Episodes
Friday Feb 19, 2021
Compassion and giving people the benefit of the doubt
Friday Feb 19, 2021
Friday Feb 19, 2021
We live in an interconnected world. Cultural differences can sometimes cause offense where none is intended. Give people the benefit of the doubt that they mean well and don’t assume they are horrible people. If we all treat each other with compassion we can learn from and honor each others differences and work past the inevitable faux pas that occur.
Thursday Sep 03, 2020
Humility Helps Create Confidence - Humanist Thought of the Week
Thursday Sep 03, 2020
Thursday Sep 03, 2020
My son thinks I'm confident. The reality is - I'm humble. I expect to screw up. I'm ok with screwing up and when I do - I just set about - fixing the problem. That seems like confidence, but it's really just humility.
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Would Jesus call the cops on homeless people in a park?
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Friday Mar 06, 2020
I'm a Humanist - but I do think the question - what would Jesus do - is a good one, because it reminds us to think - not about ourselves, but about how we might be compassionate with others.
Friday Feb 21, 2020
Things I don't want to do
Friday Feb 21, 2020
Friday Feb 21, 2020
There are lots of things I should be doing - but I don't have time to do them all, so - I take all the things I don't want to do - and don't do them. Crazy - I know.
Tuesday Jan 07, 2020
Positive Psychology - and the words "No" and "Stop"
Tuesday Jan 07, 2020
Tuesday Jan 07, 2020
Spoke to teacher, she asked about positive psychology – not allowed to use the word no or stop – as they are negative.
First – words aren’t negative. They are just arbitrary sounds. How you respond can be positive, negative or neutral.
Second, if you positively reinforce a word – it becomes positive, not negative.
Third, Stop and No – should be used as deltas and positively reinforced when the child or person responds positively to it – that’s how you create a positive association with the word instead of a negative one.
Fourth – you may not be able to totally do this – as others probably do use these words as negatives and negatively reinforce them.
Regardless – you do need delta’s and bridges. You just aren’t supposed to respond to a positive response to a delta using a negative response. You want to positively respond to the correct behavior once a delta is issued. All a delta is – is – that wasn’t correct – stop and reset.
Basically focusing on the words and not whether you are positively or negatively responding to them – IS the problem.
Finally – this isn’t “new” – behavioralists have been studying this forever. Every time I come across a positive parenting or positive psychology person – it’s like – they just discovered behavioral psychology – read up on it and don’t fully understand it – but they start teaching it anyway.
I was apprenticed in this and it’s frustrating to listen to teachers who have been through a positive psychology training – a person with a background in clinical psychology a) not have been exposed to behavioral psychology at all and b) not be taught behavioral psychology properly! It underpins everything. Seriously. It does.