Tim McCarthy – Raising 4 Dimensional Children in a 2-Dimensional World

Tim McCarthy
[00:00:00] Ed Watters: To overcome you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America, we can all learn something. To learn we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best conversations happen with ourself.
[00:00:47] Reach out and challenge yourself. Let’s dive in and learn something right now.
[00:00:58] Today we are with Tim McCarthy. Tim is the author of Raising Four Dimensional Children. Could you please introduce yourself and give people just a little more background about you, Tim, please?
[00:01:14] Tim McCarthy: No
[00:01:14] problem Ed, and thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and talk with your listeners. Uh, basically I’m, I consider myself an educator,
[00:01:25] uh, I was a school teacher. I was educated to be an English teacher, uh, taught in the public and private schools for the first 10 years of my career. Uh, eventually became an administrator. So that’s my traditional educational background. Uh, at the same time, I’m a martial artist. I loved training the martial arts,
[00:01:49] I love studying the martial arts. And so when I left school teaching, I continued teaching in the martial arts. And so I taught literally thousands of students from elementary, pre elementary, all the way through adults in junior college level. So that’s my educational background. Uh, and it’s funny, I, I’ve always believed that if what you say makes sense, it doesn’t really matter who you are or what you’ve done,
[00:02:22] it, it’s that it makes sense. But unfortunately, nowadays there’s so much misinformation and intentional disinformation that sometimes I feel like I have to justify who I am and, and that I know what I’m talking about before I start giving my opinions.
[00:02:39] Ed Watters: Odd isn’t it? Unfortunate. Yes. Now, before we get into the extraordinary book, I want to cover that martial arts background with you. That really teaches you to control your mind
[00:02:55] a lot of it. And understanding mind control and your thoughts and actions out of those thoughts. How much did your martial arts training help in discovering and writing this book?
[00:03:12] Tim McCarthy: Completely. Um, uh, part of my job was to write for other martial arts school owners. So, uh, took my educational background, my writing background, and my martial arts background and kind of packaged several things for them.
[00:03:29] And part of that was a very Eastern way of looking at the world, which is we are not just physical beings, we have a mental aspect or a mental dimension. We also have an emotional dimension and a spiritual dimension. So the four dimensions I talk about in the book, Four Dimensional Children, are children who are physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually developed, and specifically how to do that.
[00:03:59] So my martial art background literally gave me the framework. I didn’t invent, I’m not a genius, I didn’t invent those four dimensions. Uh, I was pretty much taught them. And so my job really, when I was writing for the martial arts was to find ways to express that and ways to help teach students how to develop in all four of those dimensions.
[00:04:26] And that’s part of why I left the educational system. Uh, traditionally schools deal with academics, which is your mental education. For the most part, they’re so worried about their SAT scores they cut out PE classes. You barely get any physical education, hardly any exercise. Then emotional education,
[00:04:50] only the rarest of teachers will cover that. Maybe a few school systems have an emotional curriculum, but I’ve not seen it in person. [00:05:00] And then the spiritual education, unless you go to a private, a religious school, it’s pretty much been legislated out. Somebody is always suing the school system for mentioning God.
[00:05:12] I mean, you can’t even pledge allegiance anymore because you have to, uh, one nation under God. So it’s not that I’m against public schools, I’m just trying to supplement for the parents the things that the schools have chosen not to cover. And so that’s what I provide is a little bit of education to the parents on the four dimensions, how to teach at each age or how to, how to, let’s see, not how to teach, but how to understand at each age, what your child is capable of.
[00:05:46] Because obviously a, a one-year-old is very different from a 17 year old. But each group along the way has different brain development, has different emotional development. And there are ways, activities, understandings that you can use to bring your child up to the next level.
[00:06:06] Ed Watters: This book has actionable packed adventures for each stage of life.
[00:06:13] And I like the way you actually talk about the developmental stage, not only of the child, but the parents involved with that. You talk about the roles of the parent. You’ve got to think about these developmental progression states of the mind and you can’t smoke. You, you’ve got to understand what you’re putting out they’re taking in and you cover a lot of this in, in detail where it lays out the science behind it.
