Project Choices - The Family Center: Fill & Download for Free

Because in America at least - the parents never learned to cook. I was involved in national projects by the Girl Scout organization ten years ago and this was an up and coming project. If you’ve ever visited a childcare center or pre-school you can easily see that children are not allowed in the kitchen. There are gates and doors so only the adults can pass through into the kitchen. The food “appears” ready to eat. Many children have the same situation at home. Parents are working long days and don’t want to spend their evenings cleaning the kitchen. So they order fast food or work in their kitchen alone to keep the mess to a minimum.The Girl Scout program training was to be focused on threes - three ingredients, three instructions, three minutes, etc. We were to assume that the kitchen in the home wasn’t being used much at all. And that the parents would be against a full grocery store run. We were to assume that the parents themselves didn’t know much about cooking. We found that ten year olds are very interested in learning to cook and are reasonably capable of doing it alone with a little instruction.So, for example, a Girl Scout project would be for the group to see and cook a meal. I ensured that the ingredients were all in their original packaging. The refried beans have to still be in the can so the child can see how they are packaged and have ideas about where to look in the grocery store to find a can. A package of tortillas. Shredded cheese. Maybe some salsa - again with choices in their original packaging so the child can see it comes in a jar or it can come fresh from the produce aisle, etc. Then I made sure we had several choices for cookware. The child is going to have to go home and search their own kitchen to try to find a match. So, I’d have an electric skillet, a cast iron skillet, a cookie sheet that could be used in the oven, etc. Many possible tools could accomplish this job. The child is going to have to improvise with whatever is at home. We would cook. It would be delicious because they made it themselves and had pride in their accomplishment. And we would clean up the mess.The goal was that the child would have the tools to convince a parent to stop at the grocery store, let the child run in and do the shopping for those few ingredients and then the child would cook alone and provide a meal for the family. The hope was that after a few of these successful and delicious family meals without stress - the parent would be ready to branch out into gradual steps of more cooking at home. Or at least let the child branch out into more recipes. It would become a treasured family activity rather than a chore the parent wanted to avoid. Step by step, the kitchen might become part of the family again.By the way, ten year olds are AWESOME! Don’t miss that stage with your children. They are interested in EVERYTHING and have lots of energy to discover and try things. They will still listen to adult so they can learn new skills. They are capable of way more than we give them credit for, confident in their skills to do things, don’t have to be watched so closely because they do understand basic safety and cleanliness. And sadly, that phase quickly shifts to the teen stage of not wanting to do anything or participate in anything where they take the chance of being embarrassed (which is everything, which is LIFE). As a Girl Scout council, we were always looking at ways to make any of programs originally developed for teens available to ten year olds. Small adaptations led to better programs that were reaching larger numbers of girls. The girls themselves will carry it forward into their teens if they like the concept and have basic tools.

