Involution Labs

Tag: mental-health

  • How to Love Your Body

    We spend a lot of our lives worrying about how our bodies look. Not because we chose to—but because, somewhere along the way, we learned that how we look matters more than how we feel.

    We learn it early. At home, in school, and later through social media. It’s not always said out loud, but it’s there—in comments, comparisons, and the quiet understanding that some bodies are “better” than others. Over time, this voice becomes our own. We stop questioning it and start believing it’s just the truth.

    But what if it isn’t?

    We are all living in different bodies, yet most of us grow up feeling like the one we have isn’t quite right—that there’s always a better version we should be working toward. And so, we spend our time trying to fix something that was never broken.

    The female body is incredible. It can lose blood every month and keep going. It can grow a life and bring it into the world. And still, too many girls grow up feeling like their bodies are something to fix.

    The male body is incredible too. Strong, capable, resilient. And still, too many boys grow up believing their bodies are something to hide or be ashamed of.

    Somewhere along the way, we learned to look at our bodies as problems instead of partners.

    Instead of criticising your body, what if you started speaking to it differently?

    • Thank you for keeping my heart beating, even when it was broken.
    • Thank you for every instinct I felt in my gut.
    • Thank you for keeping me standing when I felt like falling.
    • Thank you for staying with me, even when I pushed you away.
    • Thank you for carrying me through everything I’ve lived through.

    Your body has been there for you your entire life. It has never left you, no matter how you’ve treated it.

    Spend time seeing your body as it is. Not dressed, not hidden—just as it exists. It’s hard to feel comfortable in something you avoid looking at. Wrinkles, lines, scars, marks, softness, changes—they are not flaws. They are evidence. They are signs of a body that has lived.

    Your body is not something to decorate. It’s something that carries you.

    Don’t restrict food in a way that punishes your body. It won’t cooperate—it will push back. Your body is not against you. It’s always trying to support you, even when you’re not listening.

    Stop forcing yourself into things that don’t feel right, whether that’s food, clothes, or expectations. Wear what makes you feel good. Eat what feels right for you. Live in a way that works with your body, not against it.

    If social media makes it harder, step back. You don’t need to constantly see bodies that make you question your own. You are allowed to create space for yourself.

    Your body was never the problem. The way you were taught to see it was.

    Start small. Once a week, write down something you appreciate about your body—not for how it looks, but for what it has done for you.

    Your body is your home. It’s where you live your entire life.

    It deserves your respect.
    It deserves your care.

    And so do you.

  • Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Rethinking Age and Technology

    I wrote this piece six years ago, but reading it now, the core questions about digital inclusion and ageing still feel unresolved.

    Ageing in a Digital Society: Bridging the Digital Generational Divide

    Who is the first person you think of when you hear the term digital native?
    Most people imagine a young person who grew up in the digital age, someone for whom technology is a natural part of everyday life. Rarely do we picture an older adult who grew up in a world shaped by analogue media rather than digital information networks.

    Older adults are often described as digital immigrants, but is a simple age comparison enough to tell us anything meaningful about their relationship with technology? Not really. Age offers only a superficial explanation and often leads to the assumption that older adults resist technological change.

    The reality is more complex. Experience with technology and how it is used tell us far more about the digital divide than age alone. Older people are not necessarily resisting change. They are navigating a rapidly evolving technological landscape and making sense of it in their own way. Digital natives should invite digital immigrants into this world rather than assuming they will learn everything by themselves. Helping older adults participate in digital life benefits everyone.

    Surveys about technology use frequently group everyone over the age of 55 into a single category. This approach overlooks the diversity within older populations and reduces complex experiences to a single number.

    Finland and Ireland

    Ireland is often described as a young country in demographic terms, with around 13.4% of the population aged 65 and over. Finland, by contrast, is one of the oldest populations in Europe, with the fastest-growing age group being those aged 85 and over.

    Interestingly, Finland is also a leading country in the implementation of digital technologies in public services. Ireland, despite its younger population, has historically been less digitally integrated in many areas of public life.

    This suggests that digital inclusion is not simply about age, but about how societies approach technology. When older adults are treated as outsiders to technological change, they are more likely to be excluded from the systems being built around them. Too often, support takes the form of doing things for people rather than with them, which can reduce independence.

