Raising Children Who Think for Themselves by Elisa Medhus - Book Report/Review Example

• Answer 1

Elisa Medhus is a physician who has observed many patients who are facing challenges in raising their children. Parents are confused about the best ways of raising their children. According to Medhus, parents should raise their children as self-directed children. Opinion of Medhus explains that human beings put emphasis on social problems and intuitions more than that of any other internal problems (Medhus, 2001). Elisa Medhus focuses on the differences between the children who are externally directed for making decisions and who are self-directed. Experience of her career is the motivation of writing this book. The main motive of writing this book is to guide parents by providing examples of parenting (Medhus, 2001). Raising children is a vital aspect for parents in order to shape up the minds of their children in a right path. The experiences of many parents become the inspiration of writing the book about raising children in order to address the issues and challenges faced by parents in growing children.

• Answer 2

There are five qualities of self-directed children which are mentioned in the book. They are self-confidence, competence, high moral character, asset within a group and independent. Self-directed children are raised in an environment full of approval and unconditional love. They have the power to access themselves rationally allowing for self-growth (Medhus, 2001). It helps them in gaining high self-confidence. Self-directed children increase their competence by enhancing their skills. Failure does not create negative impact on the minds of these children. The upbringing of these children focuses on attempting new ideas while exploring their capabilities (Medhus, 2001). However, they are independent in nature and have the ability for taking internally derived decision. They use their reasoning power that helps them in resisting external influences while making choices. These children have high moral character and take decisions with their moral principles. Intrinsically motivated children become asset within the group by their self control, discipline and integrity. Among the five characteristics, high moral character is most important which have positive impact on the other characters of them.

• Answer 3

External and internal directed are the influences that are responsible for shaping up the minds of the children. There are many stages such as new born stage, infant stage, pre-school stage, elementary stage etc. External directed influences are the influences that are created by the society people. The parents have effect on their way of upbringing for their children. External directed children have different sets of characteristic from that of internal directed children (Medhus, 2001). Internal directed children become self-directed children. They have more influences on the society rather than external directed children. Parents are responsible for shaping the minds of children. They are responsible for giving priority to the external factors and the internal factors (Medhus, 2001). In the late elementary grades, children used to compare themselves to other children. In this phase of time, their self-esteem can be built or broken which is known as critical crossroad. The significance of critical crossroad is defined as the phase of life of children where they have to make a choice between external direction and self-direction.

• Answer 4

For creating proper family environment while fostering self-directed thinking, parents sometimes eliminate some behaviors which promote external directed influencing. The three behaviors are being conditional with children, modeling behaviors which are externally directed and not having faith of the parents to their own children (Medhus, 2001). Ways of reacting to external influences are most important as it is the blueprint of building sense of the children. The parents should check the suppressive negative feelings, misdirecting feelings which can have negative impact on the minds of their wards. Unconditional love must be favored by parents. Parents must have faith on their children in order to gain confidence of them. Among the three behaviors, parents having no faith in their child are the most damaging behavior which can hamper the thinking capability of a child (Medhus, 2001). Trusting their ward is the most important thing parents have to do. Without trust, proper upbringing is not possible. Children cannot share their feelings to their parents.

• Answer 5

The concept of repression refers to stifling to the creative flair of the children. It also includes denial of chances of experimenting and exploring many situations which are not dangerous. Domination is the characteristic of parents which is exerted by them to their children. Over the decades parents got brainwashed in the perspective of thinking (Medhus, 2001). They believe that the best way to raise their children is to put control over them by using the advantage of having experience. Many parents are dominant over their children which creates a bad impact in the development of minds of the children. Repression and domination are the two areas of having no faith on the children. Dominative parenting is related to the two concepts which are discussed above (Medhus, 2001). These two concepts will not help children to become self-directed children. The two concepts come under the three factors which the parents have to avoid in order raising their children influenced by internal direction.

