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Summary
Kids can achieve to
almost any level they desire, especially in our time in history.
The opportunities are exciting. We have the highest standard
of living the world has ever seen. For the first time in the
history of mankind, we don’t have to work twelve hours
a day just to put food on the table; in fact, we have twice
as much leisure time as we do working time. We have mobility,
health, the longest life spans, and every opportunity to achieve
to any level or direction of success we choose. The possibilities
are endless. Why is it then that so often so many children
barely reach beyond the basics? They don’t even know
how to achieve their daily needs, let alone how to be happy?
Why are some people so successful and others not?
These questions haunt
parents today and yet, for thousands of years, all over the
world, parents have been raising millions of happy, decent
children. The mere fact that we’ve come as far out of
the caves as we have and into the skyscrapers is an indication
that the process has been successful. But for some reason,
recently, people have lost their direction and the ability
to play the game of life successfully. Acquiring the ability
to play the game isn’t as clear as it has been in the
past. Raising kids in the past could very well have been easier,
and not because the lifestyle was simpler. People do long for
the good old days but most couldn’t survive because they
couldn’t get along without Kleenex or air conditioning.
The past was not simpler, it was just different. Around the
1900’s over ninety percent of the population lived on
farms, now over ninety percent live in the cities.
The modern city dweller
has almost forgotten his dependence on agricultural cycles.
We give most of our attention to irregular business cycles
which affects our scale of living much more than the cycles
of the seasons which govern agriculture.
Being closer to an
agrarian lifestyle teaches us more directly the way life is
supposed to operate. It taught responsibility, such as to livestock,
and accountability, such as to planting and harvesting. There
is little room for debate on how farm life works. If you plant
you will reap – if you don’t, you won’t.
These are the only options for the farmer; it’s a law
of success.
Although EasyChild
is a system designed to encourage children
to take control of their lives, there have been educators,
psychologists, and therapists who are unwilling to adopt these
theories on
raising kids, fearing EasyChild could take away a child’s
freedom. They are unwilling to give up beliefs in autonomy,
freedom to choose, to deliberate, to decide, freedom to act,
to be given credit for what they have done, the importance
of feelings, and that their behavior and accomplishments are
somewhat their own and come from their own inner motivation
to achieve (Skinner, 1971, p.96).
Skinner calls this
kind of thinking Prescientific. He terms his ideas Scientific
because they are based on an unemotional look at human behavior
(Skinner, 1971, p.10). He purports the idea that our behavior
is “determined by the genetic pool and by our environmental
conditioning” (Skinner, 1971, p.19). Our behaviors are
reinforced, or not, for the good of the whole, not for the
good of the individual (Skinner, 1971, p.123). I know these
are not easy ideas to adopt in a world that uses a system of “Permissiveness” for
raising kids. A system that begs for less structure not more.
But “Permissiveness is not a policy, it is the abandonment
of policy, and its apparent advantages are illusory” (Skinner,
1971, p.73). To refuse to control is to leave control, not
to the person himself, but to other parts of the social and
non social environments (Skinner, 1971, p.79).
EasyChild creates
the structure for parents to raise their kids in a peaceful
family setting. EasyChild creates for children a way to regain
their control and dignity, and a tool for their parents to
regain control of the castle. It is a system based on research
and common sense.
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