Gifts for Children - ATTENTION - 1

We don't just give gifts for Christmas and birthdays. We are more and more inclined, sometimes even love to give the children joy with gifts whenever possible. We love happy children, don't we? There is some very important information on this subject that is extremely important to us parents and grandparents.

The Challenge

In our western civilization, at least, we are so well off that gifts are a valuable way of bringing joy to people, especially children. We can afford it.

Not only do we know that, but also the advertising and sales industries. Anyone who wants to sell something thinks carefully about how and to whom they want to sell a product. Children are of course a welcome customer.

There are still powerful and superior who allow their rule to be expanded. Whoever wants to gain power over others today no longer needs to wage war. He can try offers with seductive gifts. The ones who are most easily seduced in this regard are the children. They have not yet developed weapons against such seducers. Children can easily be made dependent on gifts that meet their needs.

Such seduction is a particularly perfidious one. It endangers our children and even our lives in this world.

What do we offer our children when it comes to preparing them for a positive future? Statistics say that one in ten students needs psychotherapeutic / psychiatric treatment. A quarter suffers from high blood pressure, extreme obesity, diabetes or other physical illnesses, a lack of concentration, anxiety disorders, and a lack of social behavior.

Apparently we as parents fail to strengthen them, all too often we weaken them. We need help.

2 Basic Needs of Children

The Language of the Eyes

Children are so perfectly natural with their eyes that it is easy to tell whether they are happy, sad, hungry, or angry. We adults learned to hide our feelings. In certain cultures one cannot look one another in the eye. It's a taboo there.

So sweet!! Happy children's eyes are so impressive that the bright children's eyes are often used as an advertising motif in sales. When children get the present they long for, their eyes light up. Children not only speak with their gaze, they can also read our expressions very well. Let us look more consciously at the children's eyes and try to understand them better and better.

1. Basic Need

One of the most important - if not the most important basic needs for children - is the close bond with their mother. If children are left alone, they die within. The mother cannot be completely replaced by someone else.

A child can read the longing for connection between adults and children immediately. It will seek and live out this bond.

Through a strong bond, the child develops the ability to love, which it later needs in order to be able to build happy relationships.

2. Basic Need

Another basic need for children is to practice their learning skills. You want to develop, explore, try out and try out new things. You are totally intrinsically motivated (BLOG) and want to get to know the immediate environment first, later the whole world and want to assert yourself in it. This striving for autonomy needs to be supported and protected.

These two elements of life determine their development. You need both every day, even every hour. The more they are positively accompanied in this, the stronger they can become.

Can you imagine that there could be gifts that could change, even destroy, these two basic needs? If children can build a tower until they finally succeed, what other toys are still needed? Can our children still look for what they need to be happy themselves?

A salesperson is far less interested in supporting the child in these needs than in their own financial gain. Toy advertising is interested in HAVING and not BEING. The more we have, the happier we should be, they say.

Our consumer society ensures that we are focused on goods, on owning. But our family shows us that there are other very important areas in which we should invest, namely:

Warmth, care, tenderness, nourishment, affection and appreciation are part of it. Ultimately, it's about love. How can you give these areas as a gift, pass them on in such a way that it arrives on the other side as real love? Unfortunately, many parents fail to do this. They think they love their children. However, despite all possible efforts, they do not get their love tank filled because their basic needs have not been reached.

Children need the most important gift in order to be well prepared for their life. If this does not succeed, they become victims of our postmodernism.

Why We Give Presents to our Children

Giving is part of social life and confirms the bond with one another. Attention and gratitude are important to us, perhaps also a gift in return with which a business is created.

Purpose-built

The way we give a gift often shows whether it is a behavioral reward or a motivation for certain behavior. We often associate giving with an intention. Performance for consideration. "I'm giving you this so ..." shows that there is an intention behind a gift. The child senses that something is wrong. They may not even understand the words, but the facial expressions and key will tell them.

Children like to accept gifts that are particularly attractive. A gift can be attractive because the gift gives it more recognition among its peer group.

Whoever tries hard to be noticed and admired by a child pursues this intention by means of a gift. Many give something to children so that they will love or like them. Is that good for the child? It shows the parental inability to love the child without intent. Unconditional love is often in short supply (BLOG).

Motivation Fear

Gifts to help children learn better obedience are often double-edged. The parents think that the children are better off with it. Gifts are hidden seduction here. Behind this is the fear that the child will not be able to succeed later. That is why such parents pave the way to success for their children with gifts. But will the children really be successful with it? If there weren't any better methods.

