THOSE WERE THE DAYS Chapter 3 - Socialization

Learning to Play Nice
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It was now stage three in Logan's life.

He went through each stage starting with the "Helpless" stage where he was dependant on others for everything.

Then in stage two he had to learn words and how to put them together so as to express himself without as much body language.

His personality was apparent before, but was now begging to assert itself and was to a great extent emotionally driven.

He had very little contact with other children, and when he did he displayed the "mine, me, my" syndrome.  He wouldn't share his toys with other children while they visited, and when he went to be with other kids he felt their things were his and he had to be separated from them upon leaving.

This attitude continued until he enrolled into pre-school. There he encountered children who felt the same way as he did and they wouldn't share with him.

This was something he had never experienced before. When he tried to forcefully take something from the other children they would strike him giving him pain. He would go home and cry and say I never want to go back to school again.

While his mother would console him his father after all these years spoke up and said, “Logan you are going to have to learn to fight for this is a dog eat dog world.”

The images of a dog eating a dog was quite disturbing to Logan but from that time on his father took interest in him, and taught him to stand up for himself. Logan liked his father taking interest in him and wondered where he had been all these years.

He finally made it to the first grade where he had to modify his behavior so as to be socially accepted.

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Another thing of interest was there was a girl living next door whom he played with and he learned that boys and girls were different.

 
Then when he discovered why, it was confusing to him but he just accepted it as a "That's just the way it is,” thing."

After the first grade his father moved them closer to where he worked.

Instead of living in a big house they lived in an apartment in a self contained neighborhood where everything was in walking distance. This new environment changed the way he had lived before.

Men, women and children were all crammed together, and he knew all of his schoolmates by name. This close association with people caused him to modify his attitudes even farther to the point you could scarcely tell him from all the others.

This loss of character was grinding against his basic nature and a certain uneasiness permeated his whole being.  Upon visiting a doctor the decision was made on how to control his agitation, and the doctor prescribed Logan some pills.

He now had to deal with his agitation and with the side effects of the drug.

An event that was shortly to happen caused another big change in his life.

One he had no warning that it was on his horizon.

 

To be Continued