As infants develop into children their accomplishments are endless. Most kids gain confidence and see the good in everyday occurrences. This innocence is the magic of life that contributes to the rate of their advancement. In the process of growing into an adolescent, many of these positive attributes are stripped away when the child is prepared for adulthood. Sustaining this previous happiness is sometimes difficult to achieve in the mature phases of life. Is this removal of childhood happiness a normal side effect of adulthood?

Parents

Each parent assumes an individual role in raising a child. These roles are non-gender specific. Young children have a natural proclivity to cling to a sympathetic parent while avoiding the more abrupt parent. Whenever children are frightened, the affectionate parent is the one they flee to, a maternal instinct instilled at birth.

Children can get frustrated in situations they don’t understand. This frustration dissipates as the lesson is learned while boosting self-confidence. If a child fails to recognize the answer to a problem, the information is stored in his memory and is available when the problem resurfaces. Information absorption rates vary according to maturity levels.

There are many primary lessons necessary for a child’s successful development. These lessons include the importance of other people’s feelings and a job well done. An inexperienced child may alienate themselves from peers due to inappropriate behavior. This condition can be alleviated by observation and explanation from a parent. Once the problem has been identified learning can begin. This practice is especially important for sibling relationships.

Parents’ influence over their children is unique. Throughout the development stages, particular situations transpire that lend themselves to an accelerated learning experience. These occurrences include such things as the first time a child dresses them self. Once children drop a soiled article of clothing on the floor, instruct them instead to place it into the hamper. This first time condition embeds a normal action. These instances occur many times throughout the adolescent stages. Examples include organizing school subjects, allocating homework time, and doing chores. Parents are responsible for instructing their children how to think and feel in these particular situations. This behavioral education is instrumental in developing organizational skills.

Many stages of child rearing are very rewarding for parents, while other aspects are less desirable, such as controlling anger. When raising a child, mishaps are inevitable. These unintentional accidents are the result of a normal education process that is out of the child’s control.

The fear aspect of anger is a typical parent-reaction phenomenon that occurs when a child is in immediate danger of injuring themselves or someone else. In this instance, the anger emotion is necessary (within reason) while displaying concern that could possibly thwart a potentially dangerous situation. Directly following this event, communication between the parent and child must transpire to explain the danger while conveying concern and love. This will defuse any negative feelings between the child and parent.

Parental anger is most effective in small doses and should be used (within reason) when extreme conditions exist. Excessive anger from a parent throughout a childhood creates apprehension while damaging the child’s self-esteem. Once this relationship is damaged, children lose their safe zone and will experience fear, perhaps for the first time.

When accidents occur a parent should happily assist the child to repair or clean up whatever disorder that has transpired. The child learns that no matter what happens in life, it can be fixed, most of the time. This will give the child confidence to try something new, spontaneously and without guidance.

Negative situations are a necessary factor of life that can be an opportunity for a parent and child to grow. Many personality deficiencies in children are caused by parents who fail to recognize their own shortcomings.

When it comes to determining actions for a child of a medical or academic nature, parents have a natural intuition. Once information is compiled from field professionals, the parents (alone) should make their own decision.

It can be advantageous for a parent to reward the child when warranted with material items. This practice should be used with caution to avoid an emotional downfall when these material pacifications fail to continue.

Poor academic performance can create parental disappointment toward a child. This form of anger is based on the parents having a fear of the child possibly becoming a burden on society while jeopardizing the child’s happiness and their own. This anger is used as a tool to shock the child into performing better, which is sometimes unsuccessful. Alternatively, this emotional jolt forces children to become unresponsive as they construct a mental defense mechanism designed to help reverse negative feelings created by the attacks.

For a child, parents are like a pair of helping hands located below them (just out of sight), observing their baby bird learning to fly. These helping hands assist only when needed, representing unconditionally love.

Teenagers

As the childhood phase of life comes to a close, a sometimes difficult transition occurs. A once-sweet child can morph into an unruly teenager practically overnight. A parent will start to hear things like, “Going over to my friends to hang out” instead of “Mommy, can I go over to my friend’s house and play?” As the process continues, parents become familiar with the terms “Later” and “See ya” followed by the door closing.

When children approach the teenage stage of life, a new-found energy is discovered. This energy is the result of a freedom factor produced by the onset of adulthood. This energy causes teens to stay awake longer and sleep in later than they did previously. Teenagers also seem to run forever without the sleep they needed throughout their childhood. This is because the teen is using accumulated sleep credits while childhood sleep time restrictions were in place. Teenagers spend these credits, which can last weeks, or even months.

Unfortunately, a certain amount of sleep is instrumental for the ability to make correct decisions and maintain normal behavior. Once a significant amount of sleep credits have been consumed, the teen will start to become unpleasant and experience unusual behavioral outbursts. In severe situations, the teen can experience mood swings that include depression and rage. Once sleep credits have returned to a “normal” level, typical personality characteristics return. If recharging these sleep credits is artificially shorted, it causes exhaustion and a longer rejuvenation period.

