The myth of motherhood as martyrdom has been bred into women, and behavioral scientists have helped embellish the myth with their ...ideas of correct "feminine" behavior. If women understand that they do not have to ignore their own needs and desires when they become mothers, that to be self-interested is not to be selfish, it will help them to avoid the trap of overattachment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose th...at they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can't tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not stressful circumstances, as such, that do harm to children. Rather, it is the quality of their interpersonal relationshi...ps and their transactions with the wider social and material environment that lead to behavioral, emotional, and physical health problems. If stress matters, it is in terms of how it influences the relationships that are important to the child.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Society's double behavioral standard for women and for men is, in fact, a more effective deterrent than economic discrimination be...cause it is more insidious, less tangible. Economic disadvantages involve ascertainable amounts, but the very nature of societal value judgments makes them harder to define, their effects harder to relate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I take it that computational processes are both symbolic and formal. They are symbolic because they are defined over representatio...ns, and they are formal because they apply to representations, in virtue of (roughly) the syntax of the representations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... in doing our psychology, we want to attribute mental states fully opaquely because it's the fully opaque reading which tells u...s what the agent has in mind, and it's what the agent has in mind that causes his behavior.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In order to feel good about himself, a child must be successful in his own eyes, not just in your eyes. Self-esteem is an inner fe...eling: Sometimes it corresponds with outer reality, and sometimes it doesn't.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A new world of complex relationships and feelings opens up when the peer group takes its place alongside the family as the emotion...al focus of the child's life. Early peer relationships contribute significantly to the child's ability to participate in a group (and in that sense, society), deal with competition and disappointment, enjoy the intimacy of friendships, and intuitively understand social relationships as they play out at school, in the neighborhood, and later in the workplace and adult family.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To be motivated to sit at home and study, instead of going out and playing, children need a sense of themselves over time--they ne...ed to be able to picture themselves in the future.... If they can't, then they're simply reacting to daily events, responding to the needs of the moment--for pleasure, for affiliation, for acceptance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If the child knows the rewards and punishments in advance and knows that his parents will stick to them, the parents can actually ...empathize with the child's plight while, at the same time, creating a firm sense of structure.... Your child will sense your resolve and your empathywhether you do this with words or just a sense of warmth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »