Child incentives brief

Child-coaching: coach children to comprehend and understand knowledge so as to cultivate private intentions for public integrity during their own full life

So much money is spent trying to improve education in the USA! The unfortunate objective is to “train the workers we need” rather than coach children unto young adulthood. Often, the “improvement” creates new ways for perhaps competitive adults to make money: tuition, curricula cycles, book revisions, teacher pay, entrepreneurial schools, administrative salaries, more administrators, governmental departments, etc. Thus, education is substantially an adult-income shell-game. 

However, civic children need comprehension, understanding and intent to live the examined life that our confused and conflicted adult-world does not possess. Also, children are born to manage an era—about fifty years into the future-- neither parents nor teachers can imagine (Kahlil Gibran, "On Children"). Liberal democracy has come to the USA, and it isn't very pretty (Leonard Cohen). Adolescents need to emerge young-adults who intend to practice public integrity. This first principle has always been so, but everything that has happened had to happen before public integrity could emerge as essential to mutual, comprehensive civic safety and security---in other words, civic peace. Collective private integrity may lead to public integrity.

We propose to create incentives that convey and reiterate the following message to each civic child: "You, Miss or Mister, are a person of chief importance to your city, state, and country." 
Instead, the USA is dysfunctional in its obligations to children and perhaps 35% of the population has been either victim of child abuse or perpetrator, or both (Marci Hamilton's books). That's 112 million people. Quoting Jane Malpass and Jane Thompson, The Myth of Best Interest, 2000, Page 222, “If we do not give each child the chance for a real permanent [home] including the opportunity to belong to a family, then we are failing them and failing [a civic culture] that depends on these future citizens." We are failing the nation's children by not making them feel like they are persons.

We think our proposal is unheard yet very promising. Please read this brief description not as presumed truth but as sincere invitation to iterative collaboration. The complete report, which on 11/26/17 needs revision to the concept "private integrity," is online and continually improved at A Civic People (ACP).

Background

The way things evolved during 409 years in the American civilizations, in 2017 many even potentially civic people could not care less about irresponsible-birth rates and consequences for the children. This is evident, because nothing concrete is being done about it. Many otherwise good people are too busy trying to survive or socially compete to realize they are neglecting civic morality, especially respecting children. Many people are focused on satisfactions and advantages for chronologically adult psychological adolescents, and the practice does not get any worse than in education---public, private and parochial---where many children are statistical objects rather than persons.

In public education, poverty is often the political Trojan horse. About 80% of poor children are non-black, so it doesn’t seem a racial problem. However, economic poverty is not as severe a concern as psychological neglect, which affects many children in affluent homes as well as others. A person being trained for "the workers we need" can feel like an object. The outcome of American civilization so far is that many chronologically mature adults are psychologically adolescent (Overstreet). The civic culture in the USA is confused and conflicted by self-imposed competing-divisions of citizens. But I’m referring to systemic problems that are covered in the complete report: back to this summary.

The civic-coaching program

Our child incentives program would change education, without changing states’ education departments, with six actions by the state: 1) Meaningfully express that, in the USA, each human is a person, or, just as parents are persons, children are also persons of civic importance to the state; 2) however, a person may diminish his or her civic status by poor behavior and with criminal behavior might suffer statutory law---become a ward of the state; 3) the key to a civic life in a changing universe is fidelity, collectively, to: the-objective-truth, the self, family, extended family and friends, the people living now and here, the earth, and the universe, both respectively and collectively; 4) therefore, the USA encourages each newborn progressing to child then adolescent to gradually take responsibility for his or her person so as to emerge a civic young-adult--a person who comprehends, understands, and intends to enter civic adulthood and live a full life; 5) each person is obligated to his or her private integrity to both earn his or her living and save some of the earnings to build wealth for retirement and financial security, and 6) this incentives program demonstrates first principles during the three decades required for each person to establish private liberty with civic morality, in other words, civic peace.
This program reforms American free-enterprise so that persons intend to be part-owners, not consumers only. Some non-profits are already teaching this principle: Work and save & invest. In a civic culture, most people perceive individual-independence regardless of unique limitations, and those who are actually dependent receive help.

We expect that both states and federal education departments would make some changes in curricula to compliment this program, but they would not be forced or coerced to do so. Any changes needed would emerge from a civic people.

We express to the progressing child the stages in each person’s development: 1) serene, confident detachment from mom and dad, in mutual fidelity, ages 4-7, 2) welcoming personal autonomy, ages 7-10, 3) privately embracing collaborative civic association, ages 10-13, 4) publically establishing and cultivating private integrity, ages 16 to 31, 5) serving, earning and saving for financial security, and 6) perhaps achieving psychological maturity (freedom from external and internal constraints), beyond age 65, if at all.

