The Dangers of Embracing Victimhood

This post will explore the prevalent attitude of victimhood and how that affects people's outlook on life. I will also look at how this affects the emotional health of children. 

What is a victim? 

Webster defines a victim as someone killed in a religious rite; someone that dies from a disease or accident; or a person cheated, fooled, or injured. For our purposes here, I want to go with the politically correct definition. A victim represents a person that is not in control of his circumstances. Outside forces dictate the entirety of this person's existence. I included the Webster definition of a victim to show that progressives often play with the meaning of words. They very often water down the criteria for something such as victimhood to make it apply in a situation where it really does not. In doing so, they make all victimhood less relevant. What do I mean by this? We would all agree that a person that is murdered or injured deserves the title of victim. However, by using the word victim to describe someone that is merely suffering from their own bad choices because of the color of their skin or station in life, progressives give the impression that these people are victims of some amorphous societal evil. What does this do to the people that fall prey to these word plays. They develop a victim mentality. 

What is victim mentality?

A victim mentality involves believing that you have no control over your circumstances. You believe that the structure of society will never let you succeed no matter how hard you try. It is a defeatist attitude and greatly stifles a person's gumption and creativity. If you truly believe that hard word has no benefits, then you do not have a problem letting someone else take care of you. This attitude makes you believe the world owes you everything because the great amorphous society at large has caused you not to succeed. Your own lack of ambition does not matter. Everyone deserves an equal outcome.  

 How does victim mentality affect a person's life?

As I stated before a victim mentality negates ambition. Is ambition a good thing or a bad thing? Like so many other areas of life, ambition needs to be balanced with other character traits.  Too much ambition makes people greedy. Too little ambition makes people lazy. No ambition makes people useless. If a person truly believes that no amount of hard word will benefit them, why would any person put forth any effort? Whether we admit it or not, all people have a tendency to laziness. It comes naturally. Therefore, most of us will do just as much work as we deem necessary for survival. Those with a strong work ethic learned early in life that hard work pays off and makes survival more likely. What happens to people that do not learn this lesson early in life? They either learn it or they expect someone else to take care of them. Those that fall prey to a victim mentality fall into the latter category. However, this arrangement hardly ever leads to bounty. Most of the time, this arrangement leads to want and poverty. When able-bodied people expect other people to take care of them, those that have to do the work resent it. No one wants to work hard just to have someone else gain all the benefits unless those that do constitute that person's loved ones. We will work hard to provide for those that we love. If we have to work hard just to see it go to someone else while our loved ones suffer want, that breeds anger. Want to divide a nation? Making people work hard to provide for able-bodied people to sit on their butts and do nothing will soon cause either a civil war or a cessation of work. The hard workers will simply quit trying and only do what is absolutely necessary. This explains the failure of socialism more completely than any other explanation. When the hard workers quit, everyone suffers and falls into poverty. As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." 

It also stands that killing a strong work ethic leads to depression and despair. Living a life of purpose requires work. All the vacations and good times in the world soon wax cold when not balanced with a hard day's work. Something in a our DNA needs to accomplish tasks. It is the hard day's work that make the vacations sweeter. Like ambition, leisure needs to be balanced with work. Too little work in a person's life takes away a person's well-being. Therefore, a victim mentality robs a person of purpose and brings destruction to those that fall prey to it.  

 What does a victim mentality do to children's emotional health?

Now let us take this into the early childhood world. What does it do to children's emotional health to instill a victim mentality into them? Is it necessary to instill a strong work ethic into the young? This should be a no-brainer. Children that believe the world owes them everything constitute the most spoiled people on the planet. It used to be common knowledge that when a child works for what they have, they appreciate it more. How did our world become so upside down? It is long since time that early childhood professionals begin to understand the underlying agendas that make this world go round. Pushing a victim mentality makes a population more susceptible to embracing the tenets of socialism. If you do not think this is happening in our country, please open your eyes. When children are trained from a young age to think of themselves as victims, they can be easily brainwashed to think that socialism will bring utopia. Socialism never brings anything but dystopia. My generation knew that. The subsequent generations have been slowly brainwashed to believe that socialism is not so bad. Hard work matters greatly. One of the most important lessons you can teach the children in your care involves a solid work ethic. People that understand hard work will not fall prey to a victim mentality even if bad things happen to them. They pull themselves up by the bootstraps and do what is necessary to survive. A victim mentality sets children up for failure, poverty, and want. 

 Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to touch on how VERY dangerous it is for children of color to be trained to be victims. In a nutshell, that is the new Jim Crow laws. When children of color are led to believe that no amount of hard work will pay off, you kill their work ethic. Basically, you are destroying all chance that these children will grow up to be creators and entrepreneurs. We do not want any population of people to be dependent on others for their sustenance. If you have ever been in that situation, you know that it is akin the slavery. It traps people in circumstances that are not necessarily good for them. That, people, is the definition of racism. 

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 

https://linktr.ee/natawade

The Dangers of Being Gullible and Naive

This post will discuss the dangers of being gullible and naive as it pertains to philosophies and agendas. This post is meant for Christian educators and parents.

Definition of Gullible and Naive
Webster defines gullible as being easily deceived or duped. The Urban Dictionary defines naive as "unsophisticated, susceptible to influence, trusting unsubstantiated sources at times. Generally speaking, to be naive means you do not think enough. People who are "naive" tend to believe in whatever they are told, without questioning whether it is right or wrong." I believe the Bible would define both of these words in the following verse from Collosians:  See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy or empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ (NASB). I like that the Bible uses the word "captive" because it denotes the agendas of men. Most of the narratives of our modern era are meant to take people captive and give other people power. When you begin to understand that, you begin to see through the deception.

Our World of Agendas
Everyone has an agenda. The sooner you learn that the wiser you will be. Most people believe that scientific research comes without any bias and can be taken as gospel. Most people follow this research without once stepping back and looking to see if the researchers had an agenda. Some agendas are obvious. When a research project has been funded by a certain entity or corporation the agenda is not hard to discern. However, most researchers have an agenda of some sort. They go into the research project looking for a certain outcome. No matter how careful these researchers try to be, this will skew the results in the direction of their preconceived notions. Other agendas can be deeply hidden and come from sources outside the researchers themselves. These biases and agendas come from the underlying knowledge base. In any study, scientists build their hypotheses on what is called "given" information. This is supposed to represent knowledge that has been proven over time, but this does not make it infallible. We have all witnessed knowledge that has turned out to be completely wrong based on new information. What if the debunked information is never purged from the knowledge base? That happens much more than you think. Sometimes knowledge is protected for purely political or philosophical reasons without truly having any basis in reality. This skews the research before it even starts. 

How Can You Detect Agendas?
I will go back to my statement that everyone has an agenda. You must look at information and especially information with the title "the latest research" with suspicion right off the bat. Does it have an obvious bias? If so, chunk it immediately. The next place you look with suspicion is the authors of the information. Do they have an agenda? If so, chunk it immediately. Once you have chunked the obvious biased information, it becomes a little more tricky. Now you are reaching the deep underlying biases and agendas. Here you need a good working knowledge of the Word of God. Our Father, as the Creator of this universe, just might know a thing or two about how this world works. If the new information contradicts the Word of God, chunk it. I will also say that if the new information makes you feel uneasy and uncomfortable, many times this is the Holy Spirit trying to warn you. I can remember being deeply disturbed in school when certain subjects would come up. I did not know it then, but those topics came with deep relativistic agendas. My tender heart picked up on the falseness without realizing why. Now as an adult, I understand why those topics disturbed me. They were not built on the right foundation. Trust your instincts and learn to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Will This Not Make Me Cynical?
If you read the Word of God, you will actually realize that God wants you to be cynical of worldly knowledge. We are supposed to look at the knowledge of man with skepticism. Modern man has lost that entirely. We look at God with skepticism and trust everything that science teaches us. However, true science that simply describes the wonders of God's creation will never contradict the Bible. If science contradicts the Bible, you have man's wisdom and not God's wisdom. As children of God we must relearn the fact that all the depths of knowledge and wisdom are hidden in Him. He made us. He knows the reality of the situation. We must learn to trust Him.

