BEHAVE OR ELSE! – Kindergarten Paranoia (Pt.2) – DAY 37

In this post we are again diving into the paranoia existent within the pre-school or kindergarten facilities around the world. I am specifically utilizing my own memories and experiences with attending kindergartens as a child as well as my experiences with working in kindergartens as an adult. As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been astounded when looking back, at how much paranoia I actually experienced, even as a small child.

In this post I will specifically be looking at the second point, that I outlined in the previous post. There I also wrote about how I experienced the adults around me in context to fear and paranoia. However in this post I will more specifically look at the fear and paranoia I had towards getting caught doing something ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. There are two memories standing out from which I will take my point of departure.

The first memory is from when I was 4. The children were in the playground and although we were also allowed to go out throughout the day, this was one of the designated ‘out times’ where we had to be out, whether we wanted to or not. I hit a younger girl and she started crying. I remember the malignance in my intent to hit her. I experienced myself as older than her and I was ‘testing’ out my apparent dominance because I was older, based on previously having been younger and being the target of abuse from the older children. However I’d like to mention here that physical abuse was not especially prominent in my kindergarten. Verbal abuse and social exclusion was much more used, which I will get back to when I write about the paranoia of friendships and social relationships in post to come. So I hit her because I wanted to. Because she was younger than me. And she started crying. I was shocked when she started crying and it immediately brought me out of my initial intent because I sort of realized the impact of my action – though not so much in a ‘moral’ sense, but more physically that I didn’t realize that it would hurt her. The experience that I felt when she started crying was an intense paranoia that the adults would find out and I would get in trouble. I remember imagining them coming out from the kindergarten and yelling at me. So I deliberately started making fun to get her to stop crying. I don’t remember what happened next. But the point here was the fear of repercussion which is fascinating because there was no element of me understanding that it is not cool to hit another person. All I understood as ‘consequence’ was that I would be yelled at and I was scared of being yelled at. So what this shows is the incompetence in adults to assist and support children in understanding consequence and in treating others as we would want to be treated. Instead adults use fear, they induce fear and then that is suppose to teach us about consequence. But what happens instead? We start hiding our ‘bad behavior’, we learn to lie and cheat and put up fake faces to prevent ourselves from getting caught. And then later in life, I started feeling guilty for what I had done and I believed that I was evil because I didn’t feel any remorse in that moment. But no one assisted me in understanding why I did what I did or why I didn’t care that I had hurt another being. So there we can basically see a specific dimension of why our societies are fundamentally flawed, especially when it comes to doing things that are unacceptable and that requires correction. Because so far that ‘correction’ point is to induce fear which has the consequence that people simply start hiding and create massive internal conflict because no where is the origin point actually understood or sorted out.

The second memory is from when I was 5 and we were sitting and eating around a table. We had brought food from home and my mother would always give me ‘health’ foods like rye bread with some kind of herb on it. So I was sitting there and my ‘best friend’ was sitting next to me. He had a little container of yoghurt with him. I often was prohibited from eating that sort of food because I had an allergy towards milk and artificial coloring in food. So I remember asking him if he wanted to swap or if I could have some of his yoghurt. He said no and I got angry and I threw some of my herbs onto his yoghurt to punish him because I was jealous that he got to eat yoghurt and I didn’t. He then got upset and refused to eat his yoghurt because there were now these herbs in it. We had a fight and he called the teachers. The teacher got very angry at me and I refused to apologize because basically I was holding onto my point, which obviously wasn’t valid. But what then happened was that I was put outside the door, which was like the ultimate punishment – to be isolated and excluded from being part of the group. Many can probably relate to this experience where the teacher says: “and then you can sit here and think about what you did wrong!” And who ever sit and think about what they did wrong? Probably very few. I certainly didn’t. So again I wasn’t supported or assisted to understand the point, why I had experienced myself the way I did, how jealousy works, how revenge works – or even why I did wasn’t cool. So I basically didn’t’ learn anything. I never put herbs on anyone’s food ever again. But the only reason I didn’t do that was because I didn’t want to ever again experience myself being isolated and excluded from the group.

These two memories stand as examples of how adults will use fear and paranoia to control children and then call that an ‘educational process’. And yes – we learn from it. And yes we then ‘behave’. But when is it ever that we actually learn to understand consequence or compassion or giving to others as we would like to receive? Never. And then we grow up and become rotten school children, rotten teenagers and eventually we become rotten adults who might have a ‘civilized’ exterior but who on the inside is existing in fear and paranoia while battling secret desires and try to constantly contain, deny and suppress the ‘darkness’ inside of ourselves.

At Desteni, we are presenting educational tools that we as adults can apply for ourselves and correct the faulty educational processes we have been exposed to during our time here on earth. This is a lengthy process because the shit we have integrated into us, the nasty schemes, the secrets, the fake smiles have been extensive. And we’ve learned from everyone around us how to ‘behave’ – but we’ve never actually learned to understand or correct ourselves at a fundamental level where the reason why we don’t make the same mistakes is because we understand the consequences and we understand the processes within which we’ve become who we are and we understand that if we would like to be treated a certain way, we must treat others with the same respect, care and dignity. This process shouldn’t be necessary to be walked only when we are adults and the damages are done, relationships have fallen, and consequences have played their course often to the detriment of our own integrity and dignity, not to mention the consequences that have played out in the lives of others. We are doing it obviously because it has to be done – because we require adults in this world that stands as examples of what it means to be self-responsible, self-honesty and dignified who in turn can assist and support children with preventive measures to understand consequences so that they don’t have to grow up and make the same mistakes that we have made and recreate the same faulty society. Kindergarten teachers can’t be expected to teach this to children, exactly as parents can’t. Because no one has ever learned or walking through an actual educational process of understanding the multiple dimensions of our minds, our social relationships or our physical bodies. It is the blind leading the blind into the abyss. Yet at the same time it is clear that what we are currently doing – and here we are talking about the basic fundamental education a child is exposed to in this world – is absolutely unacceptable and unsustainable. Consider the domino effect that is created when a child already from the moment it is born; learn only from fear and threats or sugarcoated manipulation. We can see the consequences of this faulty and flawed introduction to the world and society every day as the world rapidly is unraveling before our eyes.

We require a fundamental change in how we approach education. And it starts at home. It starts in preschools and kindergartens. It starts with parents and teachers educating themselves, not only to understand and prevent the same mistakes from happening but also to develop new solutions and ways of caring for children. For those interested in taking a serious and profound step forward towards a responsible way of educating children, whether you are a parent, a teacher or an adult with an interest to see this world change into something we can be proud of and care for, I suggest investigating the Parenting – Perfecting the Human Race series on Eqafe that in detail explains the processes of learning that a child go through during their first seven years. And I suggest investigating a Guaranteed Basic Income System as an economic and political solution, from where a paradigm change in education will become possible because we change our fundamental living-principles from fear and paranoia to respect and dignity. The paranoia and fear taught in school and at home is a direct reflection of the general principles we as humanity are living by – why else would we teach them to our children? They hold the future in their hands after all.

Until next time.

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Research material and bibliography:

Natural Learning Abilities blog series – a MUST READ!

Day 28: How to Best Raise your Child: Threats, Blackmail and Bullying