    Older adults who cannot use digital technologies may feel alienated from the society they helped build.

    In Finland, around 80% of senior citizens use the internet daily, while in Ireland the figure has been significantly lower. As more social and administrative activities move online, people who rarely use the internet risk becoming increasingly excluded from everyday life.

    Digitalisation and the Ageing Process

    Digitalisation has the potential to make ageing easier, not harder. Online services can simplify tasks such as banking, communication, healthcare access, and everyday administration. Yet older adults are often treated as an afterthought in the design of these systems.

    Older adults have different expectations and needs, but they still want to live independently and participate fully in society. Many are willing to learn new technologies, yet the devices and interfaces they encounter are rarely designed with their experiences in mind.

    Younger users often type quickly using both hands on small touchscreens. For older adults, small text, sensitive touchscreens, and complex menus can make even simple tasks frustrating. Constantly correcting errors or navigating unclear interfaces can quickly discourage use.

    Digitalisation has transformed almost every aspect of modern life, yet the ageing process is rarely considered during technology development. In the tech industry, people sometimes joke that you are considered “old” at forty. It is not surprising that the needs of older adults are often overlooked in design.

    Understanding the Digital World

    For many older adults, learning to use technology is not just about operating a device. They want to understand the broader changes happening around them.

    Keeping up with every development can be difficult, but building a basic understanding helps people feel more confident. What older adults often want is clear explanation without condescension.

    No one enjoys being treated as though they are back in school.

    Older adults want to accomplish tasks independently. They want to understand concepts such as the difference between computer memory and cloud storage in straightforward language. Technology should simplify life, not make it more confusing.

    Designing a More Inclusive Digital Society

    Digital services must be designed so that everyone can use them. This means access to support, opportunities to develop digital skills, and systems that take diverse needs into account.

    Digital inclusion is not just about access to devices. It also involves affordability, design, training, and support.

    Older adults often express concerns about privacy and sharing personal information online. While these concerns are understandable, fear-based messaging can discourage participation. Balanced education about digital safety is more helpful than alarmist warnings.

    Access also has a financial dimension. Many older people cannot afford the devices or internet connections required to participate fully in digital life. Without careful policy design, digitalisation risks widening inequalities.

    When designing digital systems, several factors should be considered:

    • training and support that help older adults maintain independence
    • affordable access to devices and internet services
    • recognition of diversity within older populations
    • age-friendly design, including readable text and accessible interfaces
    • clear instructions written in simple language
    • intuitive software that reduces unnecessary complexity
    • transition periods that allow time to adapt

    Older adults’ physical, social, and cognitive abilities must be taken into account when designing technology and the services built around it.

    A Society for All Ages

    The global population is ageing, and technology has the potential to support people in staying connected, active, and engaged throughout their lives. Digital tools can help people remain independent, access healthcare more easily, and continue working longer if they wish.

    However, digitalisation must be implemented carefully. If systems are designed without considering older adults, technology risks reinforcing ageism and inequality rather than reducing them.

    Inclusive design benefits everyone. When digital systems are built with a wide range of users in mind, they become easier and more effective for all.

    A truly digital society should not leave anyone behind.

  • Choosing to Live for Yourself

    At some point in life, many people confront a difficult question: why am I living the life I’m living?

    For some, the answer is simple. For others, the answer is less clear. Life can become a series of expectations — from family, society, culture, or circumstance. We follow paths that others believe are right for us: school, career, marriage, stability. Often these paths work well. But sometimes they leave people feeling that their life no longer belongs to them.

    When people feel powerless or trapped in roles that do not reflect who they are, despair can follow. Sociologists have long argued that weak social ties, isolation, and lack of belonging can deepen this sense of disconnection. When a person feels they have no control over their life, they may begin to question its meaning.

    Yet this crisis can also become a turning point.

    Confronting the limits of one’s life can force a deeper question: What do I actually want? The moment someone realises that they have the right to live differently can be the first step toward reclaiming their life.

    Living authentically does not mean rejecting others or abandoning responsibility. It means recognising that a meaningful life cannot be built entirely on the expectations of others. At some point, people must decide that their life is their own.

    Not everyone will follow the same path. Parenting is not for everyone. University is not for everyone. A traditional career is not for everyone. Some people find meaning through relationships and family; others find it through creativity, independence, or solitude.

    What matters is not the specific path but the freedom to choose it.

    Learning to listen to oneself,  to understand one’s own values, limits, and desires, is an important step toward living authentically. When people begin to see themselves as worthy of care and respect, they may find new reasons to live differently and more fully.

    Life does not always unfold according to the scripts society provides. But that does not make it meaningless. Sometimes meaning appears only when we take responsibility for our own lives and begin to shape them consciously.

    Choosing to live for yourself is not selfish.

    It is the beginning of an authentic life.

  • Nilly’s Speech (Echoes of my Other Self)

    You tell us childhood is the best time of our lives.

    Then you spend it controlling us.

    You call it protection.
    You call it structure.
    You call it education.

    But protection without listening is imprisonment.
    Structure without consent is control.
    Education without voice is conditioning.

    You say children must be shaped.

    Shaped into what?

    Obedient students.
    Polite citizens.
    Manageable humans.

    You measure us in grades before we understand ourselves.
    You diagnose us when we don’t adapt fast enough.
    You reward silence and call it maturity.

    And then you wonder why so many of us grow up disconnected from who we are.

    You say school prepares us for life.

    But life is happening now.

    When you force a child to sit still while their mind burns with questions,
    you are not teaching discipline —
    you are teaching self-doubt.

    When you tell a child their feelings are dramatic,
    you are not building resilience —
    you are building shame.

    When you insist that compliance equals goodness,
    you are not raising moral people —
    you are raising people who fear their own voice.

    You say it is necessary.
    You say the system works.
    You say this is how it has always been.

    But children are not raw material.
    We are not unfinished adults.
    We are whole people in smaller bodies.

    Childhood is not a rehearsal for life.
    It is life.

    And when you control every hour, every movement, every thought we are allowed to express,
    you teach us one dangerous lesson:

    That belonging is conditional.

    That love must be earned through obedience.

    That survival requires shrinking.

    Some children shrink so well you call them “good.”
    Some children refuse — and you call them “difficult.”

    But maybe the difficult child is the honest one.

    Maybe the child who questions is not broken.
    Maybe the child who resists forced happiness is not sick.

    Maybe the system is uncomfortable because the child is telling the truth.

    You cannot legislate curiosity.
    You cannot medicate individuality.
    You cannot punish a spirit into health.

    If you truly care about children,
    stop asking how to control them.

    Ask instead:

    What are we afraid of when a child speaks freely?

    Why does a questioning child threaten an adult system?

    And why do we protect systems more fiercely than we protect the hearts inside them?

    Children do not need more control.

    We need:
    Time.
    Respect.
    Choice.
    Love that does not withdraw when we disagree.

    If you want a better future,
    do not shape us into compliance.

    Listen.

    Because the child who feels heard
    does not need to rebel to survive.

    And the child who is allowed to belong
    does not need to disappear to escape.

  • Don’t take a photo if you want to remember

    Presence is the memory

    I’ve had a smartphone for years. I do take photos. Just not of everything — and I don’t share them with everyone.

    The problem isn’t photography. It’s what happens when documenting replaces paying attention. The moment a camera comes out, something shifts. We start framing instead of feeling, managing instead of being present. The camera doesn’t just record the moment; it changes it.

    Some experiences imprint themselves precisely because they are fully lived. When we rely on photos to remember, we often remember less. Attention gets outsourced. Memory weakens. If the phone is doing the remembering for us, we don’t have to.

    When my son and I talk about Paris, we don’t scroll through images. We describe it to each other. What we noticed. How it felt. What stayed. The memory lives in language, not pixels. It remains active, shared, alive.

    What unsettles me isn’t the photo itself, but the need to show everything. Why does every moment require an audience? Why do we feel compelled to prove that we were somewhere, that something mattered? And why does the approval — the likes, the hearts — feel so good?

    That rush is not harmless. It trains us to measure experience by reaction rather than meaning. Moments become performances. Memory becomes external, dependent on validation.

    I take photos when something calls for it. I keep many of them private. Some I never looked at again. They exist as quiet markers, not content. And many moments are left unrecorded entirely — because they deserve full attention.

    Not everything needs to be captured.
    Not everything needs to be shared.
    Some things are meant to be remembered by being lived.