Motivation Independence

With praise, gifts and recognition, parents try to become companions on a partnership basis. Parents do not trust their children to sometimes find their way alone. This world must be opened up to children so that they learn to get to know their talents and to experience how they can use them even without adults:

Feeling responsible for animals and people, including things, is an important experience. It develops confidence in self-competence (BLOG). This is shown in the special ability to apologize once if necessary. That would be an educational compliment.

Motivation Money

Children receive gifts from everyone who wants to please them. But also from those who want to influence their lives. It's not about sympathy, but making money with children and thanks to them. It's not about doing good for the children. It's about using the art of seduction optimally so that the cash register is full. Often these child seducers are not recognized. They don't give the gift to the children themselves, but the adults buy their products such as toys and confectionery. This is one of the most perfidious machines of seduction in mankind.

Two Examples

“What tastes sweet is good,” say the children. Sugar usually has a negative impact on the brain. It makes them think they are happy now thanks to dopamine. Candy makers know that. Almost all foods contain sugar. The children like that. Whoever buys these kinds of things makes himself the stooge of such seducers. Often, 'healthy' foods also contain sugar.

Colors in themselves are another attractant. Colorful, shimmering products attract. If movement, tone and shine are connected with this, then the child is at the mercy of it. A smartphone or tablet is hard to beat. The children are immediately enthusiastic. No chance for parents to protect them from such attraction. It is almost impossible to withhold them from them as they are available everywhere. Withholding them makes them even more attractive. A big challenge!

A ball to play with, a cat to stroke and then lots of nature. That is healthy.

Giving is part of social life and confirms the bond with one another. Attention and gratitude are important to us, perhaps also a gift in return with which a business is created. Tit for tat!

Children also learn to give from us. Especially if that is also part of their love language (BLOG), then they can go a long way.

Unfortunately, too many children are heavy confectionery consumers. The Parental Challenge: What Could Be a Good Replacement? Maybe a game or story together?

Colors in themselves are another attractant. Colorful, shimmering products attract. If movement, tone and shine are connected with this, then the child is at the mercy. A smartphone or tablet is hard to beat. The children are immediately enthusiastic. No chance for parents to protect them from such attraction. It is almost impossible to withhold them from them as they are available everywhere. Withholding them makes them even more attractive. A big challenge!

Continuation follows

Thoughts from the book by Gerald Hüther and André Stern “What do we give our children”

Conditional Love - Good or Bad?

As long as we walk in lockstep, everything is fine. What if not ?

All children grow up with conditional love. Her name is:

If you do what I want you will be fine.

"Thank you!" we say when the child does something nice to us. Isn't that conditional love, which shows that I reward good behavior with a thank you or even something sweet?

How does your reward system work? How do you use it and how do you react to reward yourself? It is said that money as a reward usually only has a short effect.

Our everyday learning processes shape us

1. Learning through identification and imitation

• .

• The joy of learning lies here in the person to be imitated
  
  Children see how we act and react and imitate ourselves.

• If we then pay attention to their behavior and reinforce it with our reaction, then we 'reward' or 'punish' their behavior.

• Allow me to call that conditional love. We give the child some kind of love, that is, important attention, because of his good or bad behavior.

What we show the children, they imitate us, whether we like it or not!

2. Trial and error learning

• Example: A child tries to tie his shoes. Not easy. It takes several attempts to succeed.

• The joy of learning lies in achieving goals in terms of skills (ability and knowledge).

• A large area of child learning occurs through this method.

• If the child makes the experiment independently of other people, then it is a neutral form of learning in this context.

• But as soon as we point out the error or the solution, then we enter into a relationship. We try to help when the person seeking help allows. Let's call this conditional love, since an error made our attention necessary.

This form of learning is important and helps the child to gain experience with himself. (Self worth). It is said that this is the most welcome form of adult learning. (Computer__)

3. Learning through insight

• Example: Children build a tower with different blocks. Certain children will notice that it is advantageous for stability if the large blocks are placed below and the smaller blocks above.

• The joy of this cognitive learning lies in the observation.

• The older a child is, the more it can gain insights for itself through developed logic.

• Of course, parents and teachers are happy to help promote this learning behavior. "That's logical!" we use to say.

• If we participate in this learning process in a balanced manner, the child can benefit a lot. If we do it in deficit (e.g. we are nervous, aggressive, disinterested), the child will be irritated because it cannot yet understand us.

The older we get, the more we can learn with this method for our school of life.

4. Learning through conditioning

• Example: "If you finish everything, you will get an ice cream."

• The joy of learning arises here from the attractiveness of the reward.

• There is, for example, classical conditioning, where I use a stimulus to first get the child to do something. That means, I reward them when they show this or that behavior. I will punish you if it is wrong.

