I have always thought of myself as an optimist but being so does get difficult at times. Possibly, I am more of a reactive optimist than a proactive one. Haley Joel Osment saw dead people. I, on the other hand, see dead (read uncreative) souls increasingly populating our earth.

In essence, the world has not altered its rather obsessive cum neuritic cum psychotic stance. . .  It fears everything it should be anxious about and is anxious about everything it should fear. .  I so agree with Dr James Hillman in ascribing the following title to his 1993 book: We’ve Had 100 years Of Psychotherapy And The World’s Getting Worse. (I know. . .  I said that in my last posting. . . )

I hope you all get to read online the article on teen suicide written by Melissa Carole in the Globe and Mail on October 07 2011. Though “only” a PhD student, she says more in this article than most graduates and pros have articulated in the past decade.

On educational and parenting fronts, the media is kicking up a storm re: math and bullying. In an article entitled Go Figure, Because Teachers Can’t (Margaret Wente) The Globe and Mail - 29-09-11 writes that students are struggling not so much because they are at fault (a responsibility issue again?) but because teachers are being tested and THEY can’t do the math they are purportedly teaching................... I agree with Wente when she implies that schools are getting so involved in non-academic topics they are forgetting what their real job is.

When Your Teen Is The Bully (Anthony Wolf) Globe and Mail - 07-10-11 describes the horror of discovering that our children are not the angels we pray and hope they are. . . Too bad he doesn’t go further in prescribing a solution to this horrid discovery - along with a deeper look into our own parenting and social  psyche re this problem. It is rather facile as an article on such an important topic but at least it is being raised. Bullying remains to this day one of the key problems our kids face both in school and out. And, once again, the environment is never taken to task in this regard.

Last, but horribly NOT least. The American Pediatric Society in its quest to “make annoying things go away” (such as loud and obnoxious children) has decreed that 12  is really not a good age to ascribe ADHD titles to a child. 4 year olds should now be considered when thinking of prescribing psychostimulants to clam up the little bugge. . . .  Uhm. . .  kiddies...........

Kids Can Have ADD Drugs At Age 4, Mds Told -  (Sharon Kirkey) National Post - 17-10-11
Who tells ther MDs that this is an OK train of thought - coming from mature adults responsible for schildren and teens? Pharmaceutical interests of course. Toddlers Now In Range Of ADHD Diagnosis - (Sharon Kirkey) Ottawa Citizen - 17-10-11 (Same article in 2 different (though associated) papers. I guess someone sees it as an important issue. Too bad the world's collective voices, now being heard on the Wall Streets of the world NEVER take issue with the normalization of drugging our nations' children. Not important enough, I guess.

Too Many Just Give Up

Teen Suicide - Mental Illness? Yes, But Also Homophobia - Melissa Carole (PhD student at McMaster University) Globe and Mail - October 7, 2011

In response to the wisdom-filled commentary of Ms Carole I corroborate the claim that “blaming” teens “ exonerates each of us from our social responsibilities. . . (and) overlooks the evidence that there are other risk factors that go beyond mental illness.

James Hillman the prominent psychologist entitled his 1993 book : We’ve Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy - And The World’s Getting Worse. His premise was then, and remains to this day, based on too much of a focus being placed on the within and not enough on the environment which affects us and which spawns aberrant thinking, feelings and actions.

There is no life in a vacuum - no winning, no losing, no calm, no turmoil. Suicide, or the attempt, is impossible without taking into account the environment that feeds such inclinations and actions. Suicide attempters do not consider it so much a reflection of their inner turmoil as they see it as the only way they can cope with a world within which they have no place. Suicide is less a mental disturbance of an individual than it is a reflection of a disturbed society which sociopathically shows no sign of consideration for those who populate it.

