From - Wed Sep 25 22:28:28 1996 Path: supra.wbm.ca!jolt.pagesat.net!fsc.fujitsu.com!agate!howland.erols.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.sgi.com!newsfeeder.sdsu.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!newshub.csu.net!usenet From: Kongkeo Saycocie Newsgroups: soc.culture.laos Subject: Dr Pao's Generation Gap (Part 2/2) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 02:17:07 -0700 Organization: Satjadham Lines: 206 Message-ID: <3248F893.75FB@zippy.sonoma.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: xyp3_port6.sonoma.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------10FF425C7A7" X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I) This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------10FF425C7A7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -- Hak phaang, Kongkeo Saycocie http://www.cs.sonoma.edu/~saycocie/sjdnews.html --------------10FF425C7A7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="paogap2.txt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="paogap2.txt" Satjadham presents Generation Gap: Causes and Solutions? (Part 2/2 By: Pao Saykao When we talk about "generation gap," we mean the behaviour, the feeling and the attitude of the parents and the children. For example if you don't like where you are in your home life because of a particular reason, your behaviour, your action will alert those around you that you are unhappy. The result will be an unhappy home life, or at a minimum you will have to live with disagreements, arguments, and unhappiness in one form or another. Then anger and frustration.... In part one, I discussed five contributing factors (lack of extended family network, technology, lack of time, changing value system and) to this problem. In this section, let's look at some of the solutions. But before we go one, I must say that there is no single solution and I do not want any one to think that what are discussed here are the only reasons. However, the three factors discussed below are practical and may be apply by some people with reasonably results as I have experienced from my own application to my own family. 1. The life philosophy of the parents. Each one of us has a different philosophy of life that can play a powerful factor in the rearing of our children. It is a good idea to examine some of our own belief system. For example, what do you believe to be the important factors that influence your life? What would you like your life to stand for? What are the things that you would not be prepare to do? Is money or material wealth important to you? How is your tolerance level about people of another culture, race, religion or behaviour patterns? List six absolutes that govern your thoughts and actions. How do you justify your absolutes? What is your definition of success? How do you rate the times that you live in as far as your opportunity for success is concerned? What do you believe to be the characteristic of the most successful people? If you could choose three people to assist you in your life's adventure, whom would you choose and for what reasons? What is the characteristic of a Lao? What is your view about relationship, marriage, sex, religion and politic? What about discipline, hard work and other moral virtues? As parents, we tend to force our philosophy to our children. Many children simply become a mirror image of us. 2. The parents factors. I was reading "Chicken Soup for the Soul - Book 2" and there was a carton of a small boy yelling out: "If you raisin' me right, HOW COME I GET INTO SO MUCH TROUBLE?". This sums up what I want to say in this part. Have we ever asked "why do we (parents and children) act and behave this way or that way?" Worse still, many of us usually know what is right and what is wrong but we do not heed our own advice. To understand this, let's take a look a look at how our brain works and then move from there. The more we study about our brain, the more we know that our brain works in a predetermined sequential event. In simple term, the thing that makes us do what we do is our feelings -- how we feel about something will determine or affect what we do and how we do it. So how do you feel about Lao values?. What about dying hair, smoking, drinking? When you feel good about a particular thing, you do it. If you do not feel good about it, you reject it or you rebel against it. So the way we felt determined what action we took. In turn, our feelings are created, controlled, determined, or influenced by our attitudes - meaning the perspective from which we view life. How we view a situation will determine how we feel about it, which in turn determines how we will act, accept or reject. But where do we get our attitudes? Our attitude is determined by our belief. The belief that we hold can make something appear to be something different from that what it really is! "Belief" does not require that something be the way we see it to be. It only requires us to believe that it is. Belief does not require something to be true; it only requires us to believe that it's true! That means most of what reality is, to each of us, is based on what we have come to believe - whether it's