Be friend with your children

Introduction
Supplies for the journey

On parents, teachers and “experts”

Just a moment! Before you go flicking through the book looking for the solution to a problem that’s bothering you, stop and pick up a few supplies. This book has been written for you, the parents of children you are accompanying as they grow up, but it is not just another “how to” book of sage advice on parenthood (“how to raise your children without making the effort”). Furthermore, I do not see myself as an expert who thinks he knows what is worth you doing with your children. I do not know any of you personally, and cannot give you specific advice based on a detailed knowledge of you, your identity, and your capability. In fact, one of the main aims of this book is to persuade you that you can advance your own affairs and the affairs of your children far better than all the so-called “professionals” and “experts”. The first step towards achieving this goal is to understand that the particular answer you are seeking may not be found in the section whose title refers to the situation or “problem” which is bothering you. As a first rule, I suggest you avoid definitions and diagnoses, and avoid blaming the creation of a situation, whatever the circumstances, on one supposedly decisive factor. If you follow this advice, it is almost certain that the answer you are seeking is not in any one section, but is spread around in the different topics dealt with by the book.
For example, if you are a single mother, and you are having problems raising your children, don’t go straight to the chapter on the single-parent family: you are not suffering from a fatal disease and you will not find in that particular chapter a cure for one. A single-parent family is not a disease, and being a single parent is not necessarily the cause and certainly not the sole cause of the problem you are facing. It is almost certain that the answers to your questions are scattered throughout the book, especially in the chapters devoted to every women and every mother.

Despite the importance I attach to the part played by parents in forming the identity of their children, and this book is after all intended for parents, I would like to discredit at the outset a view that has become the unquestioned norm, namely, that the parents are solely responsible, at least in the early years of the child, for the “end product”. It is not far from here to the serious blame laid on those parents whose “end product” is faulty. Many parents come to me with a “problematic” child, and they are burdened with deep feelings of guilt – “what have we done to the child?” – or in a more righteous version – “what haven’t we done for him?”
Against this type of approach, amongst others, I offer my system which I call “the school of friendship”. The main aim at its core is to stimulate processes of learning and change instead of wallowing in problems. While it is true that parents are the first teachers of their child, they are by no means his exclusive teachers. More teachers are added as the child grows up, and they, too, stimulate the processes by which he learns himself and the reality around him.
To give myself as an example, I had parents and many teachers. I took what I took from my parents, for good or bad. I cannot say today by what rules I chose to learn from them what I learnt and refused what I did not take from them, nor do I dare try to judge what I learnt from them; but it is clear that I learnt from many other sources. I remember vividly my parents’ astonished and usually uncomfortable looks whenever they asked, “where did he learn that?” we did not live on a desert island. I was exposed to many other influences, apart from theirs.
I look at my grown-up children today, and find in them, too, things which they got from I know not where. The very thought that I am in some way responsible for everything that has come to be in their identity is shockingly conceited and egocentric. My son Rom smokes cigarettes. I used to smoke too, once. Is that why he smokes? If so, why did he not learn from me to give up smoking? Why did he not learn from his mother who never smoked? My parents never touched a cigarette in their life. I obviously learned to smoke outside home. It is perfectly feasible that Rom also learned to smoke outside home, and that his smoking has nothing to do with us, his parents. Smoking is just one of many examples. Rom rides a motorbike. Is this because I used to ride a motorbike? Is it connected to the fact that I worry about the roads of today not being what they used to be? Maybe it’s because his mother worries to death every time he rides off on his steel horse. Or could it just possibly have nothing to do with us? There are dozens of reasons why a person might enthuse about riding a motorbike without us being the cause. I used to fear water. Is this why my daughter Kinneret edges into the swimming pool with her nose firmly held between finger and thumb? Perhaps I gave her this mode of behavior. But I remember hurrying to Boaz the lifeguard who taught me how to swim and dive and enjoy swimming. I added a capability to my collection of capabilities. In that case, why did I not pass on my belated love of water to my daughter? She still does not like the sea.
I like to eat meat. Rom likes to steak rare. Kinneret, on the other hand, is a strict vegetarian. They both grew up in the same house, yet here is an unhappy father who has trouble taking both his offspring to the same restaurant. “where did they get it from?” I wonder. Probably not just from us parents.
We are important as guides to our children in the first years of their life, and a friendly relationship with them will bring unlimited pleasure and satisfaction; but this does not mean that we are their exclusive teachers. We are more like mediators between them and a reality full of many teachers.

An obstacle named diagnosis.

Before we get down to business, I must divulge certain information on one of the most serious obstacles in my profession, in order to avoid misunderstandings later on. I am referring to the methods of diagnosis so common in the psychological culture with consequent lengthy and sometimes harmful treatments. One of the most important fundamentals of my approach is its total negation of the psychological diagnostic culture. At the end of my previous book, “the friendly psychologist”, under the title, “I believe in not making diagnoses”, I summarized my objection to the act of diagnosis by saying that it treated the brain as a cemetery of feelings and thoughts. Instead of diagnosing people I recommend getting up-to-date information about them and concentrating on their ability. In a book about children, the whole subject is of crucial importance. Since this is so, I have seen fit to elaborate on the topic here in the introduction. If you find it difficult to follow now, you may skip it and go straight on to the first chapter. You can return to it after a few chapters or after finishing the rest of the book. It is worth not abandoning this part of the introduction completely since I believe it encapsulates the fundamentals of my approach.
Diagnoses accompany our live at every step. Here are a few sample diagnoses which may sound familiar to you:
“See how he’s holding the pencil! I’m afraid he’s got a problem with coordination.” (About a child who has only started the first grade that morning).
“Look how jealous he is!” (About a baby who takes toys from his friends in kindergarten).
“He’s coward!” (About a child who is afraid of waves at the seaside).
“He’s shy!” (About a child who hides behind his mother or father when guests arrive and want to smother him with kisses).
“He doesn’t like fruit!” (About a baby who refuses to eat a banana after he was force-fed a whole plate of potatoes).
“Bad boy!” (It doesn’t matter what he did).
“Our child is hyperactive. He can’t sit still for a moment.” This unhappy diagnosis may be made by the kindergarten teacher or school teacher who will complain about the child to the counselor or psychologist of the education system who will in turn call the parents; they will run to a pediatrician and he will give the child a sedative – mostly retalin. A psychiatrist will be called in more severe cases, and will give the child a more complex medicinal potion to reduce the hyperactivity.
“Our child is a bit slow. He’s not like the others. Everything takes him longer to do.” This, too, can bring about a neurological test with a diagnosis such as, “He has minimal brain damage. You can’t demand too much from him.”
And so on and so forth… and there are still others besides the negative diagnoses. Here are a few sample “positive” types:
“He’s going to be a vet” (about a child embracing a puppy).
“He’s has such a sense of justice. He should be a judge.”
“He’s going to be a singer.”
“He’s going to be an entertainer.”
“Isn’t he pretty…like a girl… ”
“Isn’t she delicate!”
“Good boy!”
We do not use such diagnoses only for children. We also apply them to the adults around us, and to ourselves as well:
“I’m a conservative type.” Says a man about himself, and thereby confines himself within a narrow box of identity.
“I’m an Aries.” With this diagnosis, you wouldn’t even know what birthday present to give him.
“I’m spontaneous.”
“He’s a miser.”
“He’s not for me… he’s not an academic.”
“He’s a typical Israeli.” (Really? What is that?).
“He’s crazy.”
“I love music.” (Really think again. You’ll discover that you like only the music you have studied and become accustomed to. There are many types of music that you don’t like. It sounds to you like unpleasant noise. The lovers of those types of music think as you do, that they love music, and that those who do not love their type of music understand nothing in music…).
Thus, instead of encountering information, we create an opinion. Instead of getting to know someone, we are satisfied with an opinion. Instead of making friends with each other, we judge each other. Instead of meeting people, we meet types.

