Decipher Appropriate Meaning

"Until we are about 7 our minds are like sponges

soaking up information about the world with no

filters to tell us what is appropriate and what is not.

To us it is just information and we record and store

every bit of it."  Gregg Braden

Viewing isolated segments of adult behavior, a child may think having sex is an act of aggression.  There is not a footnote explaining what they see is passion and not violence.  So consider what  is recorded in a child's mind as they listen from the other room just hearing, "I could kill you!"  Or imagine them playing in front of a television catching glimpses of people being mutilated or violent acts of nature without the tools to decipher appropriate meaning.

Unexplainable fears can usually be traced back to events in our earlier lives.  It may not have been a grand incident attracting attention.  It may have been a precise moment in time when we felt totally overwhelmed.  We may not remember the brief moment unless we begin to unearth our past.

These flashes of experience generally are repressed.  If the memory is triggered we may wonder why such a small thing would bother us.  When we slip into the child's mind without being able to censor the experience, we catch a glimpse of how damaging the occurrence may have been.

Our early experiences and observations create our foundation for reflection.  If domestic violence is common in our childhood, we may grow up believing it is normal.  The condescending words spoken to our mother may be creating a template of how women should be treated.  We do not have a sense of right or wrong, and believe the dysfunction to be normal.

If we are fortunate enough to have an adult witness to our experience, they can offer us explanations of what is right or wrong.  This does not work, however, if the adult tells the child something is wrong, but continue to exercise the habit themselves. It is not unusual to overhear a little child use a word of profanity with the exact element of intention and perfect connotation.  This is learned behavior.  Little children are like tape recorders constantly capturing instances both great and small to be duplicated later in life.

There are some of us who are determined not to be like our mother in certain areas.  Motherhood descends and in an awkward moment, we catch ourselves being exactly how we most not wanted to be.  We are a product of our environment ... the good, the bad, and the ugly.