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Tag Archives: autonomy

Power Balance in Relationships!

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by Tahereh Barati, PhD in Articles, Link, Reflection

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abuse, autonomy, boundaries, conditions, conversations, culture, equality, equity, ethics, fairness, misuse of power, possibilities, power, power balance, power flower, power imbalance, privileges, purpose, reflection, relationships

We wish to be in a relationship that is equitable, fair and honest. Our desire is to be involved and nurtured in a relationship that feeds our soul, mind and body.

Relationships we have with others are invaluable and influential. Relationships with our partners, employers, colleagues, family members, children, school staff, neighbours, and so on are essential in our livelihood. Relationships form our identity and our understanding of ourselves and others.

We are often curious to know why sometimes it is difficult to find a relationship that nurtures us the way we deserve. We often wonder why it is not easy to form relationships without any external influences. We are often interested in learning more about those who are happy with their relationships with others. We want to know what works, what doesn’t, why some have it and some don’t.

Historically, everything seems to be geared to individuals. Success or failure of relationships has been an individual’s responsibility. We all may remember a statement that was said to us: ‘it is your fault if your relationships with others don’t work’.

I would like to challenge this attitude and mentality towards individuals and shed light on some hidden factors and conditions that influence our relationships with others in society.  I am not convinced that an individual -based answer to a complex question such as relationship is accurately reflective of all domains involved in relationship.

I suggest that we begin to pay attention to what contributes to so- called ‘failure or success’ in relationship; what makes it work and what prevents it from working; what internal and external factors intervene to one’s interactions with others.

I would like to name and categorize all of those factors and conditions as ‘POWER/ PRIVILEGES”.

Yes, I am aware of many definitions of power and privileges . To illustrate this, i would like you to take a test. Have you done ‘the Power Flower’ test? Here is the link to do the test. Please return to this page to continue reflecting on this theme.

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/csafety/mod2/media/flower.htm

Thanks for doing the test. Here are some questions that i would like you to think and reflect on:

  • What was it like for you to do the test?
  • What did you notice?
  • How many petals did you collect that were in Yellow and how many were in Blue?

Count your petals in each colour.  If you have more Blue petals, it means that your ‘power and privileges’ are recognized in society. If you have more Yellow Petals, it means  your ‘power and privileges’ may not be recognized in society as much.

Having this information in mind, I would like you to imagine yourself entering in a relationship; it could be a work related, romance related, or professional related relationship.  Knowing the fact that you have or have not shared the same power and privileges as the other person, pay attention to how you interact with the other person.

  • Would this knowledge change your interaction with the other person? How so?
  • How do you position yourself in a relationship when interacting with a person who has less or more power/privileges in society?
  • Does this knowledge affect your expectations from the other person? How so?
  • What do you need to be mindful of when interacting with a person with less or more privileges/power than you?
  • What difference do you think this knowledge make in your future relationships with others?

Wish you create conditions for yourself and others to have an equitable, fair and honest relationship with you!

Hope you engage in relationships that nurture your soul, mind and body!

Happy Possibilities!

Tahereh Barati, M.A, RMFT

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Children & Rewards!

11 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by Tahereh Barati, PhD in Articles, Reflection, sharing success stories

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association, autonomy, behaviours, boundaries, caregivers, change, children, concepts, conditioning, conversations, culture, daycares, educational system, family, openness, parents, pattern, punishment, purpose, relationships, reward, reward system, schools, stimuli, teachers, teaching, values

Parents / care givers are usually more concerned about their children when children’s misbehaving occur in different settings such as home, school and daycare.  Children usually respond to problems with similar behaviours.   Why do you think it is? You may have different answers to this question based on your philosophical and psychological perspectives. To me children’s problems are socially constructed and relational based. Changing behaviours seem to be difficult when social/ relational aspects, that contributing to the maintenance of behaviours, are not taken into consideration.

