Maturity and the Dangerous Child

The Dangerous Child Method of education and child raising lends to the creation of exceptionally mature minds. In fact, a Dangerous Child is an exceptionally mature child who is also exceptionally skilled in a wide range of competencies.

The 20th century American philosopher, psychologist, and author Harry Overstreet is perhaps best known for his book, The Mature Mind (PDF).
The Mature Mind at Amazon.com

One of Overstreet's basic starting points is that children are naturally immature, and become a greater and greater hazard to society the longer their journey to maturity is delayed.

Maturity can be measured in a number of ways. Here is one short checklist of childhood maturity:

Developing Maturity in Youth (PDF)

The modern concept of "maturity in youth" is much atrophied and regressed from earlier views of youthful maturity. Many laws, institutions, and regulations in modern societies that were put in place to protect children and youth are having the contrary effect of impeding childhood maturity (PDF), and of permanently fixing youth in a state of perpetual adolescent incompetence.

See also John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education, introduction and early chapters.

With the decline and creeping helplessness of modern youth, comes a corresponding pessimism toward the types of futures which such youth are likely to create.

Thus the growing need for "rites of passage," and more practical expectations of maturity in children and young people.

As stated above, The Dangerous Child is both mature and highly - broadly skilled and competent. As such, The Dangerous Child is much less hazardous to society than an ordinary child, but is also particularly dangerous to a corrupt status quo.

This is not a contradiction. Society -- and ordinary members of society -- are much safer with a lot of Dangerous Children. But corrupt and despotic institutions, on the other hand, are in particular danger from Dangerous Children. Corrupt and despotic institutions gain much strength when the majority of their subjects are helpless and incompetent.

In the US, with the Chicago Outfit firmly in charge, readers are free to speculate as to how this discussion might apply.

There are particular sub-populations of the western world which are more likely to adopt The Dangerous Child Method, or a similar approach to a return to youthful maturity, competence, and responsibility.

There are other sub-populations of the western world which are firmly in thrall to corrupt, despotic authoritarianism. These helpless and reactionary sub-populations are used by corrupt institutions to maintain control over entire populations -- including sub-populations which are otherwise capable of greater autonomy and independence.

Consider how these ideas may relate to your choice of residence and community.

Tales of a Self-Directed Childhood and Adolescence

Self-directed individuals often learn to follow their own lead at a very early age. With such a head start, many of them become quite successful, and sometimes drop out of traditional educational programs so as to get on with their lives.

The excerpt below comes from "Principles" by Ray Dalio (via Forward Base B), the founder of a $120 billion hedge fund:

In order to be motivated, I needed to work for what I wanted, not for what other people wanted me todo. And in order to be successful, I needed to figure out for myself how to get what I wanted, not remember the facts I was being told to remember.

One thing I wanted was spending money. So I had a newspaper route, I mowed lawns, I shoveled thesnow off driveways, I washed dishes in a restaurant, and, starting when I was 12 years old, I caddied.

It was the 1960s. At the time the stock market was booming and everyone was talking about it, especially the people I caddied for. So I started to invest. The first stock I bought was a company called Northeast Airlines, and the only reason I bought it was that it was the only company I had heard of that was tradingfor less than $5 per share, so I could buy more shares, which I figured was a good thing. It went up a lot.It was about to go broke but another company acquired it, so it tripled. I made money because I waslucky, though I didn’t see it that way then. I figured that this game was easy. After all, with thousands ofcompanies listed in the newspaper, how difficult could it be to find at least one that would go up? Bycomparison to my other jobs, this way of making money seemed much more fun, a lot easier, and muchmore lucrative. Of course, it didn’t take me long to lose money in the markets and learn about how difficultit is to be right and the costs of being wrong.

So what I really wanted to do now was beat the market. I just had to figure out how to do it.

The pursuit of this goal taught me:

1) It isn't easy for me to be confident that my opinions are right. In the markets, you can do ahuge amount of work and still be wrong.

2) Bad opinions can be very costly. Most people come up with opinions and there’s no cost tothem. Not so in the market. This is why I have learned to be cautious. No matter how hard I work,I really can’t be sure.

3) The consensus is often wrong, so I have to be an independent thinker. To make any money,you have to be right when they’re wrong.So …...

1) I worked for what I wanted, not for what others wanted me to do. For that reason, I never feltthat I had to do anything. All the work I ever did was just what I needed to do to get what Iwanted. Since I always had the prerogative to not strive for what I wanted, I never felt forced to doanything....