Performing crazy antics is a natural occurrence of the teenager experience. These shenanigans are the result of new-found freedom combined with limited inhibitions. Many of these zany acts are nothing more than experiments to experience the reaction of a particular event. Young teenagers experiment in their own direction while looking back for their parents’ approval. If parental response is not provided, they feel abandoned and look toward peers for endorsement.

Constricting rules set up by society can slowly erode the energy of most teenagers, who are often forced into conformity by assuming jobs that fail to recognize their individual talent. This failure cause’s frustration which may jeopardize the teenagers’ self image. Some teenagers respond poorly to authority. Many of these teen tendencies are inherited, while other behavioral traits can be attributed to overbearing parents who produce tension whenever authority is presented.

Aggressive children can impose their physical superiority to humiliate an underdeveloped child. This primal survival instinct provides instant gratification. Teenagers who are consistently degraded abandon their self-worth and allow anyone to control them.

Maturity levels in an experienced teenager are much higher than one of less aptitude. Throughout the teenage years, differences in individual maturity levels can vary greatly and change rapidly. Differences in viewpoints naturally segregate groups into similar types. These communal levels are responsible for the social and academic advancement that set the stage for adulthood.

Most teenagers have a propensity to favor either street or academic intelligence. While the academic option is a structured learning curriculum, the street version is a random situation education that allows teenagers to make their own decisions. Most receive a mixture of both types of education. In some cases, a teenager is subject to extreme conditions of a street or academic education that upsets a balance, which produces frustration and slows development. Acquiring knowledge from both sides of the spectrum produces a well-balanced individual.

Academically, some teenagers deem schoolwork as mundane. These students require a more engaging subject matter that presents a challenge. At the other end of the spectrum is the hopeless underachiever. These students have a hard time fitting in socially while failing academically. These conditions generate frustration that make a teenager feel disconnected, which promotes isolation.

Teenage passion and obsession are both a gift and a curse. When a particular obsession is pacified, the teen can grow and evolve. While the interest boost of an obsession increases production, it can cause an emotional stall as well. This stall can be caused by an excessive duration period while attempting the completion of a goal. If this fixation is unattainable after sufficient effort has been given, it can leave a teenager with a sense of uncertainty. Obsessions hold the key to each step into adulthood.

Parents of a Teenager

From a parent’s point of view, it might be uncomfortable to watch as painful physical and mental transformations in their teens occur on the road to becoming a young adult. The parents are now observing their child in a world that offers them a chance to live as themselves, instead of the person they perceived them to be.

These developmental processes will produce unexpected relationship changes as parents are relieved from the control of their child’s life. This alteration can cause a backlash effect that may cause parents to try to control the situation by exerting authority, which means very little to the newly liberated teen.

Successful intervention requires intuition and the ability to navigate situations without creating aggravation. This balance is dependent on the ability to allow a teen to learn a self- taught lesson, and knowing when to interject.

Most teenagers are subject to a peaking order that is controlled by one or more dominate members of their group. When supplying information to answer a teenager’s question, consider beyond the normal scope of the situation (friendships) to avoid unwanted relationship turmoil.

Use care when informing teenagers of what they are doing wrong. In most cases they already know.  Excessive micro-managing from a parent can cause a teenager to pull away, while damaging the relationship. Most serious relationship damage occurs in the teenage years.

If parental interjection occurs only when a negative action is performed, the teen believes mistakes are the only action a parent notices. When teenagers make their own choices, even if they are wrong, an affirmative spin by the parents is beneficial. Almost any situation can be improved by contributing a positive attitude. They will use this positive example as a training platform when similar situations transpire in adulthood and parenthood.

A teenager’s freedom is a necessity, while parental guidance becomes more relaxed. Without proper emotional growth, teenagers’ are doomed to fall short of their capabilities and expectations. The parent-teenager relationship, which is created throughout this growth period, will be the platform teenager’s adapt to as they become adults.

Any parental behavior observed by a teenager becomes an automatic green light to perform the same action.

School

Currently an archaic education platform is responsible for a child’s intellectual and social development. Absent of parents and siblings a young child begins that academic and social platform we all know as school. This experience is the first social interaction outside of the child’s family and friends. While a child’s primary perception of this newly discovered horizon could be one of joy, for some this is quickly dismissed as the results of their academic testing is delivered.

Individual learning curves produce wide gaps in absorption rates and interest levels. Through systematic testing, strengths and weakness are pointed out. These attributes are then summarized in the form of a report card. If a child is graded below average, apprehension and disappointment consume the once proud parents. This shift forever changes the parent-child relationship.

This downgraded perception is generated by the comparison of other children who outperform the average, creating torment for a lesser-performing child. Letter grades issued on performance promotes disappointment for everyone besides A+ students. (Some of them aren’t happy either). For some students, the pace of particular school subjects is presented too rapidly. Young students typically possess an active imagination, which can contribute to additional distractions to the learning process (ADD). When children feel inadequate they can stop trying while drifting into despair or lashing out in frustration.

