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All Children Must Take a Journey from dependent childhood to independent adulthood. On this Journey they must learn to perceive the world realistically, have reasonable control over their emotions, problem solve and plan, and learn the skills and habits of successfully being happy and helping all life survive. It is our job to prepare them so they have a successful trip. Parenting can make or brake, improve or discourage, celebrate or shame, etc.

To help you explain the concepts, I will be going over, to your children for fun or instruction I have included in most of the posts a cartoon of the journey of four upper nature characters and four lower nature characters. The following key will help you understand the cartoons, that help understand the concepts.

It is all about ‘Me’, ‘Myself’, and ‘I’ responding in different Environments to go forward and explore life. A child must learn how to recognize his dragons, use or fight his dragons, plan his course ahead, and proceed with actions. The Key below shows the 8 main child characters in the cartoons, who their pets are (the key shows widgets but the children’s pets will mirror them), and which concepts they and their pets represent. I will explain cartoons to make it easy to follow and you can improvise to meet your child’s level of understanding.

KEY

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There are four steps, in a feedback loop, that the brain takes to explore and survive in this world, Perception, Emotional Evaluation, Plan, Action. Then the loop starts over adding more information as we go through life. In growing up children learn more facts for each step and ways to improve on each of the four steps.

Along side of the information each post will contain a little bit of a story of the journey of Psychotoons’ 8 ‘kid characters.’ This is for you and your children. I will also go over any questions you want me to include. Fell free to ask, ask and you shall receive. Let me go over the four steps briefly and the widgets, or little icon animals, that represent each step.

(1) In the first step we want to help them perceive the world as realistically and correctly as we can for their age and ability to handle it and remain healthy and happy. In order to perceive the world a child has to observe, listen, touch, smell, and taste different things and basically perceive the differences and similarities between things, and then to see the principles and patterns of the world. With animals we help children see how they are similar or different, the pattern of senses, limbs, internal organs, etc. We help them see the differences say between a mouse and an elephant, or a land horse and a sea horse. Then we help them see the patterns in nature, which can lead to zoology by the time they are in high school or junior high. Ant and Bee see details and patterns.

(2) Step two sets the stage for children to also see the emotional differences and similarities of people and the underlying principles of ethical and moral behaviors. So in the second step or stage we want to help children control their fears so they are not over reacting to benign situations but feel secure and confident. We want to help them also express their love and and see the patterns and array of human emotions and be able to use these emotions to help them be stable and to treat others in a stable moral and ethical way. In other words we want to help them learn how to be happy and social at the same time. Macho cat represents fears and Cuddles the dog represents love. The icon of the heart will correspond to the dog in our story, Molly’s pet.

(3) The third step is the thinking stage, helping children have models of thought so they can build a belief system that helps them in the first stage of perceiving the world realistically, responding emotionally in a realistic way, and then in the fourth and next step behaving in a functional way. When children are able to think and identify various things and emotions in their environments and see the different patterns of how others think they are better able to pick and choose the right ethical and moral standards to implement. Children can learn the four stages of the brain so they can assess themselves and others and help build their widgets. Geru the garden variety of bird represents the third step as he flies high enough to see the overall picture.

(4)The fourth step or stage is to help children cultivate their talents, interests, and habits to best empower them to set goals and act on them in such a way that they are able to achieve success in the areas that make them happy and do not interfere with other peoples behaviors that are also functional and healthy. Turtle is patience and Rabbit is energy, internal and external.

Children that have not been taught how to improve these four steps often join gangs for adrenaline fun, or for revenge on others, or they may be too isolated and introverted to function. So they may then draw upon their lower nature steps of lying, greed, blaming, and aggression. These are the same four steps as above, perceive-feel-think-act, but were developed by nature for survival mode when in eminent danger, so the four steps become deceive-greed-blame & justification-aggression.

There is a time and a place for these steps when our survival is truly in danger, when others have compromised our well being for their own unhealthy deception, greed, blaming or revenge, and aggression. But that time and place should be overseen by the Upper Nature and not solely by the Lower Nature which is a primitive part of the brain without positive or altruistic thinking. It is designed to take quick self centered action without thought. In real danger it saves us, but to live in that mode soon hurts us and others and results in chaotic behaviors in children.

The four stages of the brain need to be balanced as much as possible so we are not distracted from the overall picture of life. For instance a child or an adult may engage in observing flowers or the television to the exclusion of safety or sensibility. Or a child may become a drama king or queen and stomp all over the feelings and fears of others. A child may over think everything to the point of not enjoying life. Or a child may act out or be so impulsive that they are not safe to self and others, or are tormenting or bullying.

Every person and child has a personality. That personality is determined by our biological strengths and weakness in the four stages of the brain. For instance, a child may be a ‘nurd,’ and not very sociable. Or a child may be extremely moody by nature or by bad experiences. A child may be a natural deep thinker, or shallow thinker, a mathematical thinker,philosophical thinker, rational or non rational. And a child may be ADHD or extremely shy.

In raising these children we want to help them with all the stages keeping in mind that there are limitations for them or unreached possibilities of developing their different stages. We want to help them develop in a way they, that no mater who they are biological, they will be happy and adjusted so they can achieve and fit in to the world in the best degree that benefits them and those around them. Mr. Do, consciousness, conscious choice, should be the director of our lives, not Dragon. Mr/Ms Choice, says,

‘Thats my job, to make conscious choices and help the widgets develop, get strong, and balanced so that ‘Myself”,the body, doesn’t get into too much trouble. Otherwise Dragon above rules and things can get wild.’

If you have read all the pages in the navigation bar, or not,  you are ready to help start the Journey with your children. I use a story of the Journey to help you explain to your children in a story language that they can easily understand. Children love stories and learn best within a story. Why? Because that is how the brain works. It takes facts and makes a model or an emotional story to link the facts together in a meaningful and action packed way. If you get confused as to the concepts of the characters please read the other pages at top of the web page, especially page three, the which contains the Key to characters and concepts.

Our story will begin with the land of Everywhere where two kings rule, in situations your children will encounter in the world out side of the home. We start here because you will be preparing them from infants on and so need to know what they need to be strong and confident on in their journey. Page 5 has the story and will be added to weekly until the story is complete. It will say when finished.

The story is in the Blogs, and put in an order that you can start at the top and read down like a book.