But are we not more informed and caring regarding this subject today? No. A heavy dose of lowest common denominator stimulation does not constitute a more informed mind, substantive thought or a more caring viewpoint. It simply makes what we know “user friendly”. Our most recent obsessive attachment to the discussion of suicide is also rather eerie. It  appears tainted with a celebratory tone. . . We seem to laud those who suffer from its effects rather than wonder why suicide is a sad reality in need of objective analysis. We introduce the subject in the media more in line with entertainment (i.e.: emotional post-news hour presentations) rather than vital information. We seem to treat individuals touched by the horrid hand they are dealt as proud victims and their fate a manifesto. Never do we contemplate that it is an attack by an outside force on the very soul of an individual. The attempt, the act, is always the titillating topic, never the research delving into its causes or solutions.

In the visual arts, portrait painters often encounter problems with drawing a nose, a mouth a hand. . . An amateur focuses on the incorrectness of the nose, mouth or hand. The professional hones in on the surrounding areas in order to discover the “real” problem. If we are to understand reactive suicide we must consider what that soul is reacting to. We must stop honing in on the subject and realign our thinking to the environment which spawns such aberrant feelings, thoughts and actions. We have to stop being enamoured with the heroism with which we imbue victimhood. We must stop celebrating and sentimentalizing pain long enough to focus our attentions on what surrounds those who feel it so intensely. We need to focus on what needs changing in our communities, societies and countries in order that they offer each of us a healthier life, a more promising future.

As it stands, the whole concept of the media and society’s feeling your pain has more to do with reality TV formatting than it does with the reality of suicide and its causes. And that is sad.

SpongeBob’s bad?

Aw, Fish paste! SpongeBob’s bad For Kids
(research) Tralee Pearce - Globe and Mail - 12-09-11

Frenetic TV fare absolutely insane for kids to be watching daily? Absolutely! Would we feed our kids sugar the minute they wake up and continue on through the day until they fall asleep from exhaustion? No. (At least, not if we love them.) And so a research study (another of those deep research studies) states that watching SpongeBob can, may, might, could damage your kid’s ability to focus and calm down. It doesn’t take expensive fad research to discover those findings. All you have to do is be an aware parent or grand-parent to realize when to turn the TV off and send the kids outside to run off their excess intake ofg SpongeBob. No research needed. And just think. . . All those funds expended on such inane projects could be shunted off to better projects such as obesity and disease prevention programs and improving medical and social services. . .

We’re Only As Happy As Our Least Happy Child - Sarah Simpson - Globe and Mail - 12-09-11

WE need our kids to be happy so that WE can be happy. . . As children put it so succinctly : That’s creepy. . . Anything that has to do with care of but focuses more on the care-giver is creepy. 

Helicopter parenting is all about parents - not about kids. Is the very act of parenting problematic? At times. Is it difficult? At times. Is it about being happy? No. It is about being filled with wonder and hope and dreams for now and the future. If we want to be esoteric : It’s about giving a serious portion of one’s self to a dedicated plan of nurturing of guiding growth and the eventual independent functioning of a vibrant and creative human being.

In down to earth language, parenting is about being there when you’re needed and sticking your nose out of it when you’re not. Children have an agenda. They wish to explore, discover, analyse, wonder, experiment and go off on adventures to discover even more. That is their world - not ours. Ours is to provide the environment in which all of that creative energy can happen. . . even if it scares the living daylights out of us.

Over the past century specialists have taught us all to either slap the badness out of our kids or to hover over them - protect them from every possible and imaginary harm that we and the media can conjure. Modern parents have been "programmed" to be afraid, to feel weak and in need of (1) every parenting and safety product possible and (2) every pocket-book psychology concept possible (at least for the next 6 months. . .) Another new and improved version is in a stage of "soon to be announced".

The 21^st century is bound to be referred to as the "silly era".

Road To Redemption

Road To Redemption - A new homegrown series helps Canadians battle their demons on Intervention Canada. (Fridays on Slice TV) 
 
It is obvious to anybody who has read my book that I have difficulty (!) with the concept of “reality TV”. The very idea that it is considered “real” or honest, by even a small portion of the population, is disturbing if not disturbed. More and more, truth is what we manipulate or make of it - rather than what it is. . . And so. . .

