The behavior of children and nations.

My five-year daughter Sadie is strong, cunning, and determined. She often conforms herself into a position for success, she wants to win. Humans compete. She is nature in its purest form. This pure form of nature can sometimes go overboard in her endeavor for success, and her childhood perception of that success is quite off too. She thinks getting one more M&M than her twin sister Ellie is success, while her sister is happy to give it up. Yes, that’s right, she wants to win even when no one else is playing. Sadie is also an extremely emotional and bright girl. She’s empathetic and kind (when not competing), she’s me before I learned how to be an adult. Her natural side has made her adaptable, smart, kind, and empathetic, but it’s also made her overly competitive which if unchecked can lead to irrational behavior. Her cunning and smarts have taught her that she can affect others behavior with her actions. This behavior is often displayed in children in the form of whining. Sadie is a whinner. Why is Sadie a whiner? Well, parenting is hard and sometimes it’s easier to give in to a little whine than deal with the potential temper tantrum. Emotionally intelligent and competitive children pick up on this “weakness”. They want to win. How do we fix this as a parent? Love. Always love and patience. And discipline. Strict structured timeouts enforced consistently can have a big impact on an emotionally intelligent and competitive child. They want to win, and they can’t win when they aren’t on the field. And just as they see “weakness” they will see strength in patience.

This does not come without challenges. Expect to hear lots of tantrums, screaming, crying and maybe even the dreaded “H” word (hate). Over time it will get easier as the child becomes more comfortable in the new structure. The child is uncomfortable. The child is intelligent enough to naturally compete with their parent but not understanding as to why. When Sadie whined and I gave in, she thought that’s what whining did, just like when she was a baby and cried when hungry. But at this development stage she was able to adapt whining into a tool to get whatever she wanted. When I took her tool away, I made her environment uncomfortable. Her tool was her power, and she did not want to give it up.

When applying this structure, it’s important to explain why the timeouts are occurring. At five Sadie understands far more than I will ever know. She needs to know that whining is not acceptable behavior. Sadie was not aware the reason Ellie gives up her M&M’s so easily is because Ellie loves Sadie and Ellie doesn’t want Sadie to feel bad. When Ellie hears the whining, she wants to sooth her sister. She wants to make her happy. This is a natural human response. Humans Love. At this development stage Sadie puts her competitive side over her empathetic side and because of that, Ellie gets less candy. When Sadie is explained this after timeout when she’s calmed down, she feels bad and apologizes to her sister. Humans Love when they understand. The next time this behavior occurs and Sadie whines to get Ellie’s candy, we remind her that hurts Ellie. Sadie can now reason and empathize with Ellie and because of that, she acquiesces. This takes some reenforcing but overall, it’s easy because it’s all very natural. It’s who people are and when we understand each other we can coexist better.

So, what does this have to do with Russia? Well, nations are run by people and so, they behave like people. Some people may be adults, but they behave like children. Russia is a nation and nations behave like people and people behave like children. Russia is child. Let’s look at what’s happening. Russia is attempting to take more than what they own. How do we stop this behavior? Discipline. Patience. And Love.

Discipline—America needs to set the rules. And then enforce them with an international coalition.

Patience-- We have already seen false flag set ups and threat of nuclear war. Adult temper tantrums can look scary but don’t overreact, remember we are the adults.

Love—The Russian people are not our enemy. We should love them. They have been strongarmed by a madman. Our success will be determined by the love we provide the people inside of Russia. Our love can change the nations behavior.

Putin understands that global dominance is a numbers game. The more nations on his side the stronger his team is. Some nations may feel weak or disrespected and seeing Russia take more than they are owed without having their behavior properly disciplined, may lead them to follow Russia. Russia does not have the capabilities to defeat the world in a military conflict, but they do have the tools to manipulate and distract us while they gain support for a future conflict. In 2019 the Mueller report detailed the depths the Russian Government went in sowing division in our nation through legacy media and social media.  Their behavior wasn’t corrected, and they’ve continued working at dividing us, and now they are asserting their strength to gain global support. They want us divided because that makes us weak. They used our freedom as a weapon against us and now we need to use our reason against them. We need to take this seriously and stop pretending like it’s not a big deal. Their tool is manipulation that divides us. We can take it away by coming together. We need mom and dad to get on the same page, stay focused on discipline, patience, and love.

Take away the tool, take away the power.