[00:06:54] Could you talk a little bit about how long it took for you to go in and study about each part of this book and bring that science into the hands of the parents? Because these are important things that every parent must know.
[00:07:16] Tim McCarthy: The basic idea is that parents have always complained my baby doesn’t come with an owner’s manual,
[00:07:22] I don’t know what to do. And so I’ve tried to provide that owner’s manual of exactly what to do, starting prenatal, how to take care of yourself before the baby. And then once the baby’s born, how do you deal with an infant? How do you deal with the toddler? What about a preschooler and all the way up to the adolescent years?
[00:07:43] And so the, I also say that you, if you’re a parent, you don’t need a degree in education or a degree in psychology to raise your child if you have my book, because I’ve done that for you. And so I’ve spent 40 years in the field of education in Eastern and Western education. But then the last, oh, let’s say five to seven years, I’ve been researching
[00:08:11] child psychology. And that was, of course I studied child psychology in college but that was many years ago, it’s developed a lot since then. So I’ve got, I went online and I have literally hundreds of references to studies that back up the recommendations I make and yes, it took years. And, um, after I retired, I had the time to do it full time and just spend a good part of every day researching about toddlers for weeks.
[00:08:44] You know, what, what’s the latest thing? What does this study show? What does that study show? And gather it all together and then try to distill it into bite sized pieces. So that the average parent who doesn’t have a degree in psychology doesn’t need one because I say this is what’s happening in your child’s brain.
[00:09:05] Here’s your reference if you want to check it out and this is how, what you do about it. So really that’s what I was trying to do. And it, it took quite a while but I did it for them so that they wouldn’t, you know, I think parents are pretty busy raising their kids and they don’t have the time to do all that research.
[00:09:26] Ed Watters: Well, you know, that’s, that’s the point here, Tim, we as individuals, we don’t take the time needed to understand our world. And thank you for taking the time to indulge us with the information that every one of us should actually do for ourselves any way. But our world really limits that for us any more.
[00:09:52] You really don’t do it just for the money because this book can be [00:10:00] purchased for $4. 99. And if you only need a portion of the book, you can buy a chapter of the book for 99 cents. This is not about greed, this is truly to help your fellow man. It’s a beautiful concept, I love it. The book also goes into things that can help each and every one of us in our ordinary lives bettering our health.
[00:10:27] You cover, and I found this fascinating. I did not know about this, the cosmetic industry, they’re not regulated. And
[00:10:39] Tim McCarthy: Yes,
[00:10:41] Ed Watters: it,
[00:10:42] could you talk to us about that? That blows my mind, I did not have a clue. Please tell us about this part of the book, please.
[00:10:50] Tim McCarthy: Sure. And this is in the prenatal chapter, uh, where if you’re preparing for the baby, mothers literally, you are making the baby from your body.
[00:11:01] So the things you have done, not just since conceiving, but you know, for the past years in building your body, it, are the building blocks that go into the baby. So the things you eat, the things you drink, uh, just the broad strokes. Uh, if, if you smoke, there’s unbelievable research of what damage that does to the baby before he’s born.
[00:11:27] If you drink alcohol, there’s fetal alcohol syndrome, which basically hurts your fetus, just because you’re drinking while you’re pregnant. And of course, if you do drugs, harder drugs, you’ve, forget about it. I mean, there’s all kinds of research of the damage you’re doing. Plus just imagine this, everybody agrees that it’s hard to quit an addiction cold turkey.
[00:11:53] I mean, if you’re on heroin, or, or painkillers, or something like that, and you try to quit, oh, it drives you crazy. And it’s hard to do as an adult. Just imagine the baby being born addicted because the mother was addicted. And so his first year of life is going through withdrawal, first year, first week of life is going through withdrawal pains.
[00:12:15] No way to understand it, brain doesn’t work that well yet, no way to come to express what it is and get somebody to tell you what it is or how to deal with it. You just go through that pain. I’m sorry, I got off on a tangent there with the worst things you can do for your baby. But, so part of that is eating well, there are specific vitamins that you have to be aware of, uh, because they’ll stay in your body for breast milk.