Long live truth and ethics in advertising, promotion. . . and entertainment. What once would have been considered sick, as television fare, has gone mainstream. Slice TV brings us Road To Redemption. . . a new homegrown series (homegrown as in : more valid than foreign?). . . which helps Canadians battle their demons (?)  (Hmmm.) So, television is now a "helping professional's medioum?. We should all display before cameras (homegrown Canadian cameras of course!) what ails us. We should “share” with the world our pains and deficiencies and addictions and sorrows? Truth is, public confessions and self-flagellation are healthy - or so we are told. But, if we can't submit ourselves to lowest common denominator antics of self-loathing - we can at least be good consumers and ogle (enjoy) and point the finger at the dumb people on TV who do.

With such side-show freakism considered legitimate "helpful" entertainment no society needs a Big Brother to reduce us all to a submissive level. We can do that all by ourselves. . . By belittling those who suffer or those who play at suffering to attract attention. . . by redefining entertainment as finding pleasure in self-righteous superiority, we have become. . . we are Big Brother.

Oh woe! Oh Woe! The Silly Season Is Upon Us

The silly season has begun. It’s September. Kids are going back to school. And so, articles appear in the papers - such as: “How to prepare your child for the difficult first days”. “How mothers and fathers can say good-bye to their children without upsetting them. . " "How to survive the first days after your child has started school". It seems we are all blithering idiots in this era of co-dependency. Oddly, no articles on getting your children back into a school year sleep routine. proper diets for good learning. . . exercise programs to motivate the brain. . . That would be too obvious. . . But then. . ..  EUREKA: an article on just that : Tutors are less effective on our children's academic performance than is regular physical exercise. . . . . I could just cry........ (Sniff). Finally common sense is being allowed as valid infrmation.
TV is no less a promoter of the horrors and tribulations of school attendance. And it starts from a child's very first encounter with this fiendish system. This morning, a “specialist” advised us on (Canadian) CTV “How our children can ace kindergarten. . .”  Heck, I never even attended  kindergarten. (Possibly that explains all my problems. . . No specialists, no computer games and ugh. . . no kindergarten).

But then, the world isn’t all dumb and dumber. The famous documentary photographer George S. Zimbel’s collection of photographs of children (presently at the Bulger Gallery in Toronto) is mesmerizing. Such an exhibition is nothing less than a treasury of how encouraging times once were and are no longer. The exhibition is cited as : “images from the middle of the last century showing what childhood used to be before bubble-wrap parenting”. The Globe and Mail article on the show ends with the comment : “. . . the freewheeling children depicted are an endangered species.”

The war on children - Globe and Mail - Elisabeth Young-Bruehl 27 August, 2011

A new book entitled : Childhood Under Siege by Joel Bakan speaks on the topic of Big Business targeting children. (So what's new?) Reviewed by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, a psychoanalyst, Bakan’s book is given short shrift as well as considered somewhat hystrionic in its accusations of big business. It is, as other essays on the topic (Beyond Discouragement-Creativity included) pooh-poohed - called “simplistic”. Though Young-Bruehl may be right about the intensity of the book, the comments made should not be so easily dismissed as overkill. Why? Because no one seem s interested in taking a closer look at our promotion and advertising systems which are so powerful when directed at children. And because they are not big busines smiles all the way to the bank, while our kids. . . . .

Enfants surprotégés - La presse - Marie Larocque

While we sem to ignore the real dangers our children face in these "modern" times, we are a seriously over-protective lot when it comes to our chjildren. It seems. . . .  we like our children dumb and dependent. And this to the point of them not knowing what danger is - as in : children are no longer able to analyse what is or is not dangerous because they are prevented from learning about danger, from assessing it and from confronting and dealing with danger. Being danger-smart doesn’t seem to fit a contemporary parent’s view of childhood and growing up.

