Teaching kids to be civilised

I’m often appalled by how easily we bandy about the term “civilised.” Many cultures have been around for thousands of years. Some were at some stage “great” - however you may wish to interpret that - because great doesn’t necessarily hold hands with civilised. Most have declined into a state of involution, others into oblivion. Today, good human, animal and environmental rights are possibly the best measure of a “civilisation.”

If we want truly to civilise, change or improve the planet and the quality of thinking on it, our one real hope lies in the way we rear and interact with, young people. The adage, “bend the branch while it’s young”, has great relevance. Older people typically resist changing the status quo.

There’s a huge difference between being a parent, mentor, guardian and “a friend.” Trying always to be a friend to children or young people is often a cop out from our obligation or responsibility to shape them and their character. I believe character is different from what we refer to as “personality”. Personality is a conglomeration of things making up who or what others “see” in us or of us. Character is the concealed foundation on which that “personality picture” rests - the plinth for the statue as it were.

The plinth needs progressively to be hewn out of rough rock. Shaped, then refined and finally polished. This may not be a comfortable process – for either the artist (mentor) or the plinth (young person). Parents and guardians in the western world often shy away from it. Surveys in retail shopping malls demonstrate clearly that many parents attempt to buy their way out of responsibility. They drop their kids off at a mall ensuring that junior’s got a significant sum of money in her or his pocket. Their social contribution is to fling the kid into a pot pourri of immature peers. Noted mainly for juvenile fashion, fantasy and fickleness, without a barometer against which to measure the merits of any ideas, suggestions or behaviour likely to be encountered.

Jeffrey Dahmer as you will recall, was the notorious serial killer who kept body parts in his refrigerator. Investigation by behaviourists into his background and childhood, revealed his ability when young, to be exceptionally cruel to animals. You’re wondering what relevance this has for character? There’s an interesting spiral of evolution involving respect.  Self-respect sits at the top of that spiral – the lower end of which starts with a respect for plants, then insects, then animals, then other people and then only, ourselves.

A child needs to be exposed to the concept and experience of respect for all levels of consciousness. Starting with plants. Bizarre though it may sound, don’t allow a child gratuitously to rip off a plant leaf or tear a blade of grass out of the ground, unless there’s a specific purpose behind it. Demonstrate the rescue of a ladybird or other insect from your swimming pool or a puddle. Dissolve a few grains of sugar in a drop of water on your finger tip and let them watch a bee that’s run out of fuel, lap up the energy with its proboscis, recharge its batteries and fly off. They’ll witness a micro miracle and develop respect for another category of consciousness.

The next level is a respect for animals. Essential, because it teaches children responsibility, to share, lets them feel the necessary growth of obligation, pain, love, selflessness and unconditional love.

Respect for other people will be born out of that slow-to-develop gift, called emotional intelligence. It’s part of the interpersonal skills development and evolution of people. Crucial to its same-sightedness and egalitarianism of vision, is that respect for other people must not be based on class, social standing, affluence or other distinction. It must be based simply on their being a person. Don’t allow children to be disrespectful to people playing a “serving” role. Whether it’s the person waiting at tables in a restaurant, a ticket collector at a sports ground, or your own domestic help.

When there’s respect for this vertical continuum of expressed consciousness, the young person – and indeed any of us – will then be capable of genuine self-respect. Self-respect is inextricably interwoven with self-worth. Without self-respect there cannot be an authentic and positive sense of self worth - without which, there will be all sorts of behavioural problems.

Take charge of your obligation today. If there’s no pruning of the tree, it will almost certainly lead to scraggy, aesthetically unattractive development. You’ll sit back and observe one day, the product of your handiwork. I hope you won’t be ashamed.

Own your Self-Esteem

First up, what is self-esteem? There are myriad definitions, but from personal experience and contemplation (for what it’s worth!) here’s mine:  Self-esteem is the value you place on what you believe, or know, to be the “genuine” you. It’s something which is not vulnerable to the odd compliment or brickbat, but rather a state of being in which you might think, “OK, so I was really unpleasant about that issue, but basically I’m a decent person, trying hard, under difficult circumstances.”

How do you spot self-esteem? Key symptom or indicator of a healthy self-esteem or sense of self-worth, will be how you handle criticism. If you go to great lengths to justify what you did or what you said, or to win other people to your viewpoint, because “being right” is important to you, your self-worth is a bit tottery! It’s good if your internal response is, “Well, that’s your view and you’re fortunately a sample of just one!” Provided of course, that you don’t have a dismissive, “sod off” attitude to everyone and everything, such a response would be an indicator of not only good self-worth but also good emotional intelligence.

We all have up days and down days for a variety of reasons. I always say that if someone is happy all the time, it’s not normal. And it certainly isn’t. They’re probably smoking or snorting something, of which you and I are not aware.

How do you know your sense of self-esteem is real? Only you or very skilled observers will know if your self esteem is genuine, because the process is an “inside-out” one. In which, how we feel about ourselves will translate into behaviour and be visible as our so-called “personality.” What’s important when assessing your self-esteem is to examine its stability and sustainability. Some psychologists have referred to “personality hardiness” or resilience. Healthy self-esteem certainly assists with the “bounce-back” factor required following pressure or trauma.

What really knocks self-esteem? Some of the common and extremely painful causes are retrenchment from one’s job, or the threat of it. Being “dumped” by someone in a relationship. Receiving constant negative, or actively destructive feedback on appearance, intelligence, social success and so on from people - and here’s the key – to whom we have given permission to have an impact on us. Eleanor Roosevelt, US First Lady of many years ago, herself a gangly, awkward and not very physically attractive person said, “Nobody can make you feel inferior, without your consent.” Sometimes a bit easier said than done, but something over which only we, ultimately, have control.

Can self-esteem be repaired? Mercifully, yes!  I say so from personal and painful experience, having had a physically, verbally and emotionally abusive alcoholic father. His speciality was belittling and demeaning other people, as a means of expressing his own inner rage and pain. Self-esteem is a mutable, flexible thing. As it can be damaged, so it can be repaired. Quite often, once they’ve got their lives on track again, people who were at some time retrenched, remark, “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” Because it shattered the status quo, required a total revise in what they wanted to do with their lives, and forced an evolution or a career and personal reinvention in some cases. Often, it provided, albeit very traumatically, the catalyst for shattering what was a dreadfully boring, purposeless existence.

If your sense of self-esteem is linked (as was mine in childhood) to a dysfunctional family, poverty, living in a down-at-heel neighbourhood or driving a battered car, let go! You’re not your material possessions. People reared in the school of hard knocks are often the gems on the planet.  There’s a sign to be found on the door of a British religious orphanage. It reads, “I will refine thee in the fire of my suffering.” A daunting prospect, but real depth, empathy, self-and-other understanding, often grows best in the garden of personal pain.

It’s your intention that should drive the barometer of your self-esteem. The fact that you’re trying to live a good, beneficial or giving life, is in itself something very special. Remind yourself of that when you’re having a day designed by a bad-tempered fairy god-mother!