Diagnosis is a very clumsy and distorted way of relating to a person, especially to a child. The diagnosis is mistaken in several respects, in:
1. Relating to inability. Many people mistakenly believe that relating to an inability is to relate or criticize negatively. So many people are occupied with what they are not (“I don’t know mathematics, can’t sing in tune, can’t stand screaming children…”), that they miss what they are (I do like reading, do know how to cook, do enjoy walking in nature…”). People collect and note down an endless list of deficiencies and mistakes both in themselves and in others. If you look more carefully you would find that for each person we could make an endless list of what he isn’t, and that we would still not be referring to him and his identity. We would not be referring to him at all. It is as if we looked everywhere but directly at the person facing us. This, then, is not to relate negatively, but to fail to relate at all.
Children who are exposed to such treatment (or lack of treatment) learn to speak about themselves thus:
“I didn’t do anything at all at kindergarten today…” He must have done some things, but he has obviously learnt not to pay attention to what he does, as if doing referred to completely different actions.
“I don’t have self-confidence…” this belongs to the same language. There must be some things that he can do confidently, but he doesn’t consider them, and perhaps doesn’t even notice them. On the other hand, he recognizes capabilities which he does not have at that moment and judges himself according to them.
“I’m not worth anything…” An even clumsier generalization.
There is no doubt that we should form our attitude toward a person based on what he does do and not on what he does not do. But even when we do pay attention to deeds, there are still many distortions.
2. Treating one component of ability in isolation from the remaining abilities. In other words, paying attention to only one ability of the child and judging the whole child according to it. The diagnosing adult may wish to say something positive about the child and may intend to give a compliment, exclaiming, for example, “This child is an artist!” Perhaps this is better than saying, “This child is a thief!” But even in this case, an identity is imposed upon the child and he is deprived of this right to experience, learn, and choose freely according to his own preference. The child may obey in order to satisfy the desires of the diagnosing adult and will try hard to be an artist. Perhaps he will himself find satisfaction in doing so, like many who grow up without doubts concerning their identity, following the path pointed out to them by adults with expectations and diagnoses. On the other hand, the child may rebel against the burden imposed upon him by the adult; he may become allergic to art and give it up completely without leaving himself even a shred of this ability as a hobby. That would be a shame. How much more so the fact that the adult intended to give encouragement but unintentionally and unwittingly caused damage.
What is the difference between encouragement and diagnosis? When are you encouraging and when are you diagnosing? You encouraging when you are accurate. “This picture is pretty,” or “I like the picture you painted today,” is encouragement. “This child is an artist,” or “This child will become an artist,” is a burdensome and oppressive diagnosis. The same may be said of the customary saying, “He’s a good boy!” instead of an accurate and relevant reference to what the child has done, like – it’s a nice picture, or instead of an expression of gratitude for something good he has done for you like – thank you for your help.
3. Relating to symptoms. Here, also, there is no reference to the complete person, but only to a few phenomena that he created. A child may, for example, be labeled a bed-wetter or dyslexic. In other words, his identity is being defined by a particular symptom. Most of the practitioners of psychology have learnt to pay attention to what are known as pathological signs – the symptoms of this or that disturbance. The diagnosis is performed according to these tested symptoms, and the treatment is designed according to these diagnoses. This is an attempt to copy the medical language. There are tables which are regularly updated, which the psychologist or psychiatrist is supposed to learn by heart. There is one American list, and another European list. They are both compiled on the same principle. If your examination reveals a certain number of symptoms in the patient, he must be sick, and his illness has a name; or he must have a problem, and his problem has a name.
The custom of diagnosing according to symptoms is so deeply embedded in our culture that we do not question this sort of way of thinking. At best, we cast doubt upon a certain diagnosis, and turn to an even greater expert whose diagnosis we prefer to accept.
The parents, the kindergarten teachers, the schoolteachers, and quite a few others, have also learned to pay them special attention. Most people really believe that symptoms are signposts on the way knowing people.
Most people are touchingly devoted to any diagnosis and tend to accept and identify with any diagnostic verdict.
They sincerely believe that the treatment accompanying such a diagnosis is intended to “cure” the problem.
Here, I shall outline two common approaches to treatment. Both are similar in their diagnostic thought processes. Both deal with complaints and the treatment of symptoms. They differ only in the method of treatment.
The psychoanalytic and other psychodynamic approaches to treatment concentrate on the source of the problem. They deal extensively with remembering, with experiences from the remote past, placing an emphasis on the figures of the parents and other family members. They share the assumption that the experiential source hidden in the subconscious may become conscious if it is recalled, and this in itself will relieve the sufferer of the burden oppressing his personality. The disorder will disappear for ever. The intensive rummaging through past memories provides a wealth of material for the inevitable detailed reports on feeling and for the attempts to understand how the experiences of the past are connected to the experiences in the present.
The behaviorist approaches, on the other hand, do not waste time digging up feelings and sensations from the past, but refer directly to the complaint and offer a practical solution. In order to arrive at an exam without anxiety, for example, the behaviorist would suggest doing relaxation exercises. The emphasis is on counteracting specific symptoms.
As I said, these greatly differing systems have in common a concern with symptoms. Late on, I shall point out what I think is mistaken in these treatments. For now I shall limit my remarks to this phenomenon known as a symptom.