Last but definitely not least, it is reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that hundreds of times a day, doctors prescribe drugs to children with little safety or dosing data....... Because, it seems, companies are NOT disclosing the information to Health Canada. My question has more to do with WHY these drugs are allowed AND prescribed if there is no disclosure. But then. . .  I am such a silly bear of little brain.............................

How Low Can We Go.

French Lingerie Firms Pretty Babies Prompt Calls To Let Girls Be Girls. - Globe and Mail (Anita Lesh) August 19, 2011.

We do live in bizarre times. . . While European lingerie firms promote their "sexual accoutrements" to a 4 to 12 year old demographic, some segments of North American society parade this same age group (and younger) by tarting them up to look slutty. In expensive custom-made "adult-like" get-ups and heavy make-up (more reminiscent of the "first profession" than identifiable with average looking female adults) they prance, swing their hips and dance in ways no toddler or preteen should. Reality TV has "normalized" such pageants through shows such as Toddlers and Tiaras. American Eagle, from its advertising pulpit promotes push up bras, Abercrombie and Fitch sells padded bras and thongs to 8 year olds. . . But then, who’s buying? The 5 year old?. Add to this scenario the fact that disposable diaper companies are now producing products for 4 to 8 year olds - not as "specialty" items geared to problem situations - but rather as "standard" customer requested fare. . . Me thinks our children are telling us something. Just possibly, just maybe we’re doing something terribly wrong with them and we don’t seem to be getting it.

While writing this blog segment, I listened to a CBC interview about the realities of Reality TV. (19-08-11). While the author of a new book on reality TV expressed her dismay on the CBC radio one show "Q", I thought that I had been harsh (in my book Beyond Discouragement - Creativity) in my evaluation of this sickly form of entertainment. It seems, I only touched on the surface. The disgusting practices of networks, advertisers and promoters is appalling. Their disrespect of human frailties and of the persons who submit themselves to such side-show freakism is almost impossible to imagine in a society calling itself free and advanced. Advertisers and promoters are telling us what is real. They "blame" us for enjoying this type of television. They tell us we enjoy, viciousness and violence and hurtfulness and hatefulness. Eventually, it seems, we get sold on this garbage. Their capacity to titillate is in total sync with their capacity to take in the multi-millions that their "shows" cause to be made. Jennifer Pozner, author of Reality Bites Back lays it all out regarding Reality TV. Its total viciousness is laid bare. In essence it proves the point I less strifently made: Reality TV is probably one of the sickest forms of entertainment since Lions raged in the Roman forum - and we seem to be taking it all in. . .

Type! Don't Write!!!

A lot of food for thought in the press these days., No, I am not talking about SDK or Rupert Murdoch scandals.  What really strikes home are contradictory yet complementary articles such as :

“Workers Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your E-Mail Chains” - (Harvey Schachter) Globe and Mail - 11-07-11.

vs (and yet not. . .)

“The Handwriting On The Wall At Public Schools In Indiana” (Laura Baziuk) Ottawa Citizen - Post Media News - 11-07-11.

The first article encourages individuality and creativity in professional life. It does so by offering up rules of engagement re: emails and an understanding and  respect for a “Doodling Manifesto”. And what has one to do with the other? The e-mail rules of engagement encourage a more humane use of this tool - a less mechanical acceptance of it as a be-all-and-end-all contact medium.

Regardless of e-mailing’s potential as a quick (and even flippant) form of communication, its overuse and abuse are reaching epic proportions throughout business and even personal worlds. And so, the article includes (as a compensation?) a Doodling Manifesto”. It highlights the creative potential of visual thinking - through the productivity angled, yet seemingly “nonsensical”, art of doodling. What is doodling? It is the physical act of rendering concrete a thought, emotion or concept through (from abstract to realistic) renditions of brain pattern playing. In essence, doodling stimulates the brain into action. It neurologically enriches our ability to analyse, formulate and implement solutions to problems - which otherwise could remain unsolved. Doodling is sited as nothing short of miraculous in its capacity to stimulate visual, auditory and kinesthetic abilities. And this is ironic since we live in times which do not consider thinking things out important. Our technical wizardry does that for us - (at least as long as batteries, electricity and oil allow us to depend on them. . .) What is troublesome is that we are gradually shutting down our brains - much as couch-potato-ing is gradually shutting down our bodies.

