flow.md

Flow

Parenting

• teenagers whose families had these five characteristics: were significantly more happy, satisfied, and strong in most life situations:

  • Clarity - teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect from them - goals and feedback in the family interaction are unambiguous
  • Centering - children's perception that their parents are interested in what they are doing in the present, in their concrete feelings and experiences
  • Choice - children feel that they have a variety of possibilities from which to choose, including that of breaking parental rules - as long as they are prepared to face the consequences
  • Commitment - the trust that allows the child to feel comfortable enough to set aside the shield of his defenses, and become unselfconsciously involved in whatever he's interested in
  • Challenge - parents' dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities for action to their children

• children who grow up in the family situations that facilitate clarity of goals, feedback, feeling of control, concentration on the task at hand, intrinsic motivation, and challenge, will generally have a better chance to order their lives so as to make flow possible

• children who know what they can and cannot do, who do not have to constantly argue about rules and controls, who are not worried about their parents' expectations for future success always hanging over their heads, are released from many of the attentional demands that more chaotic households generate

• in less well-ordered families a great deal of energy is expended in constant negotiations and strife, and in the children's attempts to protect their fragile selves from being overwhelmed by other people's goals

• tensions of teenage life can be eased if the family provides a sense of Acceptance, Control, and Self-confidence to the adolescent

• a relationship that has these dimensions is one in which people trust one another, and feel totally accepted

• being assured of one's worth in the eyes of one's kin gives a person the strength to take chances

• excessive conformity is usually caused by fear of disapproval

• it is much easier for a person to try developing her potential if she knows that no matter what happens, she has a safe emotional base in the family

• unconditional acceptance is especially important to children

• if the child feels that his parents are unconditionally committed to his welfare, he can then relax and explore the world without fear

• love without strings attached does not mean that relationships should have no standards, no punishment for breaking the rules

• when there is no risk attached to transgressing rules they become meaningless

• children must know that parents expect certain things from them, and that specific consequences will follow if they don't obey

• but they must also recognize that no matter what happens, the parents' concern for them is not in question

• one of the most basic delusions of our time is that home life takes care of itself naturally

• family, like any other joint enterprise, needs constant investments of psychic energy to assure its existence

Friendships

• compared to familial relationships, friendships are much easier to enjoy
• we can choose friends, and usually do so, on the basis of common interests and complementary goals
• we need not change ourselves to be with friends; they reinforce our sense of self instead of trying to transform it
• because a friendship usually involves common goals and common activities, it is 'naturally' enjoyable
• teenagers without strong family ties can become so dependent on their peer group that they will do anything to be accepted by it
• if the young person feels accepted and cared for at home, however, dependence on the group is lessened, and the teenager can learn to be in control of his relationships with peers
• just like with the family, people believe that friendships happen naturally, and if they fail, there's nothing to be done about it
• in adolescence, when so many interests are shared with others and one has great stretches of free time to invest in a relationship, making friends might seem like a spontaneous process
• but later in life friendships rarely happen by chance: one must cultivate them as assiduously as one must cultivate a job or a family

Cheating Chaos

• in each person's life, the chances of only good things happening are extremely slim
• sooner or later everyone will have to confront events that contradict his goals: disappointments, severe illness, financial reversal, and eventually the inevitability of one's death
• each event of this kind is negative feedback that produces disorder in the mind
• each threatens the self and impairs its functioning
• it is for this reason that courage, resilience, perseverance, mature defense, or transformational coping skills are so essential
• without them we would be constantly suffering through the random bombardment of stray psychological meteorites
• on the other hand, if we do develop such positive strategies, most negative events can be at least neutralized, and possibly even used as challenges that will help make the self stronger and more complex
• young children and early teens still depend to a large extend on a supportive social network to buffer them against things that go wrong
• by the time they're seventeen or eighteen, teenagers are generally able to place negative events in perspective, and they are no longer destroyed by things that don't work out as desired
• having been disappointed before, and having survived the disappointment, the older teen knows that a situation is not as bad as it may seem at the moment
• partly it's knowing that other people also have been going through the same problems, and have been able to resolve them
• the knowledge that one's sufferings are shared adds an important perspective to the ego-centrism of youth