In nature, every creature is supplied with tools allowing it to exist in a particular environment. This environment is but a small section of the vast range available in the world. Its world is complete so long as there is no gap between its capability and its surroundings. An unaccustomed change in its surroundings could threaten the creature with extinction.
The human being is also an animal, although more highly developed, and is similarly equipped with tools allowing him to live in a fixed environment. He may feel comfortable so long as no gap appears between his capability and the reality he is exposed to. He has balance and stability, and can even enjoy life. Symptoms appear only with his exposure to something new and unaccustomed. The symptoms are many and varied, ranging from outbursts of anger to maladies, fears and anxieties. I see all these symptoms as various means of clumsy repulsion whose aim is to produce as immediate reduction of the world of opportunities and to adapt it to the set of abilities that we already possess. A person, for example, may be exposed to unfamiliar music. His head begins to ache because of the unpleasant noise in his ears, and the music is quickly switched off. Repeated use of these means will ensure that he continues to repulse something un-enjoyable, and something, consequently that will remain unfamiliar, and he will be stuck in a rut. He does not give himself the opportunity to develop an ability to listen to this sort of music, let alone learn to enjoy it. A barrier has been set up between him and one element of the world around him. Repeated repulsion of unfamiliar will necessarily lead to stagnation, a complete lack of change. You may take it as a rule that the repeated occurrence of certain phenomena indicates an absence of learning and perhaps even a refusal to learn. The symptoms in such a case appear again and again in the same circumstances. They are the means of repelling the opportunity which would necessitate change through learning. Unfortunately, most people are satisfied with the handful of capabilities they have acquired, and thenceforward live in the part of the world amenable to their capability. They will do everything to avoid change. Any departure from the norm is a burden to them. It is for this reason that they try to make friends with people who are similar or complementary to them. They only feel comfortable in their traditional cultural environment. It is as if a blockage in their brain does not allow them to imagine that they can continue to learn and change. Such an attitude is unfortunately only to be expected in a culture such as ours, where most of the educational mechanisms hinder and often strangle the ability to learn.
The culture of non-learning is well-suited to rigid diagnoses such as those determining the vital influence of the parents or the vital influence of heredity; and the personality traits of the patient are treated as unchangeable. The diagnosticians and those diagnosed complement each other. The judges and the judged both accept the premises that a person may be pigeonholed and that treatment will not involve escape from the pigeonhole.
Treatment according to such diagnoses, therefore, actually join forces with the process of clumsy repulsion in weakening the person and reducing his world. It is not enough that the person himself, out of complete ignorance, repeatedly employs symptoms, those means of clumsy repulsion, rather than learn and expand a capability. On top of that, he must suffer the many therapists who fritter away his psychic and financial resources on the symptoms rather than on the capability.
Man differs from other species in his ability to learn and adapt quickly to the many changes occurring in his environment. His wonderful learning ability allows him to survive as a species. It also means that an individual can, if he wishes, form his own identity, create innovations, affect and modify his environment. He may expose himself to influences, and be influenced and taught; but he may also make his own mark, influencing and teaching others, and may thus be a person continually being reformed in a varied, multifaceted and continually reforming reality. Such a person would not agree to anchor himself to one spot, unmoving and unchanging, and his constantly changing reality would be all the more difficult to tie down.
By the time you learn to be a pupil at school you are in the army. You finally adjust to being married, but you are already a father. You become a wonderful father to a four-year-old boy but he is already in his teens. The eternal sea of combinations and changes rolls, and these are just a small sample. Of course, the influences of parents and of heredity on our development are considerable, but these merge with many experiences which cannot be exactly traced, and together they all form a complex learning web. Any diagnosis is surely overlooking such a complex and fascinating life reality, with tragic consequences.
There are symptoms even in the learning culture, but these only accompany the beginning of the learning process; just as blisters appear on hands which are not used to labor, so excitement bordering on anxiety may surface before an unfamiliar event. Not stopping at the symptoms to deal with them allows the learning process to continue, and with patience the capability gradually grows and the symptoms gradually disappear. In their place grows the pleasure of expressing a capability.
Everyone is gifted with the ability to learn and change. I regard the constant search for the good of each person – of oneself and of others – as a friendly act.
This is why I have called my method “the school of friendship”. This is also why I regard the common methods of diagnosis and therapy which label a person with a very limited and partial identity as unfriendly methods.
In the school of friendship, instead of the common diagnosis, we try to take into account several elements of the encounter with another person.
First of all, we learn the stage of development he is at, that is, we learn what he does and what he has done up to now, in everything, from his profession to his various hobbies.
Secondly, we refer to the reality he is exposed to, in other words, to his field of opportunities – at work, at home, and elsewhere. We pay special attention to new developments in any of the sectors of his life.
The next step is to locate the most important factor, which is his learning ability. Whoever knows how to make a learning investment is capable of making many changes. A small investment yields a small return, and of course, a large investment will yield a much greater reward. The learning ability is the tool and the means for obtaining change.
What is worth changing? This is the most fascinating of therapy. Should I, for example, stop being a psychologist? I could make a fateful decision to invest in studying electronics and with time become an electrician; but is it worth my while to change my identity to such an extent? I am convinced that it is not. The open question of priorities allows each one of us to exercise his ability to choose his way of life and to form it to express himself at his maximum capability in a satisfying way. Perhaps this is the closest thing to the ability to be happy. Your investment in learning must come at the expense of something else, right? Well, not exactly. In the School of friendship, it begins by utilizing the resources formerly wasted on the various forms of repulsion and refusal to learn. As you progress and learn what is good for you, and appreciate the benefit you derive from having more, you will also have more resources to work with. A better opportunity for expressing the capability will replace the previous opportunity. This, by the way, is not clumsy choice between good and bad, but a choice between good and better.
It is impossible to find solutions which are universally good, each one of us should continually ask what can be achieved and what is worth achieving, and make decisions accordingly.
There are several other common mistakes in the diagnostic system:
4. Diagnosis according to feelings. Many people are strongly convinced that what they feel really reflects what is in them and in others. With a straight face, they tell everyone what they are feeling as if what they feel reflects reality. This is usually nonsense. Only rarely, and only in a field of expertise, does their feeling reflect reality. For example, a senior and experienced mechanic, an expert in his profession, can sometimes diagnose the state of an engine just by listening to the sounds emanating from it, before bothering to check it more thoroughly. In any field other than mechanics, however, what he feels is hardly relevant. If he reports a feeling of difficulty in doing something, this does not mean that the thing is hard to do, but that he himself is not at present equipped with the capability to perform it. Similarly, if a man feels that he does not enjoy his wife and children, this does not mean that there is anything wrong with them, only that he himself does not know how to appreciate them, and he is missing what they can offer.
“We have a difficult child”, say parents who have difficulties in raising a child. With time, the child of such struggling parents learns to be a “difficult child”.
“I can’t” is a very common expression. Many people are confused between inability and unwillingness. Sometimes they say “I don’t want to” when it would be more precise to say “I can’t”, and conversely, they say “I can’t” when it would be more accurate to say “I don’t feel like it”.
Disgust is another common example of reacting according to feelings. If you feel disgust towards a certain food, this does not mean that the food is disgusting. This is not a testimony about reality, but about you and your eating habits alone. And to be fair, the opposite is also true. If you find a certain food tasty, it just means that you become used to eating it. This does not guarantee that others will enjoy it too. In other words, your reaction testifies to your capability or your limitation.
Feeling, sensations, and even thoughts that we have in all kinds of fields testify mainly to our capabilities and limitations. This is a sort of reflection of everything, good and bad, that has been collected in us in the course of our past experience.
Therefore, whoever diagnoses reality according to what he feels at a certain moment is missing the opportunity to learn something new. He remains limited, equipped only with the handful of old capabilities. He goes on repeating the little he has learnt to do, and adds not a single thing to his repertoire. This is like continually rereading an old newspaper in preference to getting up to date. This is a tragic waste of the wonderful latent learning capability hidden within each one of us. To give in to feelings is to lose the opportunity to actualize this potential. It is friendlier to be interested in what people do than in what they feel.
The ability to enjoy is at the peak of the abilities. The capability to express oneself with satisfaction is way above the ability to perform certain functions and activities. Why, then, do so many people expect the feeling of pleasure to be the starting point of their actions? They want to feel an emotional impulse of pleasure to drive them forward to action. This is also a complete mistake. Investment in an ability must precede enjoyment of that ability. Whoever has learnt to play an instrument will know that you have to work hard to acquire the ability to make music.
This small observation has great practical importance in all fields of human behavior. For example, so many single people are unable to move up to the next level because they diagnose according to their feeling, “choose” a partner on the strength of the “chemistry” and the attraction towards a person they think is appropriate, and do not select according to social availability. You are put off by that woman; it doesn’t mean she is disgusting, as if she hasn’t washed for days, and you can smell her a mile off. What it does mean, is that you do not know how to love when there is an opportunity. You are too limited. It would be worth your while to expand your ability to make friends. Being prepared to experience a couple relationship only when you are “attracted” to someone means that you are repulsing opportunities to expand your ability. They are opportunities precisely because at this moment, for some reason, they like you.