Not specifically stated in the article is that doodling is like an inexpensive and self-recharging battery which stimulates lazy or misused thinking patterns. But then. . .  contemporary academic,  productivity minds and other authorities don’t really consider it a viable “tool” since it is one of those things whose specific attributes you can’t really ascertain or pinpoint in mathematical or scientific terms. Even worse. . . You can’t market or “buy” what it offers - so. . .  Of what use is it?

And so, this article (not in so many words) reminds us that with the shutting down of brain exercises we are increasingly showing signs of a new ailment - roboticism - where tech tools handle most of our thinking processes in order that we profit from the contemporary “beingness ” of our anorexic mental lifestyle (i.e.: a slowing down of our ability to move forward creatively). Encase this individual inability to thrive in an increasingly obese physical shell - and what we have is a gradual slowing down to a crawl - and dead stand-still of anything and everything which has ever been created.

This first article - left to its own devices - could simply be a whimsical “à côté”. But fear not. . . It seems journalists are becoming more and more interested in our gradual mental and physical demise. . .

Doodling has always been the realm of creative, of thinking peoples. . .  Maybe it is no longer common because we are doing exactly that - increasingly not thinking. And so, maybe we are even encouraging the “not” thinking side of us all. . .  Not-thinking makes the world a less messy place - a “neater” and more predictable place. But mostly it offers us a less stressful state - an environment in which we don’t have to cope with what life imposes upon us. To simply let “others” think for us - and, to simply let things be is so much “easier”. . .

The second Ottawa Citizen (Laura Baziuk) article (inadvertently related to the above) is in regards to Indiana schools. "The Handwriting On The Wall At Public Schools In Indiana". It seems that starting in the fall, children in this school system will no longer need to learn cursive writing. . . (one of the last vestiges of individuality left in our increasingly homogenous world of sameness).  Writing is out. "But they do, however, have to sharpen their typing skills" - states an academic memo. .  . Just think. . .  a million little busy fingers tip-tapping away . . .  All the letters the same - neat, uncomplicated, simple, homogenous. . . readable. . .  NOT one unique scribbler in the bunch. . . . Just a horde of carpal tunnelled 6 year olds wincing in pain for approval. . . No more “curlicues” or hearts doting “I’s” or fancy swirls encasing capitals. . .

One teacher  even poutingly states that there are more important skills to be learned than writing - such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and literacy. . .  Am I missing something? Aren’t these individual items the exact skills few if any of our children possess today - because over time we have taken away any of the acquisition exercises which trained our children’s minds to assimilate these attributes?

Aren’t these the very skills that Universities and colleges say are totally missing in our entitled children? Aren’t these the skills that are falling by the wayside because school boards consider killing recess, shortening school days and putting a computer on every desk more important than giving our children the opportunity to become the best they can be as INDIVIDUALS - rather than cloned patsies of a faltering system?

But then. . . Maybe writing is simply the last skill we are ripping away from the system in order to take oppression away from the heavy task of “discovering and learning things”. And anyway, kids would rather type than write. Writing is hard. . . (Sigh).

But then, possibly the goal just may be to not teach skills to children. . . And such a statement begins to make sense when we look at recent statistical evidence which shows that more and more “children” continue to live with their parents beyond their 20s. Between 1997 and 2006 the age of “stay at home children increased from the late teens to the late 20s and mid 30s. Percentagewise stay-at-home children have also risen from the low 20% to 42.7%. Now this does not mean that most are helping their parents pay off the mortgage or are buying groceries. . . No, we must realize that many are being fed like fledglings without wings, dependent on laundry services and room and board, to which - like the expected passing grades in school - they feel “entitled”.