  • The Introvert in the Corporate Classroom: Navigating an Extroverted Workplace

    In many large corporations, the workplace resembles a school environment—one where systems reward compliance and punish deviation. Performance reviews, bonuses, and penalties function like grades and detentions, shaping how employees navigate their roles. The corporate classroom, much like the school or university classroom, is built for those who thrive on visibility, conformity, and constant performance. For those who prefer quiet reflection and work best in small, intentional collaborations, it feels less like a workplace and more like a grind.

    This environment is particularly unforgiving for people whose strengths are depth, discernment, and independent thinking. The system does not merely overlook these traits—it actively misreads them.

    The Classroom Dynamic

    Modern corporate environments often operate like a perpetual classroom. Employees are continuously assessed, compared, and ranked using metrics that rarely capture the full scope of their contribution. The emphasis is not on understanding how work is done, but on whether it is seen being done.

    From day one, employees are evaluated on how quickly they absorb company culture and mirror expected behaviours. The onboarding process floods new hires with policies, acronyms, and frameworks, creating not just information overload but cognitive dissonance. Rules are presented as fixed, yet applied inconsistently. Seeking clarity can feel risky. Asking the “wrong” question, or asking it in the “wrong” forum, can quietly mark someone as difficult or slow.

    In this corporate classroom, confusion is framed as personal failure rather than a structural flaw. The result is an atmosphere where people feel constantly observed but rarely supported.

    Reward, Punishment, and the Cost of Visibility

    Performance reviews function as report cards, but the grading criteria are opaque. Praise is often tied less to the quality of work and more to how seamlessly someone conforms to expectations—communication style, responsiveness, enthusiasm, and deference.

    Punishment rarely arrives dramatically. It begins subtly: lukewarm feedback, contradictory expectations, or criticism framed as “developmental” but aimed squarely at personality or working style. An employee might be told they should have followed a stricter chain of command, while previously being encouraged to show initiative. Seeking clarity outside one’s immediate team can later be framed as overstepping.

    Over time, these mixed signals erode confidence. Small mistakes are magnified, while systemic inefficiencies remain unaddressed. For those who are less performative—who focus on the work rather than on being seen working—the message becomes clear: visibility matters more than substance.

    Age, Experience and Managed Infantilisation

    For older or more experienced employees, adapting to this corporate classroom can be especially disorienting. Professionals who once operated with autonomy find themselves micromanaged, reassigned without consultation, or required to “demonstrate flexibility” in ways that feel less like growth and more like compliance.

    The expectation to constantly adapt—to new tools, new terminology, unspoken communication norms—creates an exhausting baseline. Experience is not leveraged; it is often treated as resistance. Critical thinking is tolerated only when it doesn’t slow momentum. The implicit instruction is simple: fit in quickly, keep quiet, and perform as instructed, regardless of the personal cost.

    The Misnomer of Leadership

    In many corporate environments, “team leader” is a generous title. “Team manager” would be more accurate. Leadership, in the sense of fostering trust, protecting dissent, and developing people, is rare. What dominates instead is control: metrics, micromanagement, and rigid oversight of repetitive, unglamorous work.

    As in classrooms, managers have favourites. Those who perform enthusiasm, mirror opinions, and intuit unspoken expectations are given the benefit of the doubt. Their mistakes are contextualised, their potential highlighted, their loyalty rewarded with opportunities.

    Meanwhile, employees who focus on substance rather than social positioning—who ask difficult questions or point out inefficiencies—receive a different kind of attention. Their work may be solid or even exceptional, but because they do not engage in performative alignment, they are met with muted recognition at best and persistent criticism at worst.

    Performance evaluations become exercises in perception management. Just as in school, the quiet high-performer is eclipsed by the visible conformist. Leadership, in practice, becomes less about nurturing talent and more about reinforcing hierarchy.

    Not Everyone Thrives—and That’s Structural, Not Personal

    Corporate rhetoric often claims to encourage authenticity, but this is usually conditional. Creativity is welcome only when it aligns neatly with existing frameworks. Questioning the system itself is treated as disruption rather than engagement.

