“I wanna be like you, eat all my food and grow as tall as you are”

I was listening to one of my favorite country music songs by Rodney Atkins called “Watching you”. In this song his little boy wants to grow up to be like his father. He does everything that his dad does. In the song Rodney portrays a scene of him slamming the breaks in the car to avoid running a stoplight, the little boy in the back seat mutters a “four letter word that started with s”.  He wears the same camo pants and cowboy boots that his father has.  He prays just like he has seen his father done numerous times. The little boy watches his father through observational learning.  He learns his actions, how to react to certain situations and how to be a man when he grows up. Observational learning is so important for young children as they grow up. It shows them how their family expects them to act.  I’ve learned a lot through observational learning. I have learned what is okay and not okay according to my parent’s values and the way that they act. This song also portrays certain expectancy values in which the little boy will have while growing up. It pushes him to form a relationship with God, to be like his father to make good decisions and to how to treat women.  Expectancy values are important to growing children, to motive them and to push them in the right direction. But its also important that expectancy values aren’t too strict.  If a child feels they have too much pressure on them it could be detrimental to their future.

Judgment goals vs Development goals

Why is she so fat? Why aren’t I as pretty as her? You know?! I’m prettier and skinnier than her and she is going into a field that makes no money, he’s an idiot and he is probably now dating a slut! I’ve heard these judgments all day long and I feel so bad that I haven’t said anything to try and pick people up. Playing on a girl’s softball team we know pretty much everything about each others lives. A girl on the team is experiencing a breakup where the boy left her for another girl at his college. Instead of trying to talk to her (now ex) boyfriend she sits there completely bashing this girl that he knows nothing about. Calling her all kinds of names and judging her, but she knows nothing about her. Maybe she is a nice girl, who just got caught in the wrong situation at the wrong time. Girls compare each other to other girls all the time. Instead of so many judgmental goals I think people should focus on developmental goals. If girls wanted to compare themselves to others, they should make a change to improve themselves in the process. If I were to call a girl skinny, then I should be trying to improve myself by working out or trying to get into better shape. If a girl were smarter than you, try to improve yourself by reading more books or to challenge your mind and expand your horizons more.  Think about how improved the world would be if judgment wasn’t the key focus, but developing yourself into a better person was.

What could have been..

After looking at culture and how receptive someone can be to culture I asked myself the question... I wonder at what point in someones life do they pick up the most culture? Thinking, I realized when you are young and start to learn about the culture around you that is when it will shape you the most. It made me think of a funny story that my parents used to tell me when I got older. Although I grew up in a traditional english speaking home, both of my parents worked and I had a babysitter that was traditionally Spanish. When I was younger I spent a lot of time with my babysitter, so naturally I began speaking Spanish. My mother noticed this quickly and wanted to put a stop to it as fast as she could because she didn't want me having Spanish as my primary language. She nicely asked my babysitter to stop speaking Spanish around me, that way I could learn English. My babysitter thought it was cool and important that I had the ability to learn Spanish and English at such a young age and continued to speak Spanish to me a little. I would go to parks with other babysitters that were hispanic, who's children were primarily speaking Spanish. I could respond in full sentences in Spanish but struggled with English. My parents would come home late, so I'd only have a little bit of actual English influence in my life. Later, after my mother and father both noticed more Spanish in my life my babysitter unfortunately got fired. But, looking back on it I can see why my parents were so concerned about me being so immersed in a Spanish culture. I had to learn my own culture before learning another.