CONNECTIONS

The central idea and topic behind my masterpiece has been coming up in nearly everything I do. Because senior year is coming to an end, I have been faced with some of the biggest decisions of my life along with my fellow graduating class mates. Choosing what we want to do with the rest of our lives and what college we will be attending are some of the biggest commitments and decisions we will ever have to face and are the biggest factor in causing so much stress this time of the year, at least for me anyways. When thinking about the rest of my life and what comes next I try to think of what I want to see myself doing. When I feel stressed out and become too overwhelmed I think of things that will make me happy and that I will enjoy because finding the balance between working hard and doing things to keep you happy is the ultimate key to success.

Request for Response

        The first two articles discuss the roles of parents and how they influence their children. Parents are a child's first and potentially most important role model and teacher in life. The very first article, "Raising a Moral Child" by Adam Grant explains the influence of parents and adults have over the development of their child's character and development as a person. It explains studies that have proved that children learn by example and will in some ways learn from watching the adults around them. It also explains how, as a role model, you should parent and which actions you should take in order to be successful in raising your child. A huge factor in teaching kids to become high achievers in the world is to know when and how to praise them accordingly. Researchers suggest that praising effort instead of actual ability is crucial  to help children develop stronger work ethic and become more motivated in general. Praise is found to be much more effective than actual rewards. Rewards may teach the children to only do good things when there is something in it for them, where praise makes the child feel good about what they have done and will make them want to do those good things again. Its also been found that when a child's character is complimented or praised, that child is much more likely to repeat those actions until they become good habits rather than if the adults were to just praise whatever the action had been. When a child's character is praised, it helps them identify with their identities and who they are becoming as people. "When our actions become a reflection of our character, we lean more heavily toward the moral and generous choices. Over time it can become part of us.", this quote from the article explains the process of how praise to a child's character can help shape them as they grow up. Negative feedback is just as crucial in a developing child. How parents and adults respond to bad behavior has varying results as well. Typically there are two moral emotions felt by children after doing something bad; shame and guilt. Shame is not something we want our children to feel, shame being a negative judgement about one's self which can make the child feel worthless. Guilt on the other hand is a negative judgement about an action which can be changed with good behavior. I believe that it's extremely important and necessary for parents and adults to realize the effect that how they handle certain situations can have on their children or any child for that matter. How they choose to react to a specific situation multiple times can really shape the child's character in a positive or negative way.
           I don't think that there are enough people out there who realize how much of an influence they are to the children in their life. Children listen and react to everything they see those around them do. They are sponges absorbing everything that is going around them which is really important to realize and remember, making sure to lead by a good example. Although I have not yet personally raised my own child, I have three younger siblings and have watched my parents do their absolute best in raising all of us and I have seen how important it is to praise your children when it's necessary and how to properly care and be there for your children. I think that ultimately, every parent's real goal is to not only have happy children but to have their kids turn out to be good people; generous and caring people. It's necessary to start leading them towards the right path at a young age in order for them to develop good character.