    Some employees thrive in this structure, just as some students thrive in rigid academic environments. Others—those who challenge assumptions, propose alternative approaches, or resist constant acceleration—wither. Over time, they are marginalised, managed out, or quietly let go. The irony is sharp in organisations that publicly celebrate innovation while privately punishing deviation.

    Morale Management: Cupcakes and Clichés

    The most telling feature of the corporate classroom is how morale is managed. The language alone gives it away: “Thank God it’s Friday,” “over the hump Wednesday,” “nearly there.” These phrases don’t energise work; they acknowledge its monotony. The shared goal becomes endurance, not engagement.

    On particularly difficult days, morale is boosted with cupcakes, ice cream, or a pick-and-mix stand. The gesture is familiar—school rewards repackaged for adults. Sugar replaces structural change. A brief lift is offered instead of meaningful reflection on why the work feels so draining in the first place.

    The message is subtle but clear: the grind is normal, dissatisfaction is expected, and small treats should be enough to keep people going.

    The Illusion—and the Exit

    Like universities, large corporations maintain a façade of excitement and possibility. Rebranding, new titles, and team restructures create the appearance of progress while leaving the underlying work unchanged. The pace is framed as “dynamic,” though it serves efficiency more than fulfilment.

    Eventually, some people leave. Not because they failed, but because they refused to be mismeasured. Walking away is often framed as weakness or lack of resilience, but in reality it can be an act of clarity. It is a refusal to stay in an environment that equates worth with visibility, obedience, and endurance.

    Those who exit are not giving up. They are choosing alignment—seeking spaces where depth is valued, autonomy is trusted, and contribution is measured by substance rather than performance. Leaving the corporate classroom is not an escape from work; it is a rejection of a system that mistakes conformity for competence.

  • CURRICULUM VITAE — FAILURES EDITION

    Because the highlight reel doesn’t tell the whole story.

    Name: Tina Brescanu
    Objective: To keep showing up, learning and creating.

    Experience

    Job Seeker (since redundancy)
    • Applied for hundreds of jobs; secured a handful of interviews.
    • No offers yet — but learned the art of resilience and rewriting cover letters in my sleep.

    A Stint in the Corporate World
    • Failed to fit in, didn’t understand the jargon, and couldn’t appreciate the infantilisation of adults in the workplace.
    • Allergic to KPIs, buzzwords, performance reviews, “circle back,” “touch base,” and other corporate rituals.
    • Learned that pretend urgency and scheduled enthusiasm are not my natural habitat.
    • In hindsight, redundancy wasn’t failure — it was freedom.

    Author — 20+ Books (ongoing)
    • Wrote over twenty books, none of which became bestsellers.
    • Consistently failed at marketing because writing felt more meaningful than algorithms.
    • Created Involution Labs as a way to store all my far-out ideas — not a failure, but something that grew out of failure. It became a way of holding myself accountable, and now I’m designing courses from that ever-expanding creative ecosystem.

    Various Online Work (survival era)
    • Took on various online work during difficult periods, including emotional labour and boundary-testing roles that taught me more about human psychology than any textbook ever could.
    • Learned resilience, communication, and the courage to navigate unconventional spaces.

    Print Journalist Trainee
    • Trained for a world of ink and presses… just as the industry went digital.
    • Failed to build the professional network needed to pivot when everything changed.

    Full-Time Parent (career break)
    • Managed small humans with complex needs and strong opinions.
    • Gained skills in management, conflict resolution, diplomacy, advocacy, and negotiating with multiple authorities.
    • Failed to convince employers these were “real” workplace skills.

    Early Career Misstep (mid-90s, Ireland)
    • Posted a job ad titled “Swedish girl looking for work.”
    • Failed to anticipate the replies this would generate.
    • Learned the importance of precise wording.

    Early Education + Work Life Wanderer
    • Left school early, failed to get on the straight-and-narrow career path.
    • Moved from one job to the next — quirky, fun, physically demanding work like grave digging, baking and farming.
    • Moved from town to city, from Sweden to Finland, and eventually Ireland.
    • Didn’t get the posh job. Cleaned toilets in a caravan park in Wexford before starting in the home care business, where I failed to keep a “professional distance” and instead made friends with everyone I encountered.

    Education

    • Learned that success is never linear.
    • Learned that failure isn’t the opposite of success,  it’s part of it.