2) I came up with the best independent opinions I could muster to get what I wanted. Forexample, when I wanted to make money in the markets, I knew that I had to learn aboutcompanies to assess the attractiveness of their stocks. At the time, Fortune magazine had a littletear-out coupon that you could mail in to get the annual reports of any companies on the Fortune500, for free. So I ordered all the annual reports and worked my way through the most interestingones and formed opinions5...

3) I stress-tested my opinions by having the smartest people I could find challenge them soI could find out where I was wrong.about which companies were exciting. 6 ...

4) I remained wary about being overconfident, and I figured out how to effectively deal withmy not knowing. I dealt with my not knowing by either continuing to gather information until Ireached the point that I could be confident or by eliminating my exposure to the risks of notknowing.

I never cared much about others’ conclusions—only forthe reasoning that led to these conclusions. That reasoning had to make sense to me. Throughthis process, I improved my chances of being right, and I learned a lot from a lot of great people. 7 ...

5) I wrestled with my realities, reflected on the consequences of my decisions, and learned and improved from this process.

By doing these things, I learned how important and how liberating it is to think for myself. _Principles by Ray Dalio (PDF)

In other words, Ray Dalio became self aware and self-directed at an earlier age than is generally the case for modern youngsters. But his story is not that unusual in terms of others who began to blaze their own trails at an early age.

It is true that in the United States, before the public school system became such a dominant part of the lives of children and adolescents, large numbers of young people learned to make their own way -- via self-study, apprenticeship, trial and error, rites of passage, sheer willpower and persistence, and blind luck. But Ray Dalio and many other successful people, acquired self-direction despite society's expectation that children should be put in their place by the educational and societal powers that be.

That is the challenge for concerned parents and significant others in the lives of children, who would like to see these children grow to be self-directed, independent, and very dangerous to the status quo of psychological neoteny and lifelong incompetence. What sort of environment should these concerned guardians and mentors create for children, in order to set them on the path to competent independence?

More on this later.

Obstacles to a Dangerous Childhood

There are a large number of potential obstacles standing between every child and the dangerous childhood that he needs and deserves. Because of the level of control which parents can exert over a child's life, we should look at parental obstacles first:

• Incompetence, low intelligence, maliciousness, and indifference

These characteristics are commonly agreed upon as being signs of poor parents and bad parenting.

• Overindulgence

Overindulgence by parents within affluent classes and in affluent societies is often popularly seen as a sign of good parenting, although this is often the opposite of the truth in many ways (PDF pp 8-11).

• Overprotectiveness

Overprotectiveness can often be seen in conjunction with overindulgence, but not necessarily. The two types of dysfunctional parenting should generally be seen as distinct.

Malicious, indifferent, and incompetent parents are apt to immerse the child inside an impoverished and unhappy environment.

Overindulgent parents are likely to cause children to focus upon the outward signs of success at the expense of development of the inner strengths required to achieve that sucess.

Overprotective parents tend to keep children from testing themselves against dangers and challenges that naturally arise in the course of daily life. As a result, children fail to move through necessary "rites of passage" which naturally lead them from childhood to adulthood.

Here is a quote from Conn Iggulden, author of The Dangerous Book for Boys:

One of the tragedies of the ­increasingly litigious ­society we live in is that schools now treat ­our ­children as though they are made of china.

Teachers worry that they will be sued if they take pupils on school trips where they can enjoy risk and adventure, ­climbing rocks and trees.

They are concerned that bruising sports, such as rugby, where black eyes and ­broken bones are par for the course, could expose them to ­litigation. They even ­hesitate over traditional games, such as tag and bulldog. _Conn Iggulden

What he says about schools is doubly true for homes. Parents must give children a rational exposure to danger and rites of passage, so that the children will not turn to destructive behaviours out of a desperate and unfulfilled need for risk.

Dangers lie all around us, and within ourselves as well. Failing to recognise them, failing to confront them, failing to learn to deal with them -- these failures have their roots in dysfunctional upbringings.

But dangerous children -- who have experienced a dangerous childhood in the best sense of the word -- understand danger very well, and have learned to devise a large number of ways to deal with a wide range of dangers.

That is what a dangerous child curriculum and a dangerous child upbringing is all about.

The ideas of danger introduced by Conn and Hall Iggulden and by Gever Tulley, are important starting points for modern parents -- who are likely to have been somewhat overindulged and overprotected themselves, and in danger of doing the same to their own children. A truly dangerous childhood will require such simple introductions to risk taking to be but springboards into greater and more sophisticated dangers, requiring greater and greater levels of expertise and competence.