[00:12:42] Uh, there was some research I’ve read recently about marijuana. Hey, marijuana is legal now, okay, but just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right. And it can stay in your breast milk for months after the baby’s born. So, Hey, I didn’t smoke while the baby’s born, but now I’m going to start smoking again. It gets into the breast milk,
[00:13:02] it gets into the brain of the baby and the research shows that it does not help and actually it does hurt the development of the brain. So back to your question, uh, it’s not only the drugs but things you put on your body, and I didn’t have a big understanding of this myself, because I don’t use a lot of cosmetics, you know, a little toothpaste, soap and deodorant, uh, you know, your average guy. But things in nail polish, things in skin creams, that, one of the fastest ways to get a chemical into your body is to put it on your skin.
[00:13:44] And it gets absorbed right into the bloodstream. And so the cosmetic industry is not regulated by the government. They’re self-regulating. They also have a loop hole, uh, where they’re allowed to keep their secrets and one of the secrets they can have is fragrance. So if you look at your shampoo, if you look at your deodorant, if you look at your soap and it says it has fragrance, that means they don’t have to tell you what’s in it.
[00:14:12] And so it could have bunches of harmful chemicals in there. Uh, in the book, I cite a, I think it’s the Cal, in California. They have a site where you can look up the different chemicals that are available and there’s like 85,000 different chemicals that have been known to be either pro cancer, or cause cancer, or be
[00:14:44] possible causes of cancer that are still included in cosmetics. So it’s just something that you don’t think of, oh, I’m going to have a healthy baby and you put on your nail polish, you put on your perfume, [00:15:00] dye your hair, just incredibly, incredible amount of different things. And then you can back up the non cosmetics, things like phthalites, phthalates, and, and, uh, PBA’s, just Teflon cooking.
[00:15:18] If you scratch the Teflon, if you heat it up at a certain point, to a certain point, it releases chemicals into your food. If you use a plastic container in your microwave, it can release chemicals into your food. And some of those chemicals don’t go away very easily they stay around for years. So, I mean, I was kind of a hippie back in the sixties, but this brings me way back to natural foods, natural preparation, and you know, all of the preservatives that go into food, natural eating, there’s just so many scary things going on in our environment.
[00:15:57] You can’t avoid them all but the more you know the more you can cut out the bad ones and try to stay away from the bad ones as much as you can.
[00:16:08] Ed Watters: You’re absolutely right. Our world is filled with contaminants, not only food contaminants, but our social contaminants, you know, there’s those, uh, pressures of the mind that contaminate the false news, the, uh, lies, deceit to sell things.
[00:16:29] It’s all there and we have to sort it out. A lot of people they don’t want to take the time to understand it because it is heavy, it’s confusing, it’s taxing. But how can we live in such a healthy world per se and yet have such unhealthy things within it? You know, there’s a lot of unhealthy things that we allow in our lives.
[00:17:03] What is the psychology behind that? Have you studied into that at all?
[00:17:10] Tim McCarthy: Several answers. One is habits, you know, and we get into a habit and we get, as you said, kind of lulled into our existence. It’s we live our everyday lives. And I think 43%, according to one study, 43% of our daily activities are habits.
[00:17:29] And so one of the things you should try to do as an aware person, as a person who wants to control their life, is to start controlling your habits. First, you make your habits, then your habits make you. Uh, one of those habits is education, is learning as much as you can from people and from older people, usually. Older people have been around,
[00:17:53] they’ve made a lot of mistakes and so they tend to be great teachers. And when I was young, we didn’t trust anybody over 30. And as I got older, I realized how much they knew. But on the other side of that is greed and a lot of what’s happening and why we can’t control it is because of greed. You’ve got corporations who are, whose job it is to make money.
[00:18:21] And I understand that. And I have stocks, and I invest in corporations, and I understand that their job is to make money. But some people, some corporations in order to make money, do things that are very unhealthy for other people. This whole Roundup thing, where they discovered a way to, uh, kill weeds with Roundup.
[00:18:44] And then they discovered a way to make plants like corn and soy that were specifically resistant to Roundup. So they went to the farmers and said, Hey, use Roundup it makes weeding a whole lot easier. Makes your crops a whole lot cleaner and then use these special, these new, newly developed grains they’re resistant to Roundup.