    References

    My children — they can vouch for my authentic parenting style, and will give both the positive and the negative, because authentic parenting is about being real.

  • Love Education

    Love Education

    None of us is shown or taught how to love, but we should be. We may learn facts and skills in life, but rarely do we learn the deeper skill of loving. We can choose to live without sex, but we can’t live without love. How to love deeply and broadly is what we need—and what the Earth needs too. We must learn how to love strangers, how to love nature, and how to love everything we encounter.

    Our goal in life should be to make love. Not just in the romantic or physical sense, but in the way we move through the world. We can learn to live in love without being in love. Turning living into loving is a lifelong path.

    Yet society’s idea of love often misleads us. We are taught that love is something that happens to us, a reaction when we encounter something “deserving” of love. But deep love is not a rare event to wait for—it is something we practice. Don’t wait for the big love. Love the ordinary people and the small things. Loving the ordinary makes it extraordinary. Saving your love until something better comes along is not loving at all.

    If your culture has taught you to hold back—to wait, to make sure who or whatever is “worthy” before you give love—what are you losing out on? Love is not a prize to be earned. Love is a decision. Love is action. Love is a choice you make again and again. And there is no need to be loved back in order to love.

    We should also be careful not to mistake love for its imitations. To seduce is to lead astray—to try to make someone become who we want them to be, instead of loving who they really are.

    True love goes deeper. True love is core love. True love is mutual love. We don’t simply fall in love—we practice love. To love takes energy, especially when love awakens feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, or vulnerability. Real love takes work.

    And yet, this work transforms us. When we are courageous enough to be ourselves with another, to grow and change together, love keeps growing. Passion can ripen into something more real when we dare to take the risk of loving fully. Because real love changes us.

    It is only when we dare to have our heart broken that we can truly love. True love gives and forgives.

  • We’re All Part of the Broken Family

    I read your words, and I felt something shift—not in the way I imagine you intended. You said what you needed to say, and I suppose this is me doing the same. Skriva av mig.

    You write with the tone of someone who’s already moved on, who’s emotionally detached and looking back at the wreckage from a safe, elevated distance. But I didn’t feel wisdom in your letter. I didn’t feel love. I felt something performative. Something self-satisfied. You used to be someone I admired for your depth—for your ability to hold contradictions, for your courage to look at the mess and not turn away. This felt like the opposite. This felt like someone writing to win a crowd, not seek the truth.

    You compared America to a mentally ill family member. That’s not philosophy, that’s pathologizing a people. That’s taking the worst of one nation and building a metaphor that makes everyone else the sane, stable, rational grownups. Europe becomes the wise wife. Canada, the pretty girl next door. Russia, the neighbourhood monster. And you? You’re the knowing observer, shaking your head in sorrow from your morally secure porch.

    You’ve written off an entire nation as if it’s a single consciousness—chaotic, erratic, no longer trustworthy. That’s not just lazy, it’s dangerous. It flattens the millions of people in that country who are fighting the good fight. Who are pushing back. Who are trying to hold something together while the ground shifts beneath them. You saw the storm, and instead of offering a rope, you stepped back to watch.

    And meanwhile, Europe—your golden child in this metaphor—gets a free pass. No mention of its own ongoing nationalism. No mention of how it’s leaned on the US for security, convenience, and political cover for decades. No mention of its own violent history or its complicity in the very global order you now denounce. It’s easier, I guess, to pretend Europe is rising like a phoenix while America flails.

    But this isn’t healing. This isn’t insight. It’s resignation dressed up as moral clarity.

    You say you haven’t given up on America, that your door is open. But everything in your letter says otherwise. You’ve already packed the bags, changed the locks, and started dating someone new. What remains is the guilt talking, not the love.

    I don’t say this as a flag-waver or an apologist. I see the mess. I feel the grief. But I also see the reductionism, the projection, the convenient forgetting. And that—coming from someone who claims to be a philosopher—is what stings the most.

    If you want to walk away, fine. But don’t pretend it’s out of compassion. And don’t pretend you’re not part of the same broken family.

    We all are.

  • Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    We need to understand children to understand ourselves. We carry the child within and they carry the adult within. Adults are not superior. We are just further along the life course than they are.