In other fields you are more practical and efficient. You would choose a mechanic according to his ability and not according to the color of his eyes, and so on… In the learning culture you do not diagnose according to your feelings, but you experience and learn all you can. In a short time your ability will allow you to progress and choose a person you can do more satisfying, enjoyable and useful things with.
Diagnosis by feeling may mislead young people in the process of forming their identity. Young people are constantly bombarded from all directions by a multitude of stimuli. An adult exposed to the same stimuli has already acquired the ability to handle them. I, a psychologist for many years, am not stimulated at the sight of other tempting job offers. I know that I am not an engineer and I have nothing to look for in the “wanted” ads for engineers. The same can be said for the various lonely hearts and match-making advertisements. Even if they do stimulate me a little, I know that I am married and I have a partnership in my life, and anyway, what would I do with the thousands of women the advertisements offer me? My range of capability allows me to reduce the wealth of opportunities to the correct dosage. Not so a young, single, jobless person, who may be confused by the variety. Sometimes he may seek a respite from wealth of stimuli by making a hasty decision; doing so adversely affects the process of forming his identity from free choice. We will deal with this in more detail in the section devoted to adolescents.
The psychological-cultural habit of diagnosing according to feelings and not according to ability touches on another subject, in as much as we are taught that what is important is what we feel, and not what happens. I am referring to the subject of hysterical and psychosomatic problems. A person feels unwell, performs a diagnosis according to his feelings and tells himself that if he feels unwell, there must be something wrong with him. The source of the feeling is external, some disease which has picked on him. Psychiatrists and doctors will help him formulate his feelings and channel them into a clearly identified definition of a particular disease. With time and the experience of hysterical behavior, he will actually become sick. People who use hysterical symptoms, symptoms which repeat themselves many times, are patently refusing to learn. They refuse to admit that they are healthy. They are banging their heads against a wall whose existence they refuse to admit. When they eventually begin to find real diseases, they triumphantly prove wrong all those suspicious people who refused to believe that they were ill. Never mind. But it is worth knowing that those who cross over to the learning culture are healthier.
In my profession, this is the hardest area to change because most people refuse to accept that they might feel something which does not exist. The feeling takes them over completely. With time, intensive dealing with psychosomatic phenomena can cause real damage. Someone who starts flirting in his youth with the sensations of his heart as if he has a heart problem could one day, if he doesn’t give it up, become a real cardiac patient. I am not suggesting that every feeling is unrelated to an event. Of course there are times when a feeling does reveal a disease. I am talking here about those people who continually feel various complaints and are always rushing off to have check-ups which reveal nothing, until their persistence finally pays off, and they undergo a test which will discover a disease in their body. As already mentioned, traditional therapy deals with a problem and its symptoms, the person is supposed to learn to deal with the problem, and he becomes identified as a patient. He might deal adequately with his illnesses, but in fact he is continuing to miss out on life, since most of his resources are spent on dealing with diseases.
In the School of friendship, the symptoms of the various complaints are simply means of clumsy repulsion. They are required particularly when people are exposed to something new and stimulating. And again, one of the tricks played on the brain by culture is the way we encounter a positive stimulus and feel it as negative. A clear example is the reaction of an ultra-orthodox Jew, whose ability to enjoy a woman’s body is minimal, to the sight of a scantily clad woman. He reacts with disgust to a poster of an attractive model, and will call her “indecent”. A photograph of an onion or a cow would not be a burden to him, but a photograph of an attractive woman is perceived as unpleasant. Similarly we are all liable to be exposed to a stimulus which is essentially pleasant and positive, but we react to it with repulsion and our brain will translate this physical repulsion into the form of various aches and pains.
It is only by refusing to negotiate with these feelings and persisting in your exposure to the stimulus that you can steadily improve your ability and the negative feelings will gradually turn into feelings of satisfaction and pleasure.
The culture of diagnosing according to feeling is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that most methods of psychological therapy, and not only psychological therapy, have become devoted to achieving relaxation, either by sedatives or by conversation. Are you suffering? Straightaway there are people to relieve you of your burdens and to calm you down. You become increasingly weaker as more and more things become interpreted in your consciousness as suffering. Are you allergic? Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what you are allergic to? Immediately they check your reaction to all kinds of materials and find out for you. Then you learn to remove from your world everything you are allergic to, until you create for yourself a sterilized world and live in a bubble. Each time you dare to go out, or if, god forbid, some allergen slips into your bubble, you will fall sick immediately – that is how weak you have become. The others, those with capability, who have learnt to encounter their environment and what is in it, become stronger and stronger. They will become ill only if there is some very major disruption in their complex ecology. Not every flower and not every grain of pollen will knock them over. In order to avoid misunderstanding I will add: I am not referring to those who are so helpless that they must limit their world to avoid harm, just as diabetics must avoid eating sugar. I do not believe that eating sugar will encourage the body of a diabetic to start producing the insulin it lacks, just as I do not believe that an amputee can get his leg back by insisting on playing football.
I make a clear distinction between two types of tranquility. One is accompanied by the satisfaction of expression and is a result of ability; the other is achieved by removing the sources of stress, which leads to a weakening of ability. From this point of view, clumsy repulsion is a sort of constant therapy through action, building as thick a partition as possible between the person and the events of life so that he will not suffer, will not get hurt, and in fact, will not live, but only exist.
The willingness to sacrifice expression is commonplace. It should not be encouraged. It exists anyway. On the other hand, it is worth fighting to increase the ability to express and to create a culture which nurtures a maximum capability for exposure to all kinds of stimuli, an ability to find one’s way around and navigate among all the opportunities, and an ability to select those tools of personal expression which make life more enjoyable and complex.
Among other things, it is worth developing a repertoire of recovery and rest. Those who already know the secret that deep tranquility is obtained through satisfaction use this technique often. Sleep itself becomes just one means among many, and not the only means, of relieving tiredness, as it is known to people with few abilities. When they are tired, they absolutely must sleep. People with more complex abilities do of course sleep from time to time, but they also know how to become refreshed through entertainment. Variety is also refreshing. One activity refreshes you after the previous one, and to this may be added the spice of a physical activity, a bath, music and more.
For me, the concept of ability is an accurate and measurable thing. Someone with no ability should not burden himself with impossible missions. He should save his energies and invest them in something else. Someone who has lost his legs could channel his efforts into something more profitable than football. Someone born with a serious disability, or injured in a serious accident and barely alive, obviously needs protection and supervision, entailing a serous reduction of his world. If we stimulate him to produce ability it should be an ability which is possible for him to achieve.
My continual use of the word “ability” confuses some people into thinking that the method of the School of friendship is suitable only for able people. This is nonsense. The method concentrates its efforts on developing capability. If you have been in an accident which has deprived you of your arms, then use your legs. Don’t spend too much time concentrating on the tragedy which took place when you lost your arms, but pass on quickly to nurturing what you can still do. I admire the disabled painters who have learnt to use their toes. As long as you are alive, do as much as you can.
I don’t agree to any system that treats capable people as if they were totally lacking any abilities. I see no way of bridging the gap between the two approaches, just as there is no way of bridging the gap between religious thought and multi-cultural thought. It is possible and desirable to create forms of peaceful coexistence, neighborly relations imposed upon us by the very fact that we are increasingly crowded together and forced to rub shoulders with people who are very different from ourselves.
In the School of friendship, one learns that it is worth living in a culture which encourages optimal expression of capabilities. The moment you stop learning to express yourself is the moment you stop living. You become a zombie, no longer living, but merely existing. I have no intention of whipping you up to fever pitch and setting you loose on the achievement racetrack, nor do I wish to ensure that you become too busy to think or reflect. I am not talking about occupations whose sole function is to fill up your time – you would find yourself missing opportunities right under your very nose – but occupations which express your capability.
This is why we in the School of friendship do not agree to focus on what our feelings tell us. A psychologist who listens to diagnoses based on feelings is actually supporting them and even encouraging them. It is a well-known phenomenon that for some people, anything repeated often enough becomes an unshakeable fact. How much more undeniable are the oft repeated idiocies of an entire group! Have you heard the one about the old man and the watermelons? He wanted to get rid of a crowd of noisy youths. So he told them that watermelons were being given out for free at the other end of the village. The story worked, and the youths all ran off to the other end of the village. The old man didn’t look happy though. In fact he was quite upset. “What am I doing standing here like an idiot?” he thought. “I ought to be at the other end of the village. If I don’t get a move on, there won’t be any watermelons left for me!”
I really think that if I sat and listened in silence to all the complaints raised by people regarding themselves and others, I would be performing an unfriendly act. I would most likely wedge them more firmly into their mistakes, making it even more difficult for them ever to escape.

