This blog is about the current generation of young people in the USA. I blogged some time back about the TV series called "Seven Up" where they followed several kids from age 7 over a period of several years. They interviewed each kid every 7 years to see how they had changed from when they were originally interviewed at age 7. It was very eye opening and provided an important insight into human development. What I am going to try to do is to explain my views on how this current generation of our young people got to be the way that they are.
How about a little history? We have "progressed" in stages and those stages have had a major affect on just who we have turned out to be. Here is my list:
* Rural----- In 1900 most of us lived on farms or very small towns
* Urban-----In 2016 most of us live in large or mega large cities
Next, how did most young people spend their time in 1900 compared to now? I think this is key to how we got too where we are today.
* Close to one's family where most of the time was spent around adults or people older than you.
* Attending school, but only up to about 8th grade or 7 to 8 years
* Listening to the radio evenings
* Going to the movies, but just on Saturday afternoon
* Attending kindergarten and nursery school and graduating from high school after 14 or 15 years.
* More kids going to college, but never graduating in the normal 4 years
* Watching TV for more and more hours a day
* Watching cartoons on TV
* Playing with simple video games
* Spending almost every waking hour playing with computer games or talking to friends n the phone
I think that you can see that some very significant changes have been going on and they have had an impact on our kids and what kind of adults they turned out to be. Next, I think that kids need to spend more time with people "older" then them, including their parents. This is the way it was for the human race for thousands of years until just recently. This change has had its affect too. Here is my list of the types of families who spend more time with their kids or the kids spend more time with people older than they are.
* Asians
* Mormons
* Farmers
* Very religious families
* Non- Blacks
* Latino's
* Blacks
This is my list, but you could come up with your own list. If you were to look at children of the groups on my list and compare them in terms of "median family income", the rank ordering would be about the same. Children learn some of the most important lessons in life from adults, not other children of their same age. Think about what you learned playing in the sand box at the park? Compare that with the camping trip with your whole family? I know parents who think that it is better to send their kids to play with other kids in the park rather than having them help clean up the garage or water the garden. Look at meal time. What percentage of a child's meals are at the table with the whole family present today? It used to be 100%, but things have changed.
Here is a test. I don't know how good it is, but I think that it reveals critical information about our kids and how they have changed. The test is to give a young adult between ages 16 and 26 a live chicken and ask them to prepare it for dinner. This may sound like a crazy test, but I don't think it is. If a child is exposed to this sort of think at an early age by an adult, they easily accept the whole process of killing and dressing a chicken. If this is not done by about age 10 or 12, the kid will never accept that the process as a normal one. There are a lot of life's lessons that can be taught at an early age that can not be taught later. Look at religion? Parents easily brainwash their kids on religion before the kid has developed any reasoning ability. I am not suggesting that parents brainwash their kids, but it does point out how the process works in the development of a productive adult.
Bottom line, our kids need to spend more time with their parents and less time "socializing" with kids their own age who contribute very little to the development of a productive and responsible adult!! We are now going to "harvest" the type of kids that our parental neglect has produced and it will not be a nice picture. You ain't seen nothing yet!
PS--Another fact about our kids is that the older one "tends" to be smarter than the younger ones. Twins also tend not to be as smart as non-twins. I think the reason is clear. The older child associates with adults more than the younger kids who tend to play with their other brother and sisters. I blogged in the past that the policy in China of how only having one child is going to result in smarter Chinese children.
If you figure that in a small family with only one child, the child lives in a social system with an average IQ of 100. If we figure that a child has an affective IQ of 50, when you send you child to nursery school with 10 other kids and one teacher, the social system IQ is only about 55. Are you starting to see my point?
PS---It would be interesting to compare what has happened with our kids since unions took over our school teachers. Also, no more one room school houses. Was that so bad now looking back? My country school had two rooms. The "big" room and the "little" room.
How about a little history? We have "progressed" in stages and those stages have had a major affect on just who we have turned out to be. Here is my list:
* Rural----- In 1900 most of us lived on farms or very small towns
* Urban-----In 2016 most of us live in large or mega large cities
Next, how did most young people spend their time in 1900 compared to now? I think this is key to how we got too where we are today.
* Close to one's family where most of the time was spent around adults or people older than you.
* Attending school, but only up to about 8th grade or 7 to 8 years
* Listening to the radio evenings
* Going to the movies, but just on Saturday afternoon
* Attending kindergarten and nursery school and graduating from high school after 14 or 15 years.
* More kids going to college, but never graduating in the normal 4 years
* Watching TV for more and more hours a day
* Watching cartoons on TV
* Playing with simple video games
* Spending almost every waking hour playing with computer games or talking to friends n the phone
I think that you can see that some very significant changes have been going on and they have had an impact on our kids and what kind of adults they turned out to be. Next, I think that kids need to spend more time with people "older" then them, including their parents. This is the way it was for the human race for thousands of years until just recently. This change has had its affect too. Here is my list of the types of families who spend more time with their kids or the kids spend more time with people older than they are.
* Asians
* Mormons
* Farmers
* Very religious families
* Non- Blacks
* Latino's
* Blacks
This is my list, but you could come up with your own list. If you were to look at children of the groups on my list and compare them in terms of "median family income", the rank ordering would be about the same. Children learn some of the most important lessons in life from adults, not other children of their same age. Think about what you learned playing in the sand box at the park? Compare that with the camping trip with your whole family? I know parents who think that it is better to send their kids to play with other kids in the park rather than having them help clean up the garage or water the garden. Look at meal time. What percentage of a child's meals are at the table with the whole family present today? It used to be 100%, but things have changed.
Here is a test. I don't know how good it is, but I think that it reveals critical information about our kids and how they have changed. The test is to give a young adult between ages 16 and 26 a live chicken and ask them to prepare it for dinner. This may sound like a crazy test, but I don't think it is. If a child is exposed to this sort of think at an early age by an adult, they easily accept the whole process of killing and dressing a chicken. If this is not done by about age 10 or 12, the kid will never accept that the process as a normal one. There are a lot of life's lessons that can be taught at an early age that can not be taught later. Look at religion? Parents easily brainwash their kids on religion before the kid has developed any reasoning ability. I am not suggesting that parents brainwash their kids, but it does point out how the process works in the development of a productive adult.
Bottom line, our kids need to spend more time with their parents and less time "socializing" with kids their own age who contribute very little to the development of a productive and responsible adult!! We are now going to "harvest" the type of kids that our parental neglect has produced and it will not be a nice picture. You ain't seen nothing yet!
PS--Another fact about our kids is that the older one "tends" to be smarter than the younger ones. Twins also tend not to be as smart as non-twins. I think the reason is clear. The older child associates with adults more than the younger kids who tend to play with their other brother and sisters. I blogged in the past that the policy in China of how only having one child is going to result in smarter Chinese children.
If you figure that in a small family with only one child, the child lives in a social system with an average IQ of 100. If we figure that a child has an affective IQ of 50, when you send you child to nursery school with 10 other kids and one teacher, the social system IQ is only about 55. Are you starting to see my point?
PS---It would be interesting to compare what has happened with our kids since unions took over our school teachers. Also, no more one room school houses. Was that so bad now looking back? My country school had two rooms. The "big" room and the "little" room.