    The Family as the Crucible of Socialisation

    Family is our first socialisation process and the one that will have the most impact and last the longest. Socialisation is extremely important not just to become a human but to find one’s place within society and throughout different stages of the life course. Family is the nucleus of society, it’s the smallest part of society and if the family doesn’t work, society doesn’t work.

    Childhood is when we become humans, and parents do the most important part of socialisation. When the first five years are gone, parents might doubt whether they have done a good job, but don’t worry, your job is not done and it’s never too late to become a better parent, as well as a better teacher and a better friend. Socialisation is a lifelong process.

    The socialisation process is an interactive process that most of us do without thinking, but we should because it’s how we become who we are. In our diverse culture, it’s important to make space to understand differences but also question them. We all come from different cultures, but we live in the same country. We must talk about what happens when we parent without purpose and when we continue to do what was done to us without questioning it. This is not about judging different cultural practices but reaching conclusions as to how we can bring our children through childhood into adulthood in the best possible way.

    We tell children to not grow up so fast, to enjoy childhood, but when children start school, a place where only a few thrive, most cope and survive, some children want to escape childhood. School is like a soft prison. Children start school as early as age 4, and in most countries won’t be released until they are 16. Leaving at this age won’t guarantee a job or a fulfilling future, so many continue until their mid-twenties and some don’t start working until their early thirties.

    The Schooling Dilemma

    Fear of school can be a healthy expression of an unhealthy environment. Not fitting in doesn’t have to lead to school shootings or a terrorist mindset. A pressure cooker mindset can come from maladaptive socialisation and a refusal to listen to a child who doesn’t fit in. The child knows. We need to listen to children.

    We know children need love, play and imagination, but school kills what sustains us on the life course. In school, children learn to compete for grades and rewards. They learn that failure is their fault and they also learn gender roles which can be too strict because while we’re all either male or female, we also contain both female and male energy. If you are a tomboy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine. If you are a feminine boy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine.

    Teachers are doing a difficult job too; they are stuck in a system that refuses to change. We live in a different era from when school began.

    We all have to breathe to listen to understand our children. Instead of talking down, let’s sit down and listen to how our children experience life. We can design a new blueprint for life by listening to the experts on how they wish they could be treated. Culture is the software and society is the hardware. If we don’t scrutinise what we teach, we could end up with a society no one wants to live in.

    Children and young people need boundaries. Absolute freedom isn’t liberating, it’s paralyzing. We all have to learn to follow rules and the law, but also when to question it, and when to protest it. Children don’t need authoritarian parents or teachers. We can lead with authority without being dictators. We must admit that socialisation is an interactive process, we learn from those we teach too.

    Listening to the Voices of Children

    We must listen to our children because we don’t always know best. No one knows a child better than the child. We can be authoritative adults while still listening. We need a listening society.

    We all want what’s best for our children, but many of us disagree on how to achieve that. Teachers have training on how to teach and how to control large groups of children and teens, but parents do it by how it was done to them. How would society change if we parented with purpose? If we went to parenting classes on how to be the best parents we can be? Family is for life and so will some friendships, but while it’s important to have close friendships as children grow and move towards independence, parents continue to matter, so hold on to your children because many will go through an identity crisis in their early adulthood and your support will be as important if not more important than their peers.

    Of course, peers are important in the socialisation process and even more so friends, some who might become lifelong friends. Peers provide emotional support. Peers teach us who we are by reinforcing or punishing behaviours and social interactions. Peers show each other who they are, don’t want to be or aspire to be. Peers teach how to conform and adjust in a group setting. Peers help in the confusing search for an identity, but belonging to a group also creates tension. Peer pressure happens when a person searches for an identity outside of the accepted norms and values of the in-group.

    Challenging Cultural Norms and Redefining Parenthood

    There is intended and unintended socialisation and unintended socialisation is more powerful. If you want your child to grow up honest, you can’t lie, not even a little bit, you have to practice radical honesty or your child will eventually find out and dismiss your teachings. You have to walk the talk.

    Childhood is too short for parents and too long for children. We say don’t grow up too fast, but children don’t want to be trapped in childhood for as long as we want them to be, there is nothing magic about pretending after five or six years of age. Some parent insists on making up magic and discarding the magic of reality, but children must live in reality and the more we tell the truth in an appropriate to development way, we help them to thrive in life.

    The Authentic Child