A dangerous childhood leads to a positive, constructive, and productive adulthood. But the actual path has to be laid down by each dangerous child on his own, based upon a certain amount of guidance and preparation.

Because the end result of a dangerous child upbringing and education is essentially uncontrolled -- wide open and unpredictable -- it is seen as a threat by status quo educators, politicians, lawyers, journalists, and other vested interests in the modern dysfunction.

It is never too late for a dangerous childhood. But once the concept is grasped, it is better to begin sooner rather than later.

Dangerous Child: Critical and Sensitive Periods of Plasticity

The term "neural plasticity" means the ability of the brain to reshape itself. Critical periods of brain plasticity are times when particular circuits and intercircuits of the brain are particularly prepared for experiences which will assist the genetically encoded development of those circuits.

The brain tends to develop from posterior to anterior. From the occipital lobe in infancy to the prefrontal lobes in late adolescence and early adulthood, brain circuits mature and myelinate according to a particular sequence which is genetically encoded -- but can be altered somewhat by experience.

If a newborn's eyelids are sewn shut so that he cannot see from the time of birth, his occipital lobes will eventually be used for other types of processing rather than seeing. If only one eye is unable to see, the other eye's visual input will move into the brain territory which would have been used for the "dark eye's" input.

More about what is known scientifically about critical periods, with an emphasis on the visual system:

From polyglots to virtuosi, human performance reflects the neural circuits that are laid down by early experience. Although learning is possible throughout life, there is no doubt that those who start younger fare better, and that plasticity is enhanced during specific windows of opportunity. An understanding of the neural basis of such CRITICAL or SENSITIVE PERIODS of brain development would inform not only classroom and educational policy, but also drug design, clinical therapy and strategies for improved learning into adulthood. Although which might be the critical periods for higher cognitive functions such as language, music or emotional control is the subject of popular debate, such sweeping questions fail to acknowledge the sequential nature of a multistage process that involves many brain regions. _Critical Periods in Local Cortical Circuits (PDF)

Critical Periods in Language Acquisition (PDF)

Much of the knowledge about critical and sensitive developmental periods of plasticity was learned from animal research. Here is an intriguing study demonstrating the restoration of critical period plasticity in the auditory cortex of rats (PDF).

The concept of "critical periods" is quite controversial. Perhaps one reason for the controversy is that many scientists do not want to consider that very young children may have special needs which are not easily met except by persons who are heavily invested in that child. Many child psychologists are women who in fact were unable to take time away from their careers to spend intense time with a child who may have been passing through several critical periods. Subconsciously, such a scientist might wish to minimise any blame to herself for pursuing her career -- even if the only person who might possibly point a finger is herself.

But careful research in animals has clearly demonstrated that animals raised in an environmentally complex -- stimulus rich -- environment, experience superior neural and brain support structure development than animals raised in a stimulus poor environment. It is not likely that the developing brains of human infants are an exception to this tendency to thrive on the richness of stimuli in the environment.

We are accustomed to hearing -- in regard to aging and memory -- "use it or lose it!" But that maxim is likely to apply in a much deeper manner to the developmental time windows in the young brain.

But there is a problem, in that very few neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, or child and adolescent developmental specialists actually understand how the mature brain works, much less how the working brain came to be the way it is through various developmental periods.

It is easily possible for an interested and intelligent parent to know far more about the natural development of the child than most "experts", through observation, careful reading, and trial and error. And if a parent wants his child to develop into a "dangerous child," the parent will need to work hard to understand the process -- preferably before the child reaches each critical period.

It may seem a bit unprofessional to think of a child's developing brain in these terms, but in many ways a child's developing brain is much like a fine gourmet dish, or a carefully prepared perfume. The sequence of assembly is crucial, as is the skillful touch applied to each step, each finely textured layer.

Of course, the developing brain is undergoing many active processes simultaneously, and is not a passive recipient of "the master's touch." Brains are capable of turning out rather well in spite of what seem like a large number of stupid mistakes on the part of caregivers, parents, teachers, and society. But that is no excuse for being sloppy or negligent.

We will look at critical periods more, and at the related concept of "rites of passage."

Pick Any Lock, Fleece Any Flock

You would like to believe in a world that is safe from terrorists, thieves, spies, and busybodies. But that would not be the truth. There is no lock that cannot be hacked. The security procedures of governments, corporations, and homes is more of a convenient fiction than a reality.

Tobias thinks of himself as a humble public servant. When he attacks the Kryptonite bike lock or the Club (or those in-room safes at Holiday Inn or Caesars Palace), he's not a bad guy—he's just Ralph Nader with a slim jim, protecting consumers by exposing locks, safes, and security systems that aren't actually locked, safe, or secure. At least, not from people like him.