 

Child diagnosis is an act bordering on the criminal

Almost all of us are prone to the culture of the clumsy diagnosis, and people seem to be particularly enthusiastic about diagnosing children. When the child falls sick they rush off with him to a doctor who diagnoses his illness, and then to another doctor for a second opinion. He may confirm or reject (replace) the earlier diagnosis, and of course, the parents accept all the examinations and obey all the subsequent instruction. Impatient parents ask for a diagnosis concerning the IQ of their baby, since in all probability the toddler is a mathematical genius. The two-year-old is taken to the Conservatoire where the infant prodigy’s musical talents may be diagnosed properly. Children with “natural talent” are pushed onto the stage at various festivals. Young girls – those, of course, who are diagnosed as pretty – are thrust into a career in modeling. It is many times worse when the diagnosis reached by the parents or the kindergarten teacher proclaims that the child is “naughty”. Without a second thought, they drag the boy to the psychologist where he is tied up in the bonds of symptoms, definitions and diagnoses.
Since his identity is already formed and well-defined, an adult can tell the annoying diagnostician where to go. He already knows himself, and is consequently able to repulse a diagnostic attack which does not seem to him correct. A child, on the other hand, is likely to learn about himself through the adult diagnosing him. He does not yet have the tools to know that the diagnostician is mistaken.
For this reason I believe that the diagnosis of children is an act bordering on the criminal. Fastening diagnostic definitions onto a child whose identity is still in the process of formation, still in a state of flux – even if done with the good of the child in mind – traps him in attitude which may distort his identity or at least severely influence the formation of his identity.
The learning ability of children is remarkable. They pick up something new in a flash and behave immediately as if they were experts. It is absolute folly to dwell on this or that symptom and thereby delay their awesome capability to change. There is no need to treat them as if they have problems which need treating. All that is necessary is to locate their abilities and help them nurture and develop these abilities. This is also right and good for adults, but for children it is vital.

 

