Modeling is the Way children learn best

but you are now talking about how you are as an adult, which is not the same as how you saw life when you were six or seven, as an adult, we try not to make the same mistakes, why, because we saw the examples of our parents like, the modeling, and we learned these examples were not good for what we wanted in life.

I'm not an adult, I'm a teen. Still technically "a kid". Yes, I did have to grow up very young...but in many ways this is how I've always been. I had to raise my brother at eleven years old, when he was six...I couldn't BE like my parents. When I was small I was watching other kids, and my own little brother...and many of them did indeed learn by example, and I didn't see the sense to it then, and I still don't. Looking at other kids nowadays I see a few who don't learn by example, many of them come from very bad families...some of them are now teens like me. I'm not bad-mouthing my own parents, mind you, they did what they could. But if all kids learn only by example, then children raised by murderers would ALL grow up to be murderers...EVERYONE who was beaten as a child and abused by their parents would grow up to be abusers. Now, many DO. But there's also a decent number of those who don't. People, especially children are not all the same, so therefore they don't all learn the same way. I'm just looking at this from every angle I can think of, dearie, I hope you don't see this is me critisizing you, 'cause it isn't. Parents SHOULD take responsibility, but so should the children, though we can't expect them to, being kids. Everybody matures differently and in different ways, after all. Kids younger than me are working in some countries to feed their siblings, sortof becoming surrogate parents...they have no examples to live by. Some things are done out of necessity, as a rule, I still agree that parents should be responsible for their kids' sakes. Just...a small...very small fraction of the responsibility lies elsewhere. My brother learned by example...and now my parents can't fix it. But at the same time, my brother refuses to try to fix himself...and I know he knows he's not right and that he is wrong...but he's just turned thirteen, so U suppose he has the rest of his life to sort it all out. Bottom line, and I know I'm not saying this all right, so I hope you don't give me too much grief: things just aren't so clear cut as that. You're still right overall, so...

sorry, the I is next to the U button on this keyboard.._

all very good examples, thank you so much honey bun.

I certainly like that..

very good example hon, that was a very good thing for you to do to teach your niece good values.

Thank you.

that is what she means but what children understand is if mommy does it it is okay, or not a good person because she does what she told me is wrong, or mommy lied to me, parents don't realize depending upon the age of the child that the do not rationalize like adults do, they are just kids.

your mixing up, sigmund said the first 5 years of a child's life will form their character for life. Modeling was actually made into a theory by Alfred Bandura in the 1960's, the oedipus complex of signmund freud, or the electra complex which is based on sigmund's work, was actually the theory of Carl Jung, his brilliant student and great psychologist himself, neither have anything to do with modeling. I am a therapist and a have a masters in psychology, I studied all of this indepth.javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$cphMainContent$lbStart','') post comment