Having social/ relational lens on when analyzing children’s difficulties, I usually propose to parents, who consult with me, meetings with educators at schools or daycares to learn more about what maintains or contributes to children’s difficulties at schools or daycares.

What I have come to realize is that most teachers and parents are focused on ‘behaviours’ and want ‘misbehaving’ go away.  It is sometimes seen that educators give attention to social/relational conditions that maintain children’s misbehaving. Most parents and educators have been trained to use ‘behavioural management techniques’ to solve children’s social/ relational problems.  They mostly complain about its ineffectiveness to bring about change to children’s behaviours. The most well known technique that is often used in our educational system is ‘the reward system’.

“The reward system’ has a long history. It goes back to the early 20th century when behavioural psychologists such as Pavlov and Skinner experimented and invented terms such as ‘classical condition and operant condition’. “Operant conditioning” is a form of learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form its own behavior due to the reinforcement of the behaviour. Operant behavior “operates” on the environment and is maintained by its reinforcement and punishment. Classical Conditioning is when two stimuli are presented in close succession repeatedly, until the response given to one becomes associated with the other”. (Wikipedia)

In my consultation meetings with parents and educators, I invite them to talk about the downside and upside of using ‘the reward system’ when interacting with children.  It is acknowledged that ‘the reward system’ might be useful when it is practiced with very young children- under 4 years old; however, it doesn’t seem to work for older children.

‘The reward system’ focuses on building and strengthening “I-It” (Martin Buber) relationships between children and caregivers/educators.  “The reward system’ supports children to have and maintain relationships with objects/ desired rewards. It objectifies children’s relationships with adults and makes children think that adults are means to achieving their desired objects/rewards.

As you see, it is very difficult to break the relationship between ‘children and rewards’ when this relationship is protected and nurtured by many players such as primary caregivers and educators and in a larger context, by our dominant culture; consumerism and individualism.

This is the problem that most parents and educators face, today, and often talk about in my consultation meetings.  Parents and educators, like children, are caught into this pattern of ‘I-It” (Martin Buber) as well.  “I-It” pattern of relationship is a pattern that promotes instant gratification, use of means to achieve desired ends, and disconnection from personal relational and social ethics.

Continuing to use and teach ‘the reward system’ in our educational system will have long lasting negative effects on our society as a whole; it prevents parents and educators to disentangle their relationships from the “I-It” pattern; it slows down the process of supporting children to build relationships based on “I-You” and “I-Thou” as Martin Buber suggests as a way of re-valuing human relationships and re-constructing our society based on humanitarian values and principles.

Initiating conversations on the negative effects of ‘the reward system’ on children, parents and educators is essential. We need to be open to exploring and incorporating patterns of ‘I-You’ and ‘I- Thou’ in our relationships with children. We need to engage each other into conversations to give more attention to the importance of ‘concept development’ and formation of values and ethics in our children’s lives.

In my consultation meetings with parents and educators, we cultivate, collect and circulate ideas and knowledge to help children internalize concepts such as respect, empathy, sharing and so forth. Our hope is our conversations will have ripple effects on other aspects of children and educators’ lives and reduce social/ relational problems in children’s lives in a long run.

I would like to encourage you to give some thought to this matter and invite others to be open to reviewing, debating and changing the dominant pattern of “I-It” in our interactions with ourselves and others and also be supportive of the alternative pattern of relationship/communication, “I-Thou”, with one another.

Happy Possibilities!

Tahereh Barati

 

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What Motivates People?

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by Tahereh Barati, PhD in Reflection, videos

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Tags

autonomy, mastery, motivation, people, punishment, purpose, reflection, reward, science

What do you think motivates people to do their tasks?

Do you think ‘Reward and Punishment’ approach works? Do you think people with higher rewards are more motivated to do their job?

What about the role of ‘purpose and autonomy’ in human motivation? Do you think people with ‘purpose and autonomy’ are more motivated?

Here is Don Pink talking about the Surprising Science of Human Motivation:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Happy Possibilities!!

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