As a result of the experience of consistent parental love and caring throughout childhood, such fortunate children will enter adulthood not only with a deep internal sense of their own value bur also with a deep internal sense of security. All children are terrified of abandonment, and with good reason. This fear of abandonment begins around the age of six months, as soon as the child is able to perceive itself to be an individual, separate from its parents. For with this perception of itself as an individual comes the realization that as an individual it is quite helpless, totally dependent and totally at the mercy of its parents for all forms of sustenance and means of survival. To the child, abandonment by its parents is the equivalent of death. Most parents, even when they are otherwise relatively ignorant or callous, are instinctively sensitive to their children’s fear of abandonment and will therefore day in and day out, hundreds and thousands of times, offer; their children needed reassurance: “You know Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to leave you behind”; “Of course Mommy and Daddy will come back to get you”; “Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to forget about you.” If these words are matched by deeds, month in and month out, year in and year out, by the time of adolescence the child will have lost the fear of abandonment and in its stead will have a deep inner feeling that the world is a safe place in which to be and protection will be there when it is needed. With this internal sense of the consistent safety of the world, such a child is free to delay gratification of one kind or another, secure in the knowledge that the opportunity for gratification, like home and parents, is always there, available when needed. But many are not so fortunate. A substantial number of children actually are abandoned by their parents during childhood, by death, by desertion, by sheer negligence, or, as in the case of the financial analyst, by a simple lack of caring. Others, while not abandoned in fact, fail to receive from their parents the reassurance that they will not be abandoned. There are some parents, for instance, with their desire to enforce discipline as easily and quickly as possible, will actually use the threat of abandonment, overtly or subtly, to achieve this end. The message they give to their children is: “If you don’t do exactly what I want you to do I won’t love you anymore, and you can figure out for yourself what that might mean.” It means, of course, abandonment and death. These parents sacrifice love in their need for control and domination over their children, and their reward is children who are excessively fearful of the future. So it is that these children, abandoned either psychologically or in actuality, enter adulthood lacking any deep sense that the world is a safe and protective place. To the contrary, they perceive the world as dangerous and frightening, and they are not about to forsake any gratification or security in the present for the promise of greater gratification or security in the future, since for them the future seems dubious indeed.
If these words are matched by deeds! Has it occurred to you that your parent had said the same thing or threw out at least the similar threat to get control and domination of you?
"Do exactly as I say or you will be decerted ! "The wrong way chinese parents traditionally do.
To the contrary, we should treat our children by kind words, patience, nice attitude, equal respect, and most importantly, love.
One single motion, one ounce of pressure from a fingertip,
You didn't take your time to figure out those you could have been able to do, but thought you could not.
I guess an ounce of pressure is really effortless. You can imagine how easy the task is but more often than not, you would think you could not.
This inclination to ignore problems is once again a simple manifestation of an unwillingness to delay gratification. Confronting problems is, as I have said, painful. To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suffer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in the hope that future suffering will not be necessary
The reason why we delay, procrastinate, and keep unchanged.
Reading , like all other tough tasks, is not avoidable.
“No. It’s a stick-shift car, and I don’t know how to drive a stick-shift car, only an automatic.”
Yeah, a stick-shift car, not a automatic car.
What she found out in the course of therapy was that she was an unusually intelligent and ambitious person and that she was ill at ease with the other sergeants’ wives, as well as with her husband, because she was considerably more intelligent and ambitious than they.
She didn't feel comfortable. She was ill at ease.
brush off their children
Brushing sb. off means to dump, ignore someone.
no problem can be solved until an individual assumes the responsibility for solving it.
Assuming the responsibility means to take them.
and have become dead weight for society.
Dead weight means a person or thing that makes it difficult for sth to succeed or change.
“sense of impotence”
powerless , 无力感
Sooner or later, if they are to be healed, they must learn that the entirety of one’s adult life is a series of personal choices,
The entirety of one's adult life is a series of personal choices. Who would deny that.
The more honest one is, the easier it is to continue being honest, just as the more lies one has told, the more necessary it is to lie again.
True.
negotiate a turn in the road.
Negotiate means to successfully get over or past a difficult part on a path or route
Yet the exact opposite is the reality. It is in the giving up of self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid, durable joy of life. And it is death that provides life with all its meaning. This “secret” is the central wisdom of religion.
This makes me think of "Tuesdays with Morrie" it is death that provides life with all its meaning. When we figure out what kind of person we want to become in the end of life, our life could then be meaningful.