Re: I'm beginning to lose faith in humanity...
[QUOTE=floridaorange;1133103]Can you elaborate, give examples? This is interesting, thanks.[/QUOTE]
The way I understood it, sometimes people are a certain way, like they seem to lack remorse for things they say/do that hurts others. So they hurt others indiscriminately and they don't know why. Apparently, if their mother was so even-keeled in temperament, like she acted as if nothing really got to her, she showed the same tone, same look, no anger, no affect...nothing made her really angry, then the child learns very early he/she cannot affect her [or others]. Because if the child never feels that feeling of panic/fear & internalizes it by asking himself "Is she still going to love me?" and he/she doesn't ever become scared (experience that fear for a moment) and come to the conclusion "I better behave nicer." then that creates a lack of conscience in a sense and it can play out in various ways. I think because they're missing that link "bad behavior = the chance I'll lose the love of the one most important person to me [mother]."
I read it's important for mothers to show emotions, communicate what they mean & how to resolve them ("Say you're sorry and come give me a hug, see I'm not angry anymore, we're fine.") By withdrawing their attention from their child for a period of time (like in timeout... gentle discipline) no matter how much the young child wants to connect, she's angry and says "I'm angry you for ______ (not yelling, but raising voice slightly, changing tone to an angry one, changing facial expression, & so on) "Go sit in timeout." (or go to your room until you can communicate calmly, then you can come out and we'll work through this together.) The young child fears for a few moments that mother doesn't love him/her anymore because of whatever they did that was wrong. So then, the mother relaxes, stops being angry (i.e., emotions have been processed), and makes up with the child (with warm communication). It's an important process in child rearing if you want an adult who has a conscience, is confident in reading people's emotions, and can interpret their own emotions and how to work through them warmly with others.
A very young child (0-5) must learn that his/her actions affect people emotionally (through experiencing that with their parents) and those emotions can get worked through and they feel loved (in warm connection) again. Adversely, if their mother's love was never 'hanging in the balance,' the child feels kind of robotic, like they don't really matter in the emotional life of their mother, thus, they don't really matter to anyone. That link doesn't get internalized. Or, there is so much confusion around their own emotions and the lack of emotions being displayed by their mother, their conscience lacks developing in experiencing empathy for themselves or anyone else.
When that happens, that adult tends to escalate negative behavior towards others because they believe deep inside they don't affect anyone emotionally (their even-keeled mother never/rarely was affected by them). For some people, that can even turn into physical negative behavior, which would be that of a sociopath or one with sociopath tendencies. It's all really important in a child's emotional development.
There's an article (I read these kinds of things all the time) called "Parent-child Processes in Childhood, Conduct Problems, & Callous-Unemotional Traits: An Observational Analysis" by Dave S Pasalich, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. But you can also google how consciences are developed in early childhood, it's all about parenting styles. It's actually more effective to have parents who display a wide range of emotions, label them for their child, talk about resolving them openly & warmly, verses strict, cold, authoritative, non-discussion-types or coercive forms of interacting and discipline. And fear plays a very important role in attachment, conscience development, empathy development for others, etc.
here's another article:
[URL]http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/thompson/pubs/article/thompsonmeyermcginley.pdf[/URL]
some excerpts:
It should be clear from this research review how parents whose conversations with offspring incorporate negative, denigrating, or otherwise unsympathetic portrayals of others’ needs or motives, or who emphasize the importance of moral compliance for authoritarian reasons, or who scare or threaten offspring, or who convey self interested moral orientations, or who seek to justify lying, cheating, or treating others unkindly are likely to instill similar values and dispositions in young children. Moreover, in parent–child relationships of distrust or insecurity, young children are likely to be inclined toward moral dispositions that are more self-protective and perhaps less other-oriented than those inspired by caregiving relationships of security and warmth. These negative or mixed moral messages are likely to be apparent in parent–child relationships characterized also by harsh or punitive parental discipline practices and may, in fact, help to account for the more external, punishment-oriented moral values adopted by the offspring of such parents.
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Young children learn about the importance of others’ feelings in their conversations with the adult, and they also witness these emotions directly during conflict with siblings or parents, and then talk about the feelings they observed in later conversation. [B]Children learn to care about how others feel because their own feelings are respected, even during conflict with a parent. [/B]
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Perhaps most valuable is the view emerging from this research that young children are intuitive moralists who begin to understand values in the context of relationships of
significance to them. Young children are neither autonomous moral theorists nor lumps of clay to be shaped by others. They are instead moral apprentices, striving hard to understand, creating their own intuitive morality but also aided by the sensitive guidance of adult mentors in the home who provide lessons about morality in everyday experiences. Such a portrayal of young children enlivens inquiry into the beginnings of conscience.
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I hope this helps.. :D
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