[00:19:11] And then you’ve got some laws and they, the big corporations, will talk to the politicians that donate money and they developed laws that protect them. And then you have a system where you’ve got glyphosate, which is Roundup, sprayed on almost every vegetable you buy in order to, to protect it from weeds.
[00:19:34] And so when you go to your supermarket and you buy vegetables, you pretty much have to wash them off unless you want to eat weed killer, which will stay in your system for a long time. So what do you do about it? You learn as much as you can and you take, you know, you eat natural foods. Processed foods have more chemicals.
[00:19:57] The tomato has one ingredient, [00:20:00] tomato and maybe a little something on the outside leftover from when they washed it. If you buy tomato paste and now you’ve got a list of ingredients in there that try to keep it from spoiling. So education, read your labels, read about what’s healthy, what’s not healthy.
[00:20:20] And that’s one of the good things about the internet is that there is information out there and you can find out about health foods. About things that, you know, things like the chemicals in your system and what they do, or the chemicals, what they do to your system. So education, and then once you’re educated, try to change your habits.
[00:20:43] Eat naturally, avoid a lot of the highly contaminated products that most, most other people put on their body without thinking, and try to live closer to nature. I’m not saying go out in the woods and live in a tent, but if you can cook your own food rather than take it out of a box, you’ve gonna, have taken a big step toward protecting your body from a lot of this chemical pollution.
[00:21:10] Uh, and just one more thing, back to the, uh, GMO, the genetically modified organisms that were designed to live through Roundup, uh, and people are finding that genetically modified organisms don’t feed your body the same way naturally developed organisms do. And yet politicians have to face, not label it, I think there was fights over not putting GMO or non-GMO on your packaging just to protect the company that produces these organ, these genetically modified organisms.
[00:21:54] So the short answer to your question, greed is one aspect, education is the most important aspect. And then from education, change your habits so that you don’t just reach for a hostess Twinkie you reach for a banana instead.
[00:22:11] Ed Watters: That’s wise right there. The other day, I was speaking with a gentleman called Chaka and we were talking about that.
[00:22:21] We’ve got career politicians now and you were stating that these individuals are enabling and making this happen. And when we have the ability to change these politicians that are doing these things, It’s better for us. And we need to really start thinking about all of what you brought up. And many things are about money instead of us and our health.
[00:22:54] It, it’s disturbing, but it’s true. And we really need to start highlighting that so more people can understand what’s happening in our world. We should not be facing these things because I think we’re better than that, I think we should be more educated than that. It’s to me, pretty obvious. And unfortunately it’s not obvious to everyone.
[00:23:24] So we’ve got to have these types of conversations in a meaningful manner. That way people don’t feel so threatened learning what the truth actually is. Going back to your book a little bit. Oh, go
[00:23:41] ahead.
[00:23:42] Tim McCarthy: I just wanted to say that’s where people like you are valuable putting podcasts out there where you seek different opinions and put them out there.
[00:23:51] And one of the things that drives me crazy is the trolling and oh, and you know, the, the campaigns where if you don’t agree with what I say, you are the devil incarnate and you should not be allowed to talk. How can you have, uh, how can you learn the whole point of learning or the whole point of life? To me, I mean, down to basics, the whole point of life is to learn.
[00:24:19] If you are a spiritual being and you believe you have a spirit that’s going to go on beyond this body. Why else are you here except for, to learn so that your spirit is ready for the next level.
[00:24:31] Ed Watters: That
[00:24:32] is so true. You know, and I’m, I’m so glad you brought that up, Tim, because you know, it is one of those things that pushes a lot of people like me, well, not like me because I overcome it.
[00:24:46] I pushed through it and I don’t let it affect me. But these social pressures, these people that make you feel like you’re dirt because you’re voicing your opinion. That used to tear me up [00:25:00] inside and I wanted to quit doing what I was doing so many times because I felt, am I doing the right thing? I mean, do I have a cause here?