My manager and I were once talking about the beauty of lakes & water bodies in Massachusetts. I was quite surprised when he said most of those water bodies were man made. He said a few generations ago many of them were homes and villages that the government took to build the lakes. What the government did then was probably painful to a few, but overall it helped everyone as the city has copious supply of water.India is now discussing if it should follow the developed world in creating an Eminent domain policy to simplify land acquisition. Read that wiki link to get some background.Also read my previous answers before proceeding into this one:Indian farmers are committing suicide on a day-to-day basis. What decision must the Indian government (under Modi) take to ensure farmers survive?What Is the Future of Farming in India?The problemTo benefit the society as a whole we need to build large infrastructure projects such as lakes, dams, power plants, roads, factories, warehouses and so on. That is the only way out of poverty. There is not a single developed nation that climbed out of poverty without building industries. The question is how do we get the lands to build those projects?Almost every piece of land is occupied. Thus, you need to acquire the land for these projects from someone. Given the highly fragment land ownership in India, you need to deal with not just 1 big land owner, but 1000s of small ones.How much land we need?India has about 2.9 million square kilometers of land area [rest is inland water bodies]. Of these 2.9m, 1.62m square km is in agriculture and about 0.66m square km under forests, leaving less than 0.6 million sq km for other uses - homes, roads, railways, airports factories, markets etc. Forest area (% of land area) in India In this remaining 0.6 million sq km a lot of it is unusuable waste land such as the Rann of Kutch and many inland deserts. Every other piece of usable land is already occupied.Thus, the only way we can build new homes and jobs for millions of our people is by taking agricultural land, sometimes even prime, irrigated agricultural land. And we have a lot of this. At the worst case, less than 10% of the agricultural land will be converted to urban use. This 10% alone would be about 16 million hectares or about 40 million acres. This is more than sufficient for all our new cities, ports, factories etc. Even to acquire this at the current market prices would cost Rs. 60 lakh crores or more. In short, even if someone wanted more of the agricultural land, there is neither money nor use.The rest 90% of the agricultural land would continued to be used for food and we could also rapidly improve the productivity due to all the advancements coming from the industrialization. By getting enough land for homes, factories and roads, it would reduce the price of homes, making home purchases more affordable, while also reducing inflation that hurts the poor.Think of it this way. 1 acre of land when used for agriculture can support 1 family. 1 acre under a factory floor can probably employ 50 or more workers and their families. In short, let us grow world class farming in 1.5 million sq km of our land and build a world class industrial infrastructure in the 0.15 million sq km of the land we would acquire. We can have both.Why can't we just buy the normal way?As I mentioned for each project we have to deal with 100s or even 1000s of sellers. That produces a complex dynamic. What if 990 sellers agree to sell the land and 10 sellers hold out? That would block the project preventing the 990 sellers from having good value for their land as well as not allowing the society to progress.Why don't those 10 people sell at the market price like the others? There could be a variety of reasons:There might be property disputes in the family and no one in a position to call the shots.They might be obstinate or otherwise too sentimentally attached to that piece of soil.There could be caste, religious or other clashes that would prevent the 1000 farmers from dealing with the same buyer.Most importantly, they might be asking for ransom in what the economists call the Holdout problem. That guy with a small land in the center could say that I would give up my land only if you pay me 100 crores. At that point would you either stop the project or pay the ransom? Either thing is unfair to the other people selling at market prices.In summary, it is not always possible to acquire land for major projects by getting everyone agree. This brutally painful process has made India a very difficult place to run business. India ranks at the rank bottom when it comes to being business friendly: http://www.thehindu.com/business/india-ranks-132-on-businessfriendly-reforms-world-bank-report/article2556115.eceThis means, unlike China India doesn't get enough industrial development from both local investors and foreign investors. Tata had to painfully invest abroad as the domestic investments often get bogged by land acquisition. Despite having a large market, India continues to not have industrial development and that prevents us from getting people out of poverty.Remember, the only real way to get people out of poverty is by building industries.Now, we have two choices:Go ahead with the project by forcefully acquiring land from the minority of holdouts.Abort the project and get back to poverty.We have been doing #2 for a long time and have seen China & other countries jump past us. Almost every good economy has a policy for forcefully acquiring land.So, why is this such as problematic one in India compared to other nations:India has a very powerful landed class that has brutal hold over the villages and the politics. This group gets