Oh am I on a roll today. . .

But please, dear reader, be assured that if I add a third article in the area of school “progress” in today's blog I am not going out of my way to search these things out. All of the mentioned articles were blatantly obvious  - on this same day - in various national and local papers - from international media sources.

And so. . .  Bear with me. . .

“British Teachers Told To Use Force To Restrain Unruly Pupils” (Graeme Paton) Ottawa Citizen - The Daily Telegraph - 11-07-11

Well, well. . .  Many years ago, the child-centered worlds of specialists insisted that we allow children to call teachers and other adults by their first names. That, they said, would make the school environment more friendly - more learning oriented. . . Actually, it was a primary crucial step in the disintegration of school and parental authority. Why? What we forget, is that a first name only communication has always been used with "subordinates" - especially children. For centuries it was the lot of the indentured and enslaved. We allowed them a “base” name BUT with no connection to anything other than their status. . .  And so Miss Henry - the teacher - who is a daughter of the Henry clan (and everything that name historically implies) and linked to other Henrys and known by her clan affiliations - is now. . . no more than “Sally” - "a" generic kindergarten teacher, identifiable (for convenience sake) by a single name.

Such is the power, for example, of a promoter who wishes to call you by your first name in order to impose his product upon you. It's basic psychology. It takes away your authority and hands it over to another. It demeans the stature of any and all people to a "nametag" - an identifying series of letters of no consequence beyond the reading of them. Slaves never had last names.  They were not respected as individuals born of a collective and therefore neither their past nor their future were ever taken into consideration. In essence, "first" name only environments use this tactic to "render lower" the position of an individual. This is how people, whether children or adults are mentally and emotionally subdued.

To this new “democratising (!)” practice we began taking away all authority from teachers and academic institutions. Children’s demands became pre-eminent. To this we began gazing upon any and all adults as enemies of childhood. The village helping to raise a child concept was tossed into the trash as strangers became dangers.  And so, community values were gradually diminished and eventually added to the pile of  “traditional” trash. And with the elimination of anything and everything we had learned from our elders, we eventually handed over our capacity and authority to raise our children as we saw fit. These rights and privileges were handed over to “specialists” and private enterprise who then quickly determined us incapable without their “help” and products.

And so. . .  several generations later. . .  Our kids are now telling us all what to do (or is that : where to go). And they’re doing it aggressively. And suddenly we are frightened of our own offspring. . . And now, elder abuse increases and we wonder why. . . And so, we suddenly react. We think we are going to make everything well, make everything OK by giving now powerless teachers the authority to grab our kids physically and tell them to “STOP!”  But we fail to see that the whole environment needs to change before this can ever be possible. And at this point. . .  will those entitled children allow us?

It seems we now feel compelled to call upon brute force to reinstate calm and eliminate abuse and bullying perpetrated by the very angelic children gone wild that we have sculpted. Definitely more grown tall, more powerful and ever more demanding of their “rights”, we suddenly find ourselves crying out in disgust at the not so petty antics of our “conscienceless?” broods. And they, just as suddenly, have no idea what "our problem" is.

I am generally a smiling individual, despite my words. I love the world which offers me so much to be creative with. If not the irreverent creative clown I wish to be considered by my children, I do find it difficult to grin for pleasure rather than cynicism today. That is why I write. I don’t think we are all going to hell in a hand-basket. But I do think we need to get off our butts and “think” about what is going on - before it does get to be too late.

All of these constantly being referred to articles on human behaviour, added to my observations over the years goaded me into writing Beyond Discouragement - Creativity. I wrote things I (sadly) believed to be true. I just never thought that the world media would so consistently concur with those self-same findings.

Nonetheless, Happy week all!

PS: School is out. . .  So where are the thousands of children we’re supposed to be being careful about as we drive around town going to work and doing our shopping? (Does the absence of children riding bikes and running around outside their homes mean we should now consider Nintendos and Gameboys “child-safety” equipment?)