Being Human

My second hour of TV, I was channel flipping and stopped on UWTV because the speaker was discussing a diagram showing how 'sensitive responsive parenting can curb aggression development in children. This subject naturally caught my eye because of discussio'ns on aggression in class. At ages 1-3, tantrums and aggression are recognized and if the correct parenting style is used, can be curbed between the ages of 4-5. However, if there is a 'disrupted developmental trajectory' (i.e. lack of nurturing, unstable childcare), ages 4-5 will manifest 'emotional dysregulation', 'social skill deficits', and 'lack of friendship'.

The presenter was Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, FAAN, Professor and Director of the UW Parenting Clinic presenting at the 30th Annual Faculty Lecture. Her book is entitled "Helping Young Aggression Beat the Odds" and discusses techniques which parents, teachers, and kids can use when joined together. She feels that there is a percentage of kids with aggressive disorders that are not being helped. Dr. WS says less than 10% of kids who need conduct help get it. Parents should ask for help when a child refuses to do what s/he is asked 8 out of 10 times. She also has other criteria for determining if a child has a conduct disorder. She mentioned 2 conduct disorders: Conduct Disorder (CD) and Oppositional Disposition Disorder (ODD).

These labels are discouraging to me. In my opinion, labeling anyone at any age is detrimental to one's ultimate recovery. I'm not discrediting Dr. Webster-Stratton, I agree with all of her techniques recognizing she didn't invent these disorders or the process of diagnosis. I just think kids have a hard enough time growing up without having to overcome added stigma. Adults, I think, would know better. Being 'normal' was crappy enough. I think pharmacology has become a too-powerful agent in our mental health community.

Back to article...Dr. WS says the earlier the intervention of ths behavior the better, preferably before there has been a diagnosis. Between the ages of 3-8, behavior is more malleable and changeable. Some ways to change these aggressive behaviors is by instituting programs which encourage self-regulation and problem solving. She also has workshops where she teaches parent self-care and 'how to stay calm' techniques.

I just spent two hours watching television when I was supposed to be doing my homework and I don't feel bad about it because the TV turned into my homework. This afternoon, I was sitting at my computer doing some homework with the TV on in the other room for background noise. At 3 o'clock, 'Northwest Afternoon' comes on discussing varied topics of interest. I heard the host of the show announcing the special guest who was the author of "The Elephant in the Living Room:  making TV work for your kids".  Attention grabbed, I bagged my current assignment and watched the show finding the relevancy of the subject matter ironic.  The book gives tips on how to control what kids are watching whether they are at home, at a friend's house, or in this day and age, individual parents' house in shared custody. The main question addressed is what is the importance of media in our lives and the lives of our children?  I was taking notes as quickly as I could but only got the first part of the author's name:  Dr. Dimitri Ch_?. I'm going to investigate further on komo's website because I also missed the first two items on his list of 'Top 5 things not to do when it comes to kids and TV watching' 1.?, 2.?, 3. not setting an example.  Parents should set the standard on what to watch and when to watch., 4. underestimating commercials. Parents should realize the power that commercials have to sway young minds. Example: Young boy thinking that he, too, can have the hot girl in the commercial if he drinks the right beer., 5. letting kids watch alone. Parents should take the time to watch TV with their kids so they can observe reactions and clarify content when necessary.  If I can find the rest of the information, I'll post a link! 

I was looking online for more information on baby dreams but I couldn't find anything specific to what babies dream, only what their mothers dream while pregnant. However, I found something really interesting. With my focus on psychology, I try to connect information from this class to psychological theory. I found an article that discusses a new program called "Bringing Home Baby" that Swedish Medical Center is doing for new parents. Their fear is that new parents do not quite understand how their emotions influence their baby. Think of how many parents become depressed and how this might effect children.

Because the baby is so finely tuned to parental emotions, however, these positive effects on the baby are easily disrupted and distorted. For example, even mild parental depression has a major impact on babies’ belief that what they do and feel can have an effect on their world. A depressed, unresponsive parent teaches an infant to also be unresponsive, emotionally withdrawn, and joyless. Conflicted parents ignore even strong signals from the baby, either by becoming withdrawn or by over-stimulating the infant and not correcting what they do in response to how the infant reacts. The end results in most cases is the tragedy of infants who have lost a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, babies who do not explore, and who experience novel events like soap bubbles slowly rising in a room with profound wariness and withdrawal. Research using infant brain-wave patterns show that the infant of a depressed parent rapidly learns to process experiences in the same depressed, withdrawn pattern that her depressed parents have. This is a tragedy in the making.