much of the subsidy benefits and benefit at the cost of landless laborers who might be better off moving to the industry. The poor landless farmers are in fact very open to foreign investment & land acquisition. However, they have much less voice. Let me show you one survey on farmers done recently. Look at the attitude difference between landless ones and large farmers.India has an unhealthy fear of private enterprises. Many of us believe that India is somehow friendly to entrepreneurs, while every bit of reality point otherwise. Thus, every time India acquires land to build factories our alarmists jump up and down. This possibly stems from an age old distrust of the merchant castes by the priestly castes.In the name of poor, a small group of landed farming class and an anti-merchant class is holding out ways to acquire land. Without that land acquisition, there won't be industrial development nor moving people out of poverty.This is the decision to makeUltimately we cannot have the cake and eat it too. Either we suffer in the current system with farmers dying everyday & get tortured in poverty or we do what every other successful country have done in the past - industrialization with a forceful land acquisition.Also see: eminent domain | law

Children can’t have NPD or be diagnosed with NPD until they are an adult. Their brain is still developing well into their mid to late 20’s. A personality disorder has to come from a fully-formed personality, which isn’t even possible until the personality is fixed and set into a pervasive pattern of behaviors and traits.NPD is a patterned, predictable personality that is disordered and causes impediments and problems that are repetitive and inflexible. This is a serious mental disorder that only an adult who meets diagnostic criteria and has been evaluated by a trained, certified, mental health professional (preferably a psychiatrist, psychotherapist or a psychologist with expertise in personality disorders), can be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).The other dark cluster-b related disorder of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is often what survivors identify with when both NPD & ASPD are present in a personality disordered person and form what is termed commonly, a malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists are a combination of these two disorders co-occurring or with one disorder primary and strong features of the other present.Narcissistic -type reactions and behaviors are actually normal for the immature and dramatic among us in childhood, adolescence and even young adulthood. Often, at these ages, it is common to be self-focused, self-seeking, sometimes reckless and needing attention to help regulate self- esteem. Without a mature perspective and life experience, narcissistic patterns that seek self- centered solutions and immediate gratification can be alluring. These behaviors displayed can even hurt other people with disregard or due to distracted attention and grandiosity of immature teens or a young twenty two year old for example. This, still is not NPD.This immature behavior is in the normal child- adolescent and immature young adult developmental stage of learning and testing boundaries and choices. Normal maturation takes time and trials and errors to learn. This is where empathy gets its muscles, practice and definition. Personal morality, ethics and defined choices with review of motivations are explored and reasoned out and understood better with time and evaluation.Sometimes people will display some narcissistic traits at times of stress and change. After a “break-up” in an important relationship may be a common time of an increase in narcissistic behaviors or reactions. Also, in stressful or traumatic circumstances certain narcissistic type traits and behaviors can increase to self protect vulnerability. This too doesn’t mean a person has NPD or will meet criteria for a PD at all.Children of narcissists also may pick up or mimic some of their parent’s negative traits and behaviors just because that’s what was modeled for them and how they learned to behave by observation and repetition. This doesn’t mean NPD.Narcissists can contaminate an entire household with their negativity. Their suffering victims are often their children, trying to defend themselves by also using the narcissists perhaps own abusive words or actions that they have been watching and hearing since early childhood. They may choose some retaliation with these types of negative behavior directed back at the narcissist at some point in adolescence. It is probable for the victim to try and lash back at their source of hurt which is most often the narcissist when they have been pushed past their ability to cope.So, the victim often in self -defense, takes on some of narcissists behaviors like angry yelling or hitting for example. They yell or hit the one who is yelling or hitting at them so often. This is sometimes called, “catching narcissistic fleas” and is a very common phenomena in these dysfunctional families.Yet, children mimicking the narcissist or retaliating back with similar bad behaviors like the narcissist STILL doesn’t mean the child has NPD or will develop it in the future. Most often, the non-narc child feels guilty and saddened by their behavior, however justified it really is and expresses remorse for their expressions of pain and lashing out.The difference is, when narcissists hurt others they aren’t sorry for anything. They either tell the story that they never did it, it didn’t happen that way, the victim made them do it or it was the victim’s fault and they did it to correct the victim out of concern. All deflection and