Conclusion
Now let us take this into the early childhood realm. I will tell you outright that most if not all of what you have been taught as early childhood professionals either outright contradicts the Word of God or partially contradicts the Word of God. The theorists that make up the foundation of early childhood study were all relativists. They did not believe in God and they did not build their knowledge on the Word of God. That should disqualify most if not all of their knowledge for Christian educators. However, you have been taught to compartmentalize your religious beliefs and your education whether you realize that or not. God NEVER intended for you to do that. To divorce His knowledge and His wisdom from your base of study is to be the victim of agendas. Worldly people are forcing you to do the opposite of what should be done to make this world a place without God. They will never succeed in that, but they can do irreparable damage to you and the children in your care. Do not be gullible and naive.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Science

This post will look at the area of learning - Science with the components - Sensory Awareness, Observation, and Exploration and Sequencing and Time . Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the component  - Sensory Awareness, Observation, and Exploration. The learning expectation for this one is:  Begins to build knowledge of the world through observation of surroundings. The performance indicator for this one is:  Explores ways to do things and demonstrates beginning understanding of concepts of color, shape size, matching, and weight.  One word in that performance indicator makes this one unrealistic and that word is explore. To be brutally honest, I do not see much exploring unless that child is raised on a farm or is homeschooled. Those children usually spend a great deal of time outdoors unless they live in urban areas in the case of the homeschooled. Children in institutionalized care have nearly had their curiosity helicoptered out of them. I know I have harped on the regulations before, but they really are damaging our children. Truly, if I am honest, I will admit that children need to stay home with their mother. It is by far the best environment for children and we should as a society be pushing that instead of careers for mothers. Motherhood is a career, people. It is one of the most important jobs a woman can have in my opinion. Children of stay-at-home mothers do all the things that seem to be disappearing from the children of our society. They explore and discover sometimes much to the horror of their mother. However, they have the richest childhood. Do you want to make childhood magical for your child? Stay home with them until they go to school. Do you want to extend the magic? Homeschool. Rant over.

Next we will move on to the component - Sequencing and Time. The first learning expectation for this one is:  Begins to understand consequences when re-creating events. The first performance indicator for this one is:  Calls for adult to help settle a fight over a toy. For once we have a universal performance indicator that most children even developmentally delayed children conquer. Going to an adult to referee can be seen in children even younger than two sometimes. Extremely smart eighteen month olds can employ this strategy. If a two and a half year old does not go to an adult to referee, caregivers can take that as a sign of a severe developmental delay. The only children in my care that did not conquer this performance indicator had severe autism.

The second performance indicator is:  Insists on putting on mittens before putting on coat. This one made me chuckle. This has to be one of the most frustrating aspects of two year old world. It is also one of the performance indicators that seem to be universally conquered. Children at this age spread their wings of independence and seem to want to do everything backwards from what seems logical. As long as it does not really matter, leave this one alone. It is a developmentally appropriate milestone. However, you can begin to explain to them why it is backwards. They may not change but you will be planting the first seeds of logical thinking. Never underestimate the power of planting seeds!

Now we will move on to the learning expectation:  Demonstrates some understanding of when things happen in relation to routines. The first performance indicator is:  Imitates simple block structures and single-line crayon strokes. Unless the child is used to teacher directed activities expecting a child in today's society to pay attention enough to imitate might be expecting a little much. Those children that are used to this type of activity will conquer this one without much issue. However, do not expect them to do it the first time you try if they are not used to this type of activity. It may take several exposures for them to understand what you are expecting from them. Doing this type of activity with a mixed-age group that includes older children will actually deliver the best result.

Finally, the second performance indicator is:  Chooses new shoes to wear when getting ready for a special occasion.  Most children like new things. This holds true for normally developing children as well as developmentally delayed children at this age. Although, severely delayed or severely autistic children might not conquer this one until they are a little bit older.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
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