true or not make no difference as long as we "believe" in it.. But what make us develop all those belief? We believe what we are programmed to believe. When we were three weeks old (after conception) our nervous system begins to develop and taking shape by the end of the fifth week. By the time we were 6 months old in our mother's worm, we have the capacity to detect and register our mother emotion and attitude about the baby. As we grow, our brain begins to develop into a network of nerves and connections. From the day we born, everything we hear, see, smell, taste, touch and think about have created permanent anatomical and electro-chemical change in our brain. Every one we met, every experience, just about everything that go around us have created, reinforced and solidified the permanent change in our brain - whether it is right or wrong, true or false, the end result is what we come to believe. The chain reaction begins. In a logical progression, what we believe determine our attitudes, affects our feelings, directs our behaviour, and determines who we are in life. What we think, what we do and how we behave today is the sum total of what we have learned or been programmed until now. We also know that what ever the child learns or is taught in the first five years of live will be taken as "fact, truth with no reservation". By the age of 5 years, the brain has recorded more than 25,000 hours of learning, covering the basics of the "how to" of life, the rules, the what is and the why's of most things. Approximately one half of a person's ultimate intelligence is also developed by the age of four, with another 30% accruing by the age of eight. By the age of six, our self image, our belief system, our attitudes have been permanently set. As the first 6 years is the foundation of the child life, this would be the period that parents, having the power and the responsibility to shape and guide the thoughts and emotions and values of their children, to instil everything (i.e their philosophy of life as discussed above) that they want their children to be. In my experience of parents, this is the most challenging but fulfilling duty of a parent. 3. The environmental factors The environmental factor during the first 6 years of life is more or less under the control of the parents. This is the most important period and I believe that if the parents spend time and energy to manage during this period, it is more likely that the children will have a smoother transition into the next phase. The second factor is the environment of the society that the parents have little control. But it is my believe that if the first six years of life is being taken care of, the child can cope well during this period if the parents continue to invest enough time with the kids. Many parents make the mistake that as the child is getting to the pre-teenager period, the parents spend less and less time with them. But for many kids, this is the most turbulent time in their life. They have to cope with their quest for an identity, gender changes, relationship, recognition, a sense of belonging and many uncertainties. This is the time that many kids need more time from their parents for guidance, comfort and "just be there" for them. Children need to know that they can count on their parents any time and anywhere. Conclusion. The generation gap is not new but it has become more obvious in recent time. I have tried to identify some of the factors contributing to this problem. In this article, three factors have been discussed. It is argued that to narrow the gap, we may need to look into our personal philosophy of life, our child rearing practices and we need to spend more time and more concentration during the first six years of life. As the child moves into adulthood, he or she will still require more of our time and more of ourselves. As Bettie B. Youngs wrote in "Chicken Soup for the Soul - Book 1", "Good parents...gives their children roots and wings... Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them", this should be our ideal to bring up children into this complex world. Further reading; "Chicken Soup for the Soul" Book 1 & 2. Written & compiled by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen. Health Communications, Inc. Haris, Thomas. "I'm Ok - You're Ok", Pan Books, 1970 Kraehmer, Steffen T. "Time Well Spent - A Father's Advice for Establishing a Lifetime of Closeness with Your Child", Prentice Hall Press, 1990. Rohn, James E. "The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle", Book World, 1994 Timberlake, Lewis. "Born to Win", Tyndale House, 1986 Dr.Lair, Jess. "How to let your kids find their own success" in Og Mandino's University of Success, By Og Mandino, Bantam Books, 1982. Helmstetter, Shad. "What to say when you talk to yourself", Pocket Books, 1982 Rose, Steven. "The making of Memory", Bantam Press, 1992. Danields, Peter, J. "Destiny", Australian Collegiate school of Entrepreneurs, 1989. ******************************************* Dr Pao Saykao 25 Princes St. Flemington,Vic. Australia. 3031 http://www.lexicon.net.au/~drpao/ **** Check out: Experimental LaoScriptWeb Page!!**** --------------10FF425C7A7--