Creating a family unit

It is true that most of the sections of this book deal with the family in its traditional set-up – mother and father living together, and their children – but social reality is more complex and varied than can be described in one book. There are family structures completely different from the traditional one, and a new form seems to crop up every day. I must emphasize that I am not being judgemental or preferring one form over another, and what I have written is certainly not to be taken as evidence that the traditional family is better than all other family structures. The stigma still exists that any departure from the accepted norm is perceived as negative and considered a perversion. Almost in one breath come the phrases “broken home” and “single-parent family”, for example. This is a mistake. Of course it is true that in such a vast and varied collection of families, some are “broken homes”, but these include families in which a mother, a father, and children all live together under one roof. At the same time, there are innovative structures which offer a wonderful solution to a special human combination. There is something to be learnt from these structures. The family unit undergoes changes all the time, and this in itself shows up the folly of all those judgemental definitions of good and bad types of family.
Single-parent families are quite familiar nowadays. Some of them are the result of a premeditated decision to set up a single-parent family unit; other come about by force of circumstances. The majority of divorced parents become, at least for some time, and to some extent, single parents. The death of a partner turns others into single parents.
Another family structure is the complex family consisting of parts of previous families and additions – a new partner, the new partner’s children from a previous marriage, and additional children.
There are those who become parents through adoption, and here too, there are several variations, from simple adoption to the purchase of babies. In addition to all these we may mention in vitro fertilization and surrogate mothers. Hard on the heels of the phenomenon of single-sex couple has come the inevitable sequel, single-sex parenthood. In this case, a female single-sex couple has a clear social advantage, since only women can conceive, and it is relatively easy for them to become parents. There are communes in which there are no steady couples. There is no husband who belongs so a particular woman known as his wife, but all belong to the commune. Their children do not always know who exactly are their biological parents; they have “many parents”, and there is always an adult available for them.
There are racially mixed families, of Jews and Arabs or other non-jews.
On top of the normal process of learning to be a couple and of raising children, these families are obliged to allocate a great deal of their energy to facing their social environment, which is generally hostile. Since Israel absorbs Jews from the Diaspora, we have already accumulated a wealth of experience in the creation of ethnically mixed families. The social barriers in Israel against thes sort of family have collapsed. I suppose that in time the number of families made up of Jews and non-Jews will increase, as a result of friendly intercourse with other cultures. There are those who judge this phenomenon as a disgrace. These are people who cannot tolerate anything which is not absolutely like them; they are limited, intolerant of anything different and unfamiliar. It is their loss. I have no doubt that this phenomenon will spread, whether we wish it to or not. It is worth learning to accept the inevitable.
All of these are no more than a few of the family structures which differ from the accepted norm, and I have not counted all the combinations which exist in human society. I shall refer to some of these family structures in the book, but in considerably less depth than I would like. This is for two reasons: 1. there is a limit to what one book can encompass, and this subject is beyond the scope of the present book; 2. it is difficult for me, the product of a traditional family, to see all the components of a completely new creation.

 

The School of friendship with children

The approach of the School of friendship with children is essencially no different from that taken with adults, apart from one basic difference: with children it is very easy to achieve a change. The ability of children to learn, to increase their capability and change, is immeasurably greater and faster than that of adults. It is now years that I have known for certain that it is possible to achieve drastic changes in children without dragging them to psychological examinations and to treatments which form their identity as children with problems. This is the reason why, when children are involved, I set out on a war of extermination against the systems of diagnosis and treatment which perpetuate both in the children and in their parents precisely the thing that is harming them. Yet it is a fact that many parents were stuck, and remained stuck with their children in this or that diagnosis. How is it possible at an advanced stage of neglect to produce a change? If something has gone awry, how is it possible to correct it? We shall deal with these questions in the following sections.
I am afraid that in this book, too, I find myself obliged to hold an argument of some sort with the popular systems of treatment. I would not want to bother you with an argument for argument’s sake, but you are exposed to so many therapeutic beliefs with the status of sacred cows that you may well be considered insufficiently concerned parents if you dare to question these therapeutic approaches. I must, therefore, try to equip you with some tools for handling other therapeutic approaches. I would like to stress here that this book has not been written with an eye on the books of others, and I am not entering an academic debate on the correctness or otherwise of certain systems. This book was written on the strength of extensive experience gleaned from meetings with many parents, the search for efficient ways of changing, and many confirmed practical results.

Well, you have got this far, and you realize that you have missed something on the way. The question why is of no consequence or relevance. You neglected this or that detail in your children and now you notice phenomena which bother or worry you. You can no longer ignore them. If in the beginning your regard for symptoms – the means of repulsion – testified to the fact that you devoted the whole of your attention to this detail and ignored the other components of the child’s personality, now it has got to the point that the symptom fills the view of everyone who encounters the child. It is impossible not to notice it. The child has, as it were, lost his identity and become a sort of bundle of recurring symptoms ( for this particular situation, I am using terminology accepted in psychology and psychiatry, since, if you have reached this stage through neglect of some sort, you have certainly managed already to collect a number of diagnoses. Thus, even though I regard these diagnoses and labels as clumsy, I must address the fact that they exist and are widespread in the therapeutic market, and are familiar to you).
When the child is diagnosed as having a problem and every one treats him according to this diagnosis, all his other acts are ignored. They will talk about his fears, and will not recall his ability to play computer games for hours on end. They will recall his learning difficulties and will not mention the fact that he plays football, and so on.
It generally seems to be the case that even those who agree in principle with the view that children should not be subjected to diagnosis will say that there is no choice but to treat the problem first of all and only then will it be possible to continue and develop the child’s ability. I believe that any reference to a problem helps not at all, and in fact weakens the child’s ability even further. As I said above, it is possible to achieve change. This can be effected most effectively, quickly and cheaply by promoting the ability and desisting from the preoccupation with what has been defined as a problem. Even in extreme cases, where someone has been defined as mentally ill and has been confined to hospital, I would engage his capability, and nurture other abilities, until his identity changed through his activities. If this is the case with adults, how much more so with children!
In the culture of analytic therapy, the parents are guilty for everything that happens to their children. This is unjust in my opinion, both to the parents and to the children. For the moment something not quite right is discovered in the behavior of the child, the inquisition begins to determine which of the parents caused the child psychological damage. Judgment is passed on the parents for all eternity. Every failure of the child from now on will be understood as the result of their negative influence on him (I am not so much defending the parents, as I am coming to rescue the child from the bonds of this judgment. I pity the time and money wasted on investigating the experiences of childhood, as if that could advance anything now. It is a waste of resources which could have been invested in a more effective and practical channel). If the child turns out “successful”, this too is accredited to his wonderful parents. The child is stripped of the right to develop his own ability. It is true that the child’s birth was not up to him. Sometimes a child is lucky enough to be born in the right place, to parents who know how to relate to his capability and accompany his growth, and sometimes the child is not so lucky. But in addition to luck, reality is so complex that it is impossible to assess truly all the influences on human learning and experience. So many factors are combined, including, of course, the parents. Occasionally, what the parents “spoil”, the kindergarten teacher “corrects”, and occasionally, the opposite is true. Whether one or the other, there are many more factors influencing the child, including many experiences which have nothing to do with the adults in his immediate environment, such as various games, children he meets, a book of film which can all leave their mark on him, a hobby and so on… for some reason, the adults forget that in the learning process, the last word must be left to the pupil, and what he assimilates from all these influences, that is what matters.