People often remark that these goals are unattainable with the governments we have. However, neither the government nor most religions prevent persons from adopting these achievable goals. For example, an American theist can be a civic citizen if they so choose. Only a person can take charge of his or her private integrity. It’s just that this way of living---living with civic morality---is unheard of in the history of humankind. Humans are civilized and socialized to assume they have an uncontrollable bad side: It may not be so. Perhaps we are capable of fidelity---even perfecting our unique selves---and we may promote private integrity perhaps leading to public-integrity. 

The USA, without which these ideas could not have been promised, had to reach a nadir in dysfunction for this proposal to emerge. Repeating another way, the proposal for private liberty with civic morality could not have happened without the discovery of private liberty and un-articulated potential for public integrity that led to the USA’s declaration of independence from England. This USA thought came from the essay, “Private integrity,” on the blog, A Civic People.

The child incentives program would be promoted to parents to gain either voluntary iterative collaboration or their civic resistance---dissidence. Regardless, the state would operate the program, because civic morality is an obligation to civic children. In other words, the notion that family-life is strictly private gives way to the person-hood of each child. State responsibility is already well-known when obvious abuse is discovered: The state takes the child and arranges foster parenting leading to a safe, permanent home. (However, the program stops at age 18, five to seven years before the child's body has completed the wisdom parts of his or her brain.) This incentives program would lessen the bad parenting that challenges child safety: the state would often prevent rather than react-to child abuse.

  

Incentives details

The state would first encourage family planning. If married couples register, eleven months before the planned birth, their intent to procreate, the infant, at age 6 months, receives certification of $5,400 set-aside in the child’s name, deliverable at age 30.5 on civic achievement, described below. At 4% interest, the set-aside grows to $16,700 at age 30.5. The parents are informed about the future sequence for their child’s incentives, described below, and their support for the child’s progress is solicited and informed. Thereafter, meetings include the parents but focus on collaboratively coaching the child as described above.

When a child is born without registration, the parents or responsible care-takers are informed at the child’s age 6 months and offered tax-free assistance to create the $5,400 set aside on their own, so that the the incentives may encourage the child unto civic morality. Then, when the child reaches, with civic excellence, each step in the sequence---entering 1st grade, entering 7th grade, high-school graduation, and college graduation or equal---the set-aside progressively increases such that, in all, a full set-aside of $40,000 has been assigned the civic person. At his or her age 30.5, at 4% interest, the fund grows to $80,000 and is awarded in tax-free cash or rolled over into an IRA perhaps to become $415,000 at age 70.5. More details are in the full report.

We think this program would decrease the habitual welfare rolls by lessening the application rate and during thirty years lift the American GDP to levels previously impossible. We expect many other economic and civic benefits. However, the chief benefit would be higher psychological maturity within the future adult population. We think that with higher psychological maturity the people would distribute the higher GDP so as to appreciate civic citizens---empower participation in civic morality.

While I sincerely want and believe in this program, it is no longer mine, as it already reflects collaboration with many people. Please help make it happen: collaborate for a possible better future.

The proposal for the state might involve $1 billion in set-asides in the first year. That seemed impossible when Dan Claitor helped me perhaps 24 months ago. Then we envisioned $200 million per year because we were leaving children not registered by their parents out of the program—punishing the child for the parent’s neglect. Dennis Eilers corrected that error. I think the program would eventually pay for itself in “entitlement” savings. Perhaps it could replace social security.

Since the flood of 2016, it occurred to me that because so many bad features of the American civilization hurt Baton Rouge, with its wonderful people, our hometown is the place to start child-education incentives. We should have had better flood relief. We rate 46th in public education in a nation that rates maybe 22nd in well-being within the world; thus, we rate about 1000th globally. Yet, the nation’s agents of civic division, promoting protest but perhaps hoping for passionate violence, converged on Baton Rouge in July, 2016 and the people, together with well-prepared state law enforcement, rejected the outside, un-civic leadership. We have continued to express tentative public-integrity since then. 

I estimate a $100 million per year resource is needed for this program in our city. Your thoughts about how to accomplish this would be much appreciated. Also, we are looking for an economist who would evaluate potential impact of the program, to help clarify whether or not our imagination of higher GDP is justified and perhaps help guide whether $40,000 per civic child is the right set aside or if it should be $80,000---or less.

If you are excited by this proposal and want to help make it happen, take charge of it; or contact us to help make it happen.

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