This condition debilitates social growth and diminishes self-worth, leveraging well-being further from normalcy. The majority of children’s’ discomfort is generated from negative events that occur throughout their academic career. The personality of a below-average child develops with a sense of inferiority among classmates. This complex causes the student to seek approval from others outside the academic community. These complexes can manifest into a variety of mental deficiencies that stimulate the subconscious mind.

A pecking order is a natural phenomenon that occurs in any group of students that is controlled by academic and self-confidence levels. This order can contribute to an already failing self-image of an underdeveloped student.

A major deficiency in school grading methods is the inability to gauge intelligence. Though grades bookmark the current level of aptitude for a given subject at a particular time, the system fails to consider each student individually. Many academically challenged individuals perform very well in their element and succeed in developing profitable businesses without an extended education. Less fortunate students can define their talents but fail to convert them into a lifestyle. This condition forces students into disengaging roles that produce frustration. This aggravation can manifest in a student, propelling them into an unsavory existence. Students can then rationalize their degrading acts by internalizing the reassurance that academic communities have bestowed upon them.

Current School System Failures

• Disconnected students.
• School administration salary restrictions
• Underpaid teachers
• Outdated/absent books and study materials
• Diminishing industrial, cultural arts, and sports programs

Current Social Failures

• Dysfunctional-broken family structures
• An overloaded welfare system
• Correctional institutes filled to capacity

Future Education System Objectives

• Advancing an education platform with a zero failure rate
• Promoting social networking by demographics and similar interests
• Building student self esteem by reinforcing a positive outlook.
• Increase student participation in advanced subjects
• Promoting personal happiness
• Downsizing school administration
• Tying teacher salaries to performance
• Integrating industrial requirements into an SMS (student management system), enabling employers to process demand modifications and effectively groom the graduating student body to fulfill employment requirements
• Decreasing human suffering and the penitentiary and welfare load

High-energy minds require stimulation to remain interested. Individual academic learning schedules are needed to preserve self-esteem while they educate.

Proposed Updated Education System (PDE Passion Driven Education)

Allowing an education system that jeopardizes a student’s possibility for obtaining success both financially and personally is irresponsible. When students apply themselves to a subject and inevitably fall short, it causes a loss of momentum. The below average student is yet another degrading classification used commonly among school administrations. One of the most difficult experiences for a student to endure is flunking a class. This unique distinction scars with a transcending self-degradation. While the school system produces successful and unsuccessful students, they all share a common goal: achieving happiness. This happiness is more easily obtainable with a sufficient amount of self-confidence and social interaction.

Every student aspires to a vision of what they would like life to emulate. These aspirations glean a natural momentum that is required to pursue an interest successfully. Once these interests have been identified, the student will gain velocity academically and socially. Today, students live in a world of technology, with information delivered on an integral platform presented by an interactive medium that promotes natural absorption. This medium can be utilized to initiate an individually tailored educational system that monitors and controls subject pace.

Young students will have basic requirement classes currently featured in schools. In addition to this core education, advanced development will include such studies like Relationships and The Value of Love. As a student matures, the school program will scale to present subject material that progress according to developing interests.

All subjects will be non-age/gender specific allowing a student to mature while creating curiosity in classes previously dismissed. Grade levels will be non-existent. Students steadily evolve and learn until they are ready for passage into the workplace. This transition includes an apprentice position supplied by a journeyman, effectively transferring the collective skill and knowledge to the next generation. By referencing a student’s academic report, an employer can estimate expected labor output and quality for the chosen trade.

Groups of students will naturally congregate, forming social groups attracted by commonality while unencumbered by academic influence.

Proposed Features

• Initiate an individualized education platform.
• Fail stop - requires a student to comprehend a subject before advancing.
• System scales rapidly to meet the requirements of a mature student.
• Promotes social networking based on similar interests and geological locations.
• Uses open source coding for economical development.

Students learn at their own pace, succeeding every step of the way. Teachers will remotely track work progress while assisting students flagged in the system. A student’s login page can feature messages from teachers and parents, along with a calendar of pending tests and events. Based on student performance, PDE will suggest possible fields of employment.

 Encouragement toward one of these suggestions will be mandatory, with the exception of the "passion" clause. This clause will allow a choice of an additional option not suggested by PDE.

 All students will be monitored for happiness and performance reporting, which will be used as feedback data to help update the PDE program for future generations.

TUH

Acts of violence leave a lasting affect throughout a lifetime, never forgiven or forgotten. Hurting other people’s feelings degrades energy, causing negative reactions.

There is no perfect child─all children suffer from underdevelopment in one or more areas. Personal energy is the essence of a child’s life. Protecting this energy with education and understanding creates an advantage toward achieving happiness. If a child is forced to perform they will resent it.

A solid family structure is beneficial for receiving experiences from opposing viewpoints. When negative influences are removed from children, they are able to grow without restraint. Positive reinforcement provides natural propulsion toward knowledge and self exploration. Children use their parent’s energy to evolve; parents should thank their children for raising them.