Out of culture which focuses on the supposedly exclusive influence of the parents there developed a therapeutic culture in which the most important act of the therapy is someone’s very request for help from a psychologist. As if that is what makes a difference. And if there is a change, both the therapist and the patient think that it took place thanks to the treatment and thanks to the therapist, as if it was the therapist who changed the patient. I am not trying to be modest. It is possible that the therapist has a tiny role in accompanying the complex work of creation. Perhaps, here and there, it was through the friendly mediation of the therapist that a change did take place. But the main cause, almost the exclusive cause, is what the person who is treated takes upon himself to achieve in practice in his field of reality, and not inside the room, during the meeting with the psychologist. If the therapeutic culture nurtures ability, there is no dependency on the psychologist, since ability belongs to the person with the ability, and it is with that person that the ability is supposed to grow and develop. His ability makes the psychologist redundant. That is, a therapist has nothing to add to someone who is using his own ability.
The majority of existing therapeutic systems treat symptoms, those complaints which the patient, with the encouragement of the therapist, examines and describes from every angle and in extreme detail. In the process of therapy, they get to “understand” the symptoms, wonder about their origins, calm them down with the aid of conversations or drugs. They also reduce the world of the patient so that he will not have to make an effort, will not be harmed, and will become calm and relaxed. This therapy is popular since it accommodates the patient and does not require him to make an effort. It also categorizes the patient and gives him the identity of someone with a well-known diagnosed problem.
It is very difficult to escape from these diagnoses. Even after you have changed, you are still considered as sick, but temporarily enjoying a respite, or someone sick who has got well for a while. For obviously, you could be traumatized at any moment and return to your fears and anxieties and, of course, to the merciful treatment which is there to look after you. After all, you do have a problem with…, and because of that you have anxieties, and the therapists are there to help you cope with your anxieties… this is the usual way people talk. It gives you permission to describe over and over again what you feel in greatest detail. As if this is supposed to help anybody. You are taught that it is healthy to unburden yourself and let go.
It does not occur to patients, for example, in a support group in an alcohol rehabilitation center that they can change and give themselves a different identity. They are supposed to supervise each other all the time to make sure they don’t touch a drop of the hard stuff. The effort required to perform this supervision could have been better invested in more relevant and reinforcing ways. Anyone making the effort would soon find many things more satisfying than drinking alcohol. To put this another way, investing in building up one’s identity leads of its own accord to kicking the habit. Psychic energy is channeled into constructive activities, and is not wasted on the drying out process itself.
In the popular therapeutic culture, someone who stops treatment, for example, stops going to support group meetings, stops meeting his psychologist, or stops taking the pills the psychiatrist prescribed, is risking having the “problem” return.
I am also of the opinion that a certain phenomenon may well return, but only if the person stops studying and ceases to invest. Whoever perseveres in whatever activity he invests in will not go backwards. He can only go forward and his ability continually improves. If I stop playing the guitar for many days, it is only to be expected that I should forget some of the notes and chords of songs I knew before, just as I have forgotten everything I ever learnt in trigonometry. From neglect and disuse, not only have I not progressed in that field, but I have lost even what little ability I once had. This has not happened because I have a problem with trigonometry, or because I have a learning deficiency, but because I have not occupied myself with this subject, preferring other pursuits, particularly psychology.
Making the change is not a one-time act. Anyone interested in changing must nurture it all the time. For example, marriage in itself is not the recipe for a successful relationship. If you are interested in living in a friendly partnership, you have to invest in developing the friendship all the time. Otherwise, it will fade away.
We should make a distinction concerning the act of change. A smoker who becomes a non-smoker will never be exactly the same as someone who has never touched a cigarette. Every now and then, memories of smoking will cloud his brain, and he may feel the urge to have a smoke; such things would never come and bother a non-smoker. So what? Should these feelings have more weight than everything the ex-smoker now does with his life? Does it mean that he has not really changed? A man who once engaged in homosexual activities but later learned to enjoy a woman, and has fo years been enjoying the friendship of a woman, has clearly undergone a change of identity. Even so, he may now and then feel slightly stimulated by a man standing close by. It would be absurd to say that he still “has a problem”, and that he cannot live his life with out constant treatment.

Negative and inadmissible as this therapeutic culture is to adults, it is positively harmful when applied to children.
The popular therapeutic culture will determine that a child who steals (and he will receive the stupid diagnostic label of “thief”) is trying to fill the void in his soul, trying to obtain by stealing the love he lacks.
The psychologists make a thorough examination, and finally discover under a thick layer of camouflage and defense mechanisms that the mother, for example, had fallen ill and had been hospitalized, and that her little child really had been deserted exactly at the time he had needed so much his mother’s love.
I am afraid I cannot refer to this treatment without making it sound like a parody. What is distorted in this diagnostic way of thinking? The fact that the details of this diagnosis are deeply embedded and skewer us firmly into our places for ever. The accusation refers to the remote past. Well, then; the mother fell ill. This is a fact. But what can be done today about something which happened so long ago? It transpires that the event traumatized the young child and caused him terrible harm. It is for this reason that he is a thief. This being so, the child now has a reason allowing him not to change. It’s all because of her. It’s the mother’s fault. Every theft he commits hits her in this vulnerable spot. She becomes a punchbag stimulating punches, since that is what a punchbag is for. If the psychological experts come and diagnose the hospitalization as the event which led to all the bad developments since then, what is the mother to do? Not even hanging herself would change matters, since what’s done is done.
I am no different in turning to you, the parents. Where I do differ is in my reason for turning to you. I am not interested in determining who is to blame for the development of the child or for the chain of events which have led up to the present state of affairs. I only want to advise you to set out the facts which will lead to a change, and to set up and run a School of friendship in your home. For you can achieve better results more easily than any psychologist.
I treat every action as an expression of an ability. I relate to the landscape of the ability as a given fact, and go out of my way not to be judgemental about the data concerning the ability, let alone diagnose them. I wish only to be familiar with the data. It goes without saying that society makes a distinction between “negative” and “positive” learning, but you must remember that all the things considered negative and positive are actually learnt in the same way.
Someone who knows how to steal and can steal studied the profession in one of the Schools of Life which happened to be available to him. Consider for a moment the stutterer. He learnt to stutter in almost the same way that another child growing up in a Hungarian family would learn to pronounce syllables and words in Hungarian. Of course, while a language is usually learnt by listening to and imitating the sounds of the adults talking, it cannot be inferred from the fact that a child stutteres that he heard his parents stutter. Even so, stuttering still has something to do with the ability to communicate between people.
A child begins to stutter. He meets an audience who responds to him precisely because of his stutter, and reacts to him in a way which differs from the norm. The stutter quickly becomes a language which serves him in communications with anyone who actually listens to, understands, and reacts to, this language. Those who understand him relieve him of the need to make the effort to learn and speak the local language, and they encourage him to develop the identity of a stutterer.
The development of the stutterer is much like that of the thief. A child desires something which is not his. It stimulates him. The child takes it. The act catches the eye of one of the adults present. For a good while, the child has been doing all sorts of other things, but the adult failed to notice them and did not react to them at all. Now, it is the taking of an object which has aroused him. The wheels of the adult’s mind have been spinning feverishly, making the most of the opportunity to play the policeman – and here, out of the corner of his eye, he has caught this little thief taking, yes, taking, the object which belongs to another child who has dropped in for a visit, and he saw him with his own eyes running off to his room to hide his loot there. He has no trouble diagnosing the act as theft. He is quick to tell all the other fools who happen to be around. The rumor spreads like wildfire. The child is a thief! The child soon learns who he is, or rather, what he is.
So whatever the child takes which does not belong to him is to be treated as theft. Isn’t this a bit extreme? After all, that can belong to him at the age of two or three? Nearly all the world belongs to others. Everything he finds in his world belongs somehow to others, people bigger than him.
This is just one of many scenarios, but it serves to describe how the process of learning is conceived, executed, and received. The audience which receives the act and relates to it allows it to happen again and again and thereby encourages its development. There are countless combinations in this continuing process of learning and experiencing. It is most important to realize, however, that it hardly matters what exactly was learnt, from whom it was learnt, and how it was learnt. All enquiry in this direction is a sheer waste of time and resources. We want a change now, and to achieve that goal, the only thing worth finding out about is the present set of data on his ability. This is the starting point, and it is from here that we move in the direction of change through learning and experience.