• Answer 6

The six habits that parents use to tell their children about the way of feeling, thinking and behaving are judgments and evaluation, criticism and nagging, thought indoctrination, reprimand and illogical punishment, rescuing and over controlling. Criticism and nagging are forms of evaluation which provide signal to the children that they are following the wrong path of action (Medhus, 2001). Parents criticize their children for adopting wrong path and guide them in right direction. Evaluation and judgments are based on the experiences of the parents. In many cases, reprimands and illogical punishments happened when children are not listening to the criticism of their parents. Sometimes parents have to exert excess control to their children in order to rescue them from many circumstances (Medhus, 2001). I have been rescued by my parents many times. It is a norm of the society that parents act a protective shield for their children in order to rescue them from many consequences of their bad activities or choices made by them.

• Answer 7

To raise a self-reliance child, parents have to perform many activities and behavior towards their child. Parents should give their children freedom in order to make their own choices in their daily life. It will help the child to think about his own good. Parents should encourage introspection so that the positive quality of self-reliance can create a good effect on the minds of the children (Medhus, 2001). With this effect the child can trust his own judgments and intuitions in various aspects of life. Parents can encourage introspection by sharing their own experiences and self-evaluation towards their children (Medhus, 2001). Encouraging introspection is very much important in nurturing the young minds of the children. Introspection leads to self-reliance child in an enhanced degree. A self-reliance child is more independent, active, keen in learning new things, flexible than other children of same group. Introspection also helps them in acquiring necessary skills which helps them in dealing with extreme situations.

• Answer 11

The concept of empathy and benevolent selfishness are interrelated. The two traits are intertwined traits which are present in the heart and minds of self-directed children. Due to the effect of these two traits, these children are able to rely on their own inner voices and intuition rather than external influences (Medhus, 2001). High sense of empathy in self-directed children results in examination of misfortunes of other person until and unless they have gained a deeper understanding of the circumstances of that person. Empathy helps children in dealing with issues differently and more coherently (Medhus, 2001). Empathy can be developed by many ways such as internal dialogue, through service, role play, without criticizing unfortunate situations, modeling empathy, etc. Empathy triads are the levels of empathy that are assigned by parents to their children in order to develop a deeper understanding of others. Levels of empathy triad include many activities which give a reflection of thinking of other in a particular situation.

• Answer 12

The concept of benevolent selfishness is developed in the minds of children after the development of empathy in the minds of children. Benevolent selfishness is the next level of empathy. If a self-directed child gains a clean understanding of feelings and situations of other person then he will react differently and will handle any situation in a coherent manner (Medhus, 2001). The two concepts of selfishness and benevolent selfishness are different from each other. The understanding of selfishness is conventionally expressed as the concern for own interest. Benevolent selfishness is the motto of following intuition of heart (Medhus, 2001). If heart says wrong then the person should not proceed further into that venture. Both selfishness and benevolent selfishness are necessary for a self-directed child. Selfish acts have also importance on character development. Parents should make them understand about the difference between the acts of selfishness and benevolent selfishness. Actions of benevolent selfishness are higher degree of actions compared to empathy triads.

• Answer 13

Punishment and discipline are interrelated to each other. But there are also many differences between the two concepts of punishment and discipline. Punishment is an attempt of controlling children by the parents on a subjective or personal level. Both punishment and discipline are necessary for nurturing and shaping the characters of children. Parents teach discipline to their children so that their children become a responsible citizen of the country (Medhus, 2001). Disciplines help a person to behave properly and lead life in a systematic way. Punishment comes when the child disobey the rules of discipline. Disciplining a child is referred to an art and science. A disciplined child has the knowledge of controlling anger and impulses in sensitive situations and has the knowledge of appropriate behavior in those circumstances (Medhus, 2001). Many parents think that disciplining a child means scolding and punishing which is not true. Parents must understand the differences between punishment and discipline while disciplining their children properly.

• Conclusion

Elisa Medhus in her book offered a new approach towards parenting which reflects the power of reversing the trend of influences of external direction to the children. It also helps parents to become moral, self-confident, empathetic and independent thinkers. The book is full of real life examples, countless interviews with parents, children and teachers, humorous anecdotes which will help parents in understanding the challenges and issues faced by other parents of different parts of the world. By reading this book, parents will gain an insight of giving priority to internal directed influences to their children which will lead to self-directed children. However, the book identifies five essential qualities of a self-directed child and outlines seven strategies which parents should adopt in nurturing these characteristics within the minds of their children.

• Reference

Medhus, E. (2001). Raising children who think for themselves. New York: Atria Books.