evading.Often times, after leaving the family home and the narc parent behind, the now adult-child will still not meet criteria for NPD, even if they are acting out and expressing rage after years of abuse, in painful or self-destructive ways. These behaviors and tactics used to survive or mimicked by watching abusive caregivers in the home, take time to shed and healthy adaptations put in their place.More productive coping skills and honest communication can decrease the negative acting-out from narcissistic long term abuse reactions. The personality is still in flux and fluid, along with their emotions, hormones and brain development. These are all still developing until at least the mid 20’s. They hopefully become more responsible, moral and selfless people with time and maturity that new experiences, interactions and loving relationships bring.So, many adult-children of narcissists will, upon leaving the family of origin behind in adulthood, strip much of the “narcissistic residue” off (destructive self-centered traits) and begin to develop more appropriate coping skills and behaviors that increase internal self-esteem. They will often mature into a more true and stable version of themselves without a disordered personality type. Many children of narcissists, don’t become a pwNPD in adulthood.But sadly; some do.The children that do end up with NPD in adulthood, often have been raised by a mother or father with NPD and that child identified, bonded with and often idolized this parent. Often, this adult-child was forced into a role of the “golden child” or a perfect narc parent’s little “mini-me” prodigy nightmare. These children had boundaries violated and were over-engulfed and are often over-indulged, spoiled and emotionally smothered.Likewise, there is always an opposite or negative role for a child in the narcissist family as a scapegoat. The narc family with more than one child will always choose a scapegoat to dump the family problems on and project it away from themselves. They need this child desperately, to fulfill this role and hold the burden of family pain, blame and shame that the narcissist themselves were too cowardly to own. The narcissist projects and rejects and the scapegoat is forced to accept such an unfair burden.Scapegoat children don’t usually become narcissists later in life because they are the ones in the family blamed and abused for all the family and parental problems. Scapegoats often don’t relate to, identify with, or model the narcissistic parental behavior. Their role is to have multiple abuses inflicted upon them and carry the shame of the narcissist. They don’t admire or mirror the narcissist or believe their lies most of the time.The scapegoated child usually escapes the family earliest, rebels against the abusive system while growing up and tells the truth about the insanity and problems in the household before and after leaving. They usually break away and heal and go no contact or go low contact and become co-dependent later in life.Two narcissists, such as in the dynamic of the narcissist parent and the adult-child narcissist (who formerly played the “golden child” role growing up) most likely will probably relate to each other well and usually do get along quite nicely for the most part. These two narcissists often get along better with each other than any other family member who is non-disordered would get along with the narcissist, especially behind closed doors.This is because the GC suffered less of the negative overt abuses in the family and was most often praised, mistakes covered up, and rarely did the GC have to suffer the direct abuses of blame -shifting, withholding, devaluing, discarding and smear campaigns like the scapegoat dealt with for so many years.The GC adult narc may still not understand or really believe their narcissistic parent is abusive and disordered. If they do know, they may have been taught to abuse others as well and might not mind doing so even into adulthood. Often times, parent-narc and GC-narc team up and bully the scapegoat adult sibling together for fun, or make sarcastic jokes to mock the scapegoat sibling, if they haven’t decided already to gone “no contact” with the family .So, YES! In answering the last part of the question, narcissistic adult-children in childhood and often into the narc parent’s old age are the most probable to agree with, relate to and get along with their narcissistic parent.This dynamic duo of former GC -now turned disordered -adult w/NPD and their NPD parent; usually get along much better and be much closer, than a child would who does not have a personality disorder could be with a narcissist.Often, these two disorders, mostly manifest in parent and adult child to join forces to use each other for whatever attention, praise, affirmation, money or other resources they each value and bring to the table of mutual exploitation.I have seen the dynamics of a narc parent and narc adult-child “performing” their attention-seeking dance of mutual image enhancement up close and personal. These narcissist’s were boasting about one another’s status and supposed successes to onlookers and adoring family and friends alike. It is quite a sick spectacle of vanity and a dance that made my stomach turn from feeling used and manipulated into attending such horror show but forced to smile and affirm their bullshit superficialities and materialistic showmanship. I was sitting with all the other unknowing flying monkeys when I realized what I was seeing, hearing and experiencing.Sadly, The only thing guaranteed from a parent-child narcissistic alliance, even if they do genuinely get along is in the end, there is mutually assured destruction.