VIOLENCE: HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE TO THE ADDED VIOLENCE?

The following excerpt is from the self help
psychology book, Be Your Own Therapist.

"How do I contribute?" is a question that each of us must answer. For we are the ones who are creating, tolerating and contributing to the violence we see around us. It is not just "out there" where the problems are. For if there are specific people most to blame, we are they. The essential causes of the increased widespread violence we see in this society seem to me to be threefold:

(1)One important cause of the added violence is a recently popular parenting strategy that avoids authoritarian/ supervisory messages. This avoidance often causes children to fear genuine authority or be insensitive to others. Children receiving this parenting often lack respect for others' rights and are sensitive only to their own wants (see previous chapter). This leads to gangs to compensate for loss of family unity and is fertile ground for violence, for the "only important thing is what I want."

(2)A recently popular parenting strategy sets up children for violence by teaching them unhappiness (see next section).

(3)Recently popular values and unhappy spiritual beliefs being taught to children by both parents and society help multiply the violence (more later in this chapter).

So-called spiritual values that consider humans to be essentially evil or flawed still contribute heavily to our problems with violence.

Our society has always been violent. It was partly in response to this longstanding violence that newer parenting strategies developed. It does seem that there are great potentials for these new parenting strategies, once the problems are ironed out. We may need to refine these strategies by reclaiming parts of the old ways (see Traumatizing Children in previous chapter).

Next Excerpt  

Our emotional responses are caused by our thinking about the situation, not the situation itself. Most of us erroneously believe otherwise.

More Excerpts This Chapter
   VIOLENCE: HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE TO THE ADDED VIOLENCE?
   TEACHING OUR CHILDREN TO BE UNHAPPY
   OUR VALUES & SPIRITUAL BELIEFS HELP CAUSE THE VIOLENCE
   THE NUMBING PROCESS
   HOW DO WE CONTRIBUTE TO THE HOMELESS PROBLEM?
   VERBAL BASHING CAN LEAD TO VIOLENCE
   OPPORTUNITIES TO CHANGE THE VIOLENCE
   HOW INGRAINED IS THE VIOLENCE?

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Psychology of Sex Education - Psychological Sexual Health Care
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