The WHO (the World Health Organization) has predicted that within the next ten years (or so), depression will have become the second largest health ailment (first is heart disease). Not only will it be a problem in the mental health field but a problem in the entire medical field.  The rest of the article is found at www.kirlinfoundation.org/KFportfolio_bringing_baby_deep.htm

After talking in class today about habituation, I kept thinking about it and came up with a couple of questions I want to throw out there.  Is habituation a sign or indicator of intelligence?  Does habituating quicker show better adaptability and processing skills?

So, the first time I found myself cursing G. Bush's name was when I came across news article in the Olympian on May 9, 2002.  Bush and his administration wanted to reverse a federal discrimination policy, Title IX, which outlaws discrimination based on gender.  He wanted to segregate schools to give parents more options in choosing public school.  "It is one more option we think ought to be made available to parents," said Brian Jones, general counsel for the US Department of Education.  Advocates of this say research supports the ideas that single-sex schools offer benefits for both sexes.  "Many boys do better in a single-sex atmosphere without the extraneous distractions of girls," said Sen. Hutchinson, R-Texas.  Unbelievable!  What about the stinky boys in the back of the class who were always making fart noises and spitting spit wads?  What kind of distractions are they?  Thank goodness for the civil rights' groups who stood up and said, "it certainly is not the best way to prepare boys or girls for the world we all live in."  I see school segregation perpetuating the communication problem between men and women.  In my opinion, the way to improve education is to decrease class sizes and increase parent involvement.  Bush can take the $3 million he's offering to schools who choose to segregate and put it back into existing schools.  Let's see how many more elementary schools (take King Co. for example) we will have to shut down before we figure it out.   

I'm not sure if I am understanding Steven Pinker (from the video in class) correctly when he said that sex reversed cultures were a myth. I'm interpreting 'sex reversed' as gender traits that vary from our culture's 'typical' understanding of male and female. In a previous class I took, we studied other cultures where each sex took on the opposite gender traits. Females took on the stereotypical male side while males fulfilled the stereotypical female role. The culture I'm going to use as an example is a primitive society known as the Tchambuli. Margaret Mead wrote "Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies" where she discusses how when she and her colleagues studied the Tchambuli society, they "found a genuine reversal of the sex attitudes of our own culture, with the woman the dominant, impersonal, managing partner, and the man the less responsible and the emotionally dependant person." Mead attributes all sex characteristics to being socially conditioned. Also, looking at animals, Bonobos, a primate closely related to humans and chimpanzees, also have a very different approach to gender. With females being in charge and sexually aggressive. Many matriarchial societies seem to exist so I don't know how Pinker can say the idea is a myth. There are also Native American cultures such as the Pokot, Navajo, and Mohave tribes that have very different sexes. How did everybody else interpret what he was saying?

I decided to start reading "The Ape and the Sushi Master" before the quarter started because of its captivating title. I have a friend who continually ridicules me for 'humanizing' my animals and this book continually refers to anthropomorphism, which is projecting our complex human emotions onto other animals, some animals who simply don't have the brain power to feel complex emotion. I couldn't help but incorporate my reading into my relationships with my pets even getting offended that the book dare to doubt my pet's (a 4' green iguana) brain capacity. I would never have thought a lizard could have so much personality and attitude. Then again, am I making all of this up because I'm projecting these personality traits onto her? If we so often do this inadvertently with animals, who says we aren't doing it to each other? Aren't we just a sophisticated, cultured animal? I often wonder if I really 'know' who someone is or if I'm making them out to be who I want them to be? Who hasn't dated someone and then looked back and asked, 'what was I thinking' or 's/he turned out to be totally different than I thought'? I'm also curious as to what pets other people have and if they too see their pets as more than just animals? Does each one seem to have different, distinguishing characteristics? My pets include the previously mentioned iguana, a 5 month old golden retriever, and 4 tree frogs. When thinking about my frogs, which even I can admit have limited brain function, I notice each one stands out individually in my mind. When I really think about the distinction between them, my analysis doesn't really go beyond feeding habits. Okay, I will wrap up. I can talk about my pets like other people can talk about their children. See you all tomorrow morning!