The problem, if you're a safe company or a lock maker, is that Tobias makes it all public through hacker confabs, posts on his Security.org site, and tech blogs like Engadget. He views this glasnost as a public service. Others see a hacker how-to that makes The Anarchist Cookbook read like Betty Crocker. And where Tobias sees a splendid expression of First Amendment rights, locksmiths and security companies see a criminal finishing school. Tobias isn't just exposing problems, they say. He is the problem.

But forget bike locks and hotel room safes: These days, Tobias is attacking the lock famous for protecting places like military installations and the homes of American presidents and British royals...

...Kids study Tobias' online video, crack the lock off Dad's Glock, and put holes in things that shouldn't have them. Enterprising junkies embark on habit-feeding crime waves. Hotel rooms, no longer secure, become magnets for burglary and rape. High school truants walk the halls shimming combination locks off rows of lockers. Crime gangs use Tobias' case study to copycat the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, while tech terrorists simply co-opt the master list of Marc Weber Tobias problems to outwit America's Keystone Kop-homeland security and generally blow stuff up. The world is unzipped. And our innocence—not to mention a good deal of our cash, jewelry, and portable electronics—is lost.

Tobias shrugged off such concerns, along with the hate mail. Scaring citizens to attention is part of his educational program. "Do you really think ignorance will keep you safe?" he asks. "Is it even an option?" ...

..."It's not about me. It's about what these locks protect," Tobias says. "Medeco locks are the best in the world—that's why they're used by the Pentagon, the embassies. These agencies believe that the locks can't be picked in under 15 minutes, that they can't be bumped, that you can't trace keys onto plastic. It's the definition of high security—and it's wrong! We proved it."

"Look," he says, taking it down a few notches. "If we can do it, so can the bad guys. Medeco needs to acknowledge it and let the locksmiths know it—and the DOD, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and all their clients." _Wired

And so we are left with a world without security. Nothing is safe, not really. But if that is true, are we not better off knowing the facts and learning to take the necessary precautions? Is it not past time for us to outgrow our psychological neoteny, and to move through our rites of passage into adulthood?

That is when the fun really starts.

Standing Up

Most modern college students in North America have been sheltered from challenge and responsibility their entire lives. Compared to the upbringing of most children through history, modern college aged youth are pampered, and assured of their own specialness.

Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.

The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.

..."Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said.

The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors."

Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others.

Source.

Modern child-rearing in North America lacks meaningful challenges, and rites of passage--to provide a clear demarcation between self-centered childhood and a more competent and responsible adulthood.

In Science Fiction author Alexei Panshin's novel "Rite of Passage", 14 year olds underwent "The Challenge", a necessary rite of transition which some of them did not survive. Of course this idea was drawn from many earth examples of aboriginal and other cultures that require the child to undergo a rite of passage that sometimes results in the child's death.

For boys, the ritual often involved surviving in the wilderness--perhaps hunting a dangerous animal such as a lion. For girls, rites surrounding the onset of menses were common. Certainly giving birth for the first time was a sufficiently life threatening and altering experience to qualify as a rite of passage for girls.

Going to college for many years, and perhaps graduate school for many more, can often be a way to simply avoid one rite of passage--a full time job leading to economic self-sufficiency. If a youth considers himself too "special" to undertake most forms of work, the rite may be postponed indefinitely. For a young woman, school and long preparation for a career can postpone the childbirth rite so late in her life, that the biological clock eventually obviates the issue permanently.

Psychologically neotenous youth are typically narcissistic as well. If they also open themselves to indoctrination at a typical university or college, they have scored the magic hat trick--narcissism, psychological neoteny, and academic lobotomy. When that occurs, there is little reason to expect adult behaviour or responsible attitudes and participation in the society at large.

There are, however, some areas of North American society where the rite of passage occurs in all its historical potency. That would be in much of the military, fire departments, EMS, rescue units, and better trained and disciplined law enforcement personnel.

The idea of a rite of passage is a powerful one, as old as humanity. You can see how easily it is perverted in the muslim culture, where violent murder by martyrdom is too often celebrated as a rite of passage--although a rather grotesque and pointless one in my opinion.

But rites of passage need not be so perverse. An enlightened society has to understand that lifelong pampering and protection from challenge and responsibility is no way to raise productive adults who willingly contribute to their communities in all facets of living. Until North Americans understand the problem they have created for themselves, the ride will be bumpy and more than a little precarious.