living under the stairwell wanting that one glimpse of satisfaction. Research tells us that if we want our children to learn permanent behaviors for success like “Getting an A on test papers” they must nurture the child to learn the process of what it takes to earn an A and not the product itself. It falls into the same old adage that says if you want a child to survive long after we are departed from this planet, we should have taught the child how to fish and not just give them the fish. My primary purpose when working with children is to enable them to be a success in our society. And I am using the word children as any human that has not yet learned how to catch their own fish. So during the school years it could be 7 years to 17 years old.  In the corporate world as an industrial psychologist the ages range from 25 to 45.  Lets face it, if they haven’t learned how to catch their own fish by that time the corporation will impose the real reality show of life upon the individual and “FIRE” them. Then they exist under the motto “sink or swim.”  But that’s an entirely new post.

This parent suggested paying $5 to $10 for every test grade above a B.  But the grade results will most likely be the parents effort and not teach the child how to acquire the necessary behaviors for success. And here success is being defined by an “A.”  I will agree with the parent about raising the child’s working behavior awareness. We do this by rewarding an area of difficulty in the steps that lead to successful institutional attitude. It is the attitude that creates the grade change.  We must pay the child for their work.  Shocking?  We pay them anyway. Think about all the out of pocket money is spent on a child every week.  Why not take that same amount and allocate the funds for the behaviors, the actions, that create the healthy positive tribal behaviors, like getting an “A.”

Teach the child  ”to ask for help”  should be rewarded. Why? Because this behavior, which is necessary to acquire “good grades,” is strongly forbidden in our society through our DNA development. Asking for help is an indication of weakness by our DNA. But this behavioral instinct must be relearned if a child is to be successful in our complex society. But most humans would rather go to the grave than admit they need help from another human being. I remember a couple that built new office space so both husband and wife could work at home together in the same room. It was a beautiful design but the TV was actually on the counter and cluttered up their work space. I suggested they mount the TV on the wall to liberate the space.  They spent most of the afternoon explaining why that idea could not possibly function within their unique space. I did not argue of course. Confrontation is exactly what they wanted. It would have given them the 5th law of human behavior: “All humans must feel the need to form personal empowerment.” In my next post, I will reveal the 7 laws that motivate all human beings. Notice I did not say, “Some human beings” but “ALL” human beings. Somehow modern politics have scrambled our omelets so egos can’t be bruised and no egg shell can be broken. The next week the couple had the inspiration to mount the TV on the wall and take credit for the idea. Why? Dumb DNA.

However, building healthy children with the necessary instincts is also a battle with political structures that dictates how we think. Example? Because of our sophisticated technology human beings with below normal IQ’s are surviving.   Political structures were built to accommodate a major portion of the social structure for IQ’s well below normal. Those that are well below the social structure should have died at birth as not to vitiate the gene pool.  But social structures were created that artificially support unhealthy lifestyle, usually through some social program. If a child’s IQ is too low we cannot teach them how to fish for themselves, or even how to read. Only the child that learns how to fish can be happy a child and contribute to the tribal structure. They can pay taxes. Zoloft prescriptions for anxiety cannot replace an individual’s ability to contribute to the group structure.  At the root of all anxiety is an individual’s lack of contribution to the group. It is in the DNA.

Ahh backstair and love affairs.  Society lives for the moment and only encourages immediate gratification, “Give it to me NOW!” Anxiety is a natural function of DNA. The individual must do what the tribe demands or the specie will not survive. The government has now classified anxiety as “child abuse.” I have attended many a meeting where withholding rewards from children until they did their work was considered malpractice and an issue of “social services” because it caused the child anxiety. This issue sounds absurd, but it is the governments answer especially with the escalation of low IQ’s within the gene pool. We cannot fix something we cannot define. If too many children have low IQ’s, they must be accommodated. And the lower the IQ, the higher the anxiety rate because grasping “How to fish” or “How to read” cannot be accommodated. The rules are changed by the government through our institutions and anxiety is seen as a nemesis and not as a healthy side effect of not conforming or completing ones task that create the necessary “good grades.”

The inability to learn and low IQ is not a popular subject.  But the lower the IQ, the less delayed gratification an animal can tolerate.  When a threshold of learning is reached, anxiety is the outcome. We have tested this anxiety threshold by experimenting teaching dogs to discriminate between simple geometric shapes. The dog was able to discriminate between a circle and a square but when an elliptical shape was presented the dog began to howl, claw, and bite. The dog began to exhibit severe signs of anxiety.  Why? Because of a dogs low intelligence, learning thresholds are reached  rapidly. But we cannot fix it if we are not allowed to define the problem. It is the battle of ideology through government propaganda. I was sitting at one meeting with a 17 year old child who refused to attend school. Parents and educators wanted this changed. While they were discussing the problem, the 17 year old was texting and talking on his phone with friends. Who is paying for this privilege of texting and calling? I brought this to the meetings attention. The institution said that if the phone was removed until school day completed the child would get angry. And why do we want to intentionally make the child angry? “The child is already taking anti-anxiety medication!” And what is the result of this interference that forbids teaching our children delayed gratification?  Well, a Peter Pan world without a happy ending. But that is for my another post. The dissembling of Never Neverland. Read my next post for the future to come.

“Give it to me NOW!” Anxiety is a natural function of DNA. The individual must do what the tribe demands or the specie will not survive. But government has interfered by propaganda of ideology. Not doing what needs to be done used to be called sin (unhealthy behavior). If a human sins too often it creates anxiety.

So I told the parent that we pay the child $5 each day the child voluntarily seeks the parents advice on how to study. The grades will automatically follow. But the money must be denied if the job is not complete! And what occurs as the child goes through the learning curve? Anxiety.

This is Dr. B reminding you that we are not alone!