Personality Theory is a field of study in Psychology. If you do post-graduate work toward earning a master’s degree or a doctorate in Psychology, many universities will require you to complete at least one course in Personality Theory. Among the many personality theorists included, the course will almost always cover the theories of Sigmund Freud.
Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler are regarded as the founding fathers of psychology, and their ideas are foundational to the psychoanalytic school of psychology. There are still many psychologists and psychiatrists who adhere to the psychoanalytic school or accept some of its assumptions as valid.
Erik Erikson is sometimes regarded as “Freudian.” He was trained in Vienna, Austria at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. Both Erikson and Freud believed that the human personality develops over time in stages. Freud wrote about five developmental stages, and Erikson proposed that there were eight. Various others have written on the subject. There are a great many articles available to you on the Internet if you use a search phrase like “human development” or “stages of development.”
You will find that most developmental theorists do not regard the personality to be fully developed until late adolescence or adulthood. Erikson in particular seems to have seen personality development as a lifelong process.[1]
Today, the educational system in many places in the United States is encouraging very young children to make decisions about their gender identity. In many cases the public schools are doing so without the knowledge or consent of the child’s parents.
Some medical treatment providers are treating young children medically to “affirm” their gender identity if they decide, (or coached into believing), that they want to change the gender they were born with. If you consider the prevailing human personality developmental theories, the decision to receive the treatment is being made before the child’s personality is fully formed.
This is a Christian blog, and there are religious reasons why we believe what is happening to our children is wrong, and that it should be stopped. However, we recognize that not everyone shares those beliefs, and that some people oppose what they perceive to be attempts to impose religious values on the general population. Rather than raising moral issues about gender reassignment, we ask that widely recognized ideas about human development be taken into consideration.
Young children and adolescents are not sufficiently developed psychologically to make life-altering decisions about gender identity, or to request and consent to undergo gender reassignment counseling or medical treatment. It is a parent’s responsibility to provide guidance until the child is an adult and can make their own decisions.
Furthermore, the public schools are underperforming in the basic fundamental tasks of educating our children. If they cannot teach our children to be proficient in reading, writing, mathematics, science, history, civics, business, geography, and so forth, then I think it is arrogant for them try to guide their students in sensitive areas like gender identity. Opinion poll results are mixed regarding Americans’ approval of public school performance. Polling can be manipulated according to the biases of those conducting the polls. Gallop is a trusted source, and Gallop opinion polling from the years 2000 through 2022 consistently shows that over half of those polled were “dissatisfied” with school performance.[2] Personally, I will not be satisfied until our children attain grade-level or above proficiency in the traditional, basic subjects, and until we are in the top three countries in academic achievement internationally.
To add insult to injury, many school systems are disregarding the rights of parents. While a child is in school, the school has certain duties that make it necessary for the school to act as a prudent parent would to ensure good order and discipline on campus and to safeguard children from injury. The duty of schools to act as a surrogate parent ends there.
Curriculum must be decided in cooperation with the public. Parents have the right to opt their children out of subjects that conflict with their core values or sincerely held religious beliefs. Parents who have attempted to do so, however, have been kept from exercising that right. Additionally, those parents have been branded haters, bigots, racists, and even terrorists. Consequently, we demand that parental rights regarding the education of their children be codified by law.
Here is the bottom line. The recognized stages of human personality development show that our public schools must not indoctrinate our children on issues regarding gender identity. The appropriate responsibility of the schools is to protect children while they are on campus from ridicule and bullying about any issue – a task at which they fail miserably.
Permanent, life-altering medical decisions about medical gender reassignment must be made by the individual recipient after they reach a legally recognized age of adulthood. It is the responsibility of the child’s parents to guide children on issues like gender identity, not the schools.
Simply put, it is self-evident that people should not be encouraged or allowed to make adult decisions, or take on adult responsibilities, until they are adults. (What a concept.) It is not something new or different. We cannot legally drive a car until we are 16 years old. We must reach a legally mandated age before we can buy alcoholic beverages or cigarettes. We cannot vote or serve in the military until we are old enough.
Vote for common
sense. Vote for candidates who will
protect our children from the radical, left-wing people who are running our
schools. Remember it is our tax money
that is paying for all this insanity.
Therefore, we all bear some degree of responsibility for it.
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