• Parents who are particularly willing to bring up live this parenting method. Because this is the easiest way to control the child. They give attention and love wherever they want to take the child. Conditional funding. Conditional expression of parental love.

• ATTENTION: Such rewards should only introduce new behavior, but not dominate the child's behavior. The child must not become dependent on rewards, otherwise they will not actually have included the new behavior in their intrinsic motivation. As soon as the stimulus is no longer there, the 'learned' behavior also disappears. Such children learn to become lazy and demotivated.

Children can get so used to rewards that nothing works without them. This changes your intrinsic motivation into an extrinic one (from the outside), which can have a major impact on your life.

Let's summarize so far:

As soon as we come into contact with a child, a relationship quality that has to do with love becomes apparent. Acceptance or rejection, we find ourselves in this area of tension. In any case, this is how the child perceives it, even if we are not aware of it. Children are very sensitive to this. They perceive love or rejection as such immediately. To be valued is their basic need. You look for mirrored in the love of your mother. In this way they can perceive themselves as an individual who is accepted and loved.

Hugs from daddy and mommy are irreplaceable. Forming a unit together is probably the ultimate experience! This also applies to us adults, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, this happens little enough that many children go hungry. They don't just want to put up with and accept this hunger for love. No. You are doing everything you can to somehow resolve this dilemma. Depending on their child's reaction potential, they try, among other things, with screaming, anger, withdrawal, sadness and aggression. Depending on their age, they try to match the value system of their parents. E.g. performance praise, perfectionism, obedience ...

Getting sick is especially worthwhile. Because then the mother finally has time and is especially nice. This is how the child learns that they must have a handicap in order to be loved. This behavior is also lived as an adult. Dear 'Invalid' and cared for, so 'normal' and left alone.

We are best taken care of when we feel bad. Whoever has achieved this can turn it into a love-win game. Many people fill their empty emotional love tank in this way. This often seems like the best survival strategy.

Much of our behavior is conditional. Our relationship world works like this. If I act naughty, my surroundings punish me. You know that from your professional world. Conditions everywhere. You get your wages when you have performed well.

Because we are out to make a profit - see the blog - this system works so well.

What is GOOD and what is BAD about it?

Nature alone forces conditional love on us, because she has something against it if we jump down from the fifth floor onto the concrete floor. Our life is structured in such a way that we learn to respect natural boundaries. That is vital.

It is important for children to get to know these limits and their characteristics. This will help them learn what is important to your life.

If this learning is encouraged by parents who are really interested in balance and in the upbringing of the child, then there is a good chance that they can also apply good forms of conditional love.

However, if the parents are trapped in their own deficits and thus additionally stressed or booked out through work, so that upbringing becomes a necessary evil, then this will also affect the spontaneous applications of conditioned love. This can mean:

• too strict training (excessive demands on the child)

• too weak promotion (insufficient demand), neglect

• Continuous baiting (constant and excessive rewards) leads to reward addiction. The child only does something for a sugar. Otherwise nothing works. It becomes lazy or lacking in motivation and will need motivation and pressure from others to coercion in life in order to move forward.

• own ambition - usually more practiced in the first child - leaves the child less room to learn and can turn them into a perfectionist.

A sensible penalty system can certainly lead to success. For many children, imbalanced punishment leads to resignation or rebellion. This will put additional strain on their ability to form relationships.

Theological Dimension

If the child grows up within a conditioned love system, then they will understand the love of other people and God's love in this way. Theologically this will be expressed in a work righteousness where someone tries to earn eternal life through their own good works. The dimension of faith righteousness can only be recognized through an understanding of unconditional love. (see blog)

• In a marriage it can show up like this:

• If you love me, then I love you too

• I love you as long as you love me

• I love you as long as I feel like it

• If you keep insulting me, I'll make the wall and just stop listening

• He gave me a big present for my birthday, then I'll give him one too.

• If you do me a favor, I'll do you a favor too

• If you piss me off, I'll piss back

• If you accuse me (and it doesn't have to be meant that way), I'll defend myself immediately

• I will not forgive you for this mistake

• I can only give you as much trust as you deserve

The scope for behavior is visibly limited. Such lived relationships are usually stressful and hardly lead to mature love. This requires the unconditional love component. (see relevant blog).

Summary

We have seen that the conditioned component of love plays an important, even vital role in our lives. Our health depends on it, namely on keeping the laws of life. We have to learn to observe rules and limits, principles and regulations. If these are balanced, sensible, life-affirming, that is for our well-being and for our quality of life.

As soon as the conditions are administered by people who are malicious or neglectful, disinterested and seem over- or under-demanding, then fear tends to be promoted and thus love is diminished or prevented.

So conditional love can be good or bad!

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