My advice is to change the language used within the family. I repeat once more that probing into the past in an effort to discover what once happened is to draw attention away from the act of change, and it generally prevents change altogether. There is no advantage in it, except for psychologists who have learned how to deal with it. I keep coming back to this subject because it is not only a question of something superfluous, of a waste of time and resources, but also of something which causes actual harm, especially in the case of children. So many times I receive refugees from various lengthy treatments who have enough experience to be able to bridge across the approaches. They tell me that up till now they have learnt how to understand their problem, and that now they are coming to me because they are ripe for change. I seem to have got a reputation of being a practical fellow. I am sorry for these people. They have wasted several years in irrelevant activity, since the change they so desire could have been well behind them by now. They could have progressed a long way, and they would have found themselves today achieving much more. I am also sorry for them because they are not so ripe for change. Their mind is befuddled by the thought processes to which they have become accustomed, to the extent that they have to work all that much harder to build the tools which will make change possible. They have managed to learn to waffle on about what they feel to such an extent that they find it very difficult to accept that this is irrelevant information. There are also some who think they are so disturbed that they require a good few years of treatment before they are ready for change. They are completely unaware of the fact that they have built themselves an identity as someone disturbed only within the diagnostic culture.
Instead of this I advise them to talk only about what they do. Observing only ability opens up a whole new landscape, and the person who learns to advance his ability can appreciate the efforts he makes from the very outset, without the superfluous waste of time and resources.
Assume for a moment that you are a Russian new immigrant in Israel. It is clear that you have brought with you everything you have acquired up to this point – culture, mentality, language. The most friendly act you could do for yourself would be to learn Hebrew as quickly as possible, and the local customs. You would thus be able to understand, sort out, and connect with, what there is here. At the same time, you are not expected to change your knowledge of Russian; you are not expected to treat it, and you are not expected to do anything with it. Your mother tongue and everything associated with it will remain in your pool of abilities, and there will be occasional opportunities for its use in your encounters with Russian speakers, for example. All your energy and efforts will be invested in adding an ability, by learning Hebrew.
Small children are equipped with an excellent learning capability. They are the first to grasp a new language. A child has no difficulty changing. You, the parents, can help him do so, if you present him with accurate data which will lead to change.
I do not expect the child to change without assistance or guidance, just as a small child is not responsible for other changes in the family, such as moving from one city to another, from one country to another, and other turning points parents decide upon in the course of their lives which also affect their children, for better and for worse. In the School of friendship, you, the parents, will be asked to learn to make decisions and execute decisions which are friendly both to you and to your children.

 

Learning processes and change

The first and most important factor in the learning process is stimulus produced through identification. We are all rubbing shoulders all the time with other people. When we encounter someone who enjoys what he is doing, this stimulates us to want to do the same thing ourselves. The process is most clearly seen amongst children.
When there is this sort of motivation, learning is accompanied by enthusiasm and endless industry. This fact complicates to some extent our concept of free will. Subjectively, a person may feel that he wants to do something, but a more complex view of the landscape reveals that he is stimulated to want, that he has learnt to want, that the opportunity has arisen for him to want, to do something. In other circumstances, in other encounters, he would almost certainly have been stimulated to want entirely different things.
We may now appreciate the importance of the child’s first teachers – his parents. Added later to these are other teachers – adults in the child’s environment, kindergarten teachers, school teachers, his peer group, and all the characters who shape his world. The more the child encounters teachers who know how to enjoy what they do, the more the child’s world is filled with stimuli encouraging him to want to develop his independent capability. The more he encounters teachers who perform their functions out of duty rather than enjoyment, the less stimuli there are in his world, and his will to learn and add to his capability fades away and at last is extinguished.
Adults in a rut know how to live in a rut, and they find it difficult when their world moves and changes. It is hard for them to accompany children in the process of growth. Without realizing it, they restrict the growth of their children and even block it. So it happens that both the children of parents with blocked ability and the pupils of limited teachers will find other study sources and will quickly overtake the adults. By the way, this is also true of therapists in a rut. They will find it difficult to accompany a patient who actually changes. They would prefer a patient who is stuck, since this allows them to continue treatment forever…
The second source for the act of learning is “homework”. If we have decided to add abilities we presently lack to our repertoire, we do not wait until we are seized with a desire to do something about it. It is up to us to perform a series of investments, to make the effort to learn and to exercise what we have learnt in practice in order to bring about a change. You, the parents, can easily lay down a new set of facts which will oblige your children to change. You, the adults, have already been given up to the mercy of your human intelligence; if you ever want to change or be changed, it is up to you to use your friendly counsel upon yourself. Your children, on the other hand, are not yet in a position to do this; it is not right to let them fend for themselves in the hope that they will know how to find what is good for themselves. You can serve as excellent guides if you learn what to do and how to do it, and when it is required.
I would love to equip you concerning all the secrets of change, to equip you with a first aid kit containing all you need for any emergency, with every item accessible and ready for use. This, however, is unrealistic. Humans are such complex creatures and family phenomena are even more complicated. No person or family is identical to another. What might be correct and beneficial in one set of circumstances is almost bound to be wrong and harmful elsewhere, and what may beneficial in one period of life will be harmful in another. I don’t have in my bag a wonder drug or cure-all, nor do I have universal diagnoses and prepared advice drawn from them.
It is true that here and there in my book I describe certain people’s adventures with the processes of change, but they are not intended to exemplify a particular life-style or the way a process of change must be, nor are they to be viewed as a recommendation to behave in the particular way described. I must caution you that what has proved to be most effective and correct in the cases described certainly need not be appropriate in others. I advise you to treat the descriptions as food for thought which may stimulate you into thinking productively, looking at the facts of your own situation with much greater accuracy, and exposing yourself to your unique complex situation. If you do so, you will have a much greater chance of finding the solution which is best and most appropriate for you. The system of the school of friendship is elaborated on in detail in my book, how to learn friendship and the friendly psychologist.

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