Quote:
Originally Posted by onelifecrisis
Er... you're freaking me out a bit. 
Yeah, there are other factors, that goes without saying. What psychological and biological factors dictate the actions of parents? Christ... do you expect me to produce some sort of all-encompassing thesis on human nature? Sorry, but I can't. What's more I don't have kids yet, but I plan to within the next few years and this question is troubling me as well: how do I get that middle ground? Seems to me there's a lot of middle-grounds to try to reach in order to be a good parent and I've not really got the slightest clue how to make sure I don't raise "unbalanced" kids. It might help me if you narrow-down your question a bit. As it stands I feel like I'm being asked the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. To give what answer I can (an expansion of my original answer) it seemed to me that many (not all) of the kids I met were motivated to succeed in order to gain a sense of worth. Seems to me that the sense of worth of an individual - up to a certain (and not exact) age - is primarily based on their perception of what their family (and their parents in particular) think of them. I've got no "proof" of that, it's just my opinion based on nothing in particular. |
Totally understandable. Sorry for creeping you out. It isn't every day I get to ask real academics for their opinions.