Should I resume child-like learning skills during COVID-19 quarantine?

Why would one want to return to child learning skills when you have developed so much better learning skills later in life?

Consider this: if you had been born in a different region of the world, your worldview would be dramatically different. Yes/no? Of course! When we were defenseless children our parents and the surrounding culture imbued (programmed if you wish) us with a set of VABEs. Current research (Tversky, Kahneman and others) confirm that people make decisions based on their VABEs over evidence and data. People in the majority would rather believe what they believe than trust in scientific evidence. !!! By the billions. So why go back to being a defenseless child and accept what others programmed us with—their VABEs.

A better approach, IMO, is to take this quarantined time to examine one’s own VABEs, write them down, and reflect on their functionality and dysfunctionality. Here’s a way to start:

1. Write down what you thought your parents were trying to teach you. By precept and example. One of the thousands my Depression Era parents tried to teach me was “use it up, wear it out, fix it up or do without.”
2. William Glasser’s book Choice Theory identifies the deeper subconscious way that our parents influenced us—by how much attention and what kind of attention we received. IF we didn’t get changed when we needed it, didn’t get fed when we needed it, didn’t get hugged when we needed it we may have “learned” something like “I’m not important.” And that kind of deep VABE can damage our lives thereafter. Freud once noted that “we spend our adult lives dealing with the residue of our childhoods.” Several years ago I asked my Mother what she was trying to teach me as a child. During that conversation she noted that when I was a baby and she was managing the motel my Father had built she didn’t have time to deal with me. SO, when I was fussy, she’d put a bottle in my mouth and leave there until the milk ran out my mouth and then I’d go to sleep. That struck a chord with me because — guess what — when I’ve been stressed at work or whatever, my go-to habit was eating a box of cereal, yes a BOX, until the milk was rising up my esophagus and then I’d go to bed. All that tendency was formed before I had conscious thought or memory. REALIZING where that (bad) habit came from was just the beginning. Now I still have to manage myself away from that “firmware” programming. (Genetics is the “hardware” and thought is the “software.”)
3. Learn to watch and listen for VABEs in what others say and do. What must they believe—consciously or not— to behave (say and do) that way? Does that VABE make sense?

I conclude that it’s ALL about VABEs. Unless we get to seeing and working there at Level Three (see Getting Below the Surface ) we are just pinging off the hard surface.

I hope this helps. Here are some VABEs that my parents “taught” “programmed” into me and which I’ve become aware of and examined carefully later in life:

1. Children are weapons to use in a bad marriage.
2. Fat is bad.
3. Waste is bad, clean your plate.
4. There is a God who cares about you.
5. Drinking and smoking is normal.
6. Work before Play. Do your homework before you play.
7. When you’re stressed, eat until you can’t eat any more.
8. Don’t ever contradict me (the Parent). Ever! Do what I tell you!
9. Work for what you want. Nothing is free.
10. Clean as you go. Clean your room, the garage, the yard, the house. Don’t leave your trash around. Don’t litter.
11. Never make a trip empty handed—wherever you are going, carry something. Don’t waste a trip.

Just a small snippet of the thousands. What are yours?