[00:25:12] No, I have a solid cause and this is just building stronger and stronger. And I’ve been connecting with so many different individuals that, I understand now, it’s the same thing going on, like Monsanto thing. It’s these individuals that want to control. They’re trying to hire these squads of individuals to assassinate anybody speaking out against what is going on.
[00:25:43] That’s wrong in America, that’s wrong in any place. Everybody’s opinion matters. And if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. No matter if it’s the government doing it or the individual. So I’m not afraid to voice my opinion. And trolls, they don’t even affect me anymore. I just kind of laugh it off or go along with it and play with them a little bit.
[00:26:08] You know, I made a game out of that. So I know when to shut that off. And that is so important for individuals so they can get up here and voice their opinion. Don’t let those trolls run you off. We matter and our opinions matter, no matter what they are.
[00:26:31] Tim McCarthy: Oh, here’s just a little piece of advice on that.
[00:26:33] Never let anybody who is more screwed up than you give you advice.
[00:26:39] Amen, I like that. That’s why I look for people smarter than me to converse with that way I can be the dumber one and have to learn more things, you know, it helps out in a lot of ways. I want to cover back to your book a little bit, Tim, this five universal postpartum needs.
[00:27:03] We hear a lot about postpartum depression and these things that women deal with, and frankly, men deal with it too, because it’s associated with the family. What is the significance in that?
[00:27:18] Expectations is as I guess the best thing, where a lot of young girls expect that when they get married, they’ll live happily ever after.
[00:27:29] And it just doesn’t work out that way, just look at the divorce rate. And so the more you know, the more you prepare, the more you understand that it’s going to be a little bit of work and it’s not going to be a bed of roses, the longer your marriage can last. And hopefully you can be in a, you know, a 75 year marriage
[00:27:46] like some people have managed. So the five postpartum needs are literally that. And this is done by, uh, a lady who, named Kimberly Johnson, who has a website, who talks about the fourth trimester. And a lot of times when you’re in the prenatal stage, you’re thinking the first trimester, second trimester, third trimester, nobody realizes there is a fourth trimester, which is illogical in compatibility because if there’s a trimester, there’s only three. But the fourth trimester is after birth.
[00:28:21] And so what can you expect after birth? And one of the things you’re going to expect is that you can’t do a whole heck of a lot. Uh, so you need an extended rest period and that’s number one. If the first postpartum needs 30 to 60 days of rest while your body recovers from being, putting something the size of a baby out through your vagina, which I can’t imagine how much that would hurt.
[00:28:52] So, uh, five days in bed, that’s in the bed, five days on the bed, and then five days around the bed. So basically your first two weeks in and around the bed and let your body recover, minimize your movement. And that means the husband, the boyfriend, the mother, somebody’s got to pick up the slack around the house
[00:29:15] cause you, you can’t do your cleaning. Have, number two, you’re nourishing food, basically natural food, very nutrient dense and easy to digest. Number three, loving touch, massage. It’s good for the baby, it’s good for the mom. And number four, the presence of wise women who have been through it before, because if it’s your first time through the pregnancy and through the birth, you don’t know what to expect and you don’t know what you feel is normal or abnormal. And finally contact with nature.
[00:29:50] Everything has a time and a season so don’t rush things. Don’t try to lose that baby fat, try to get back in shape right away before your stomach is recovered or your [00:30:00] private parts is recovered. Take some time, spend time with the baby, spend time with your husband. And there’s gonna be some other issues,
[00:30:09] um, pelvic floor and such and there’s a wealth of information out there on that. There’s, uh, a new, there are some exercises called, I believe, kegels, and there’s even machines that do the kegels for you. So there’s a wealth of information out there, but just realize that after the baby comes out, there’s a tremendous, uh, number of mothers who get depressed and don’t be ashamed of that,
[00:30:37] don’t think you’re weird because it happens to a lot of people. Reach out if you need to and get some help from family, from friends, from wise women, or from professionals.
[00:30:50] Ed Watters: Yeah, I like that. You know, this, this comes with a lot of understanding and like you stated earlier in our conversation, the best information usually comes from older people. And you stated marriage and longevity in the marriage.
[00:31:11] You know, I want to bring up my marriage because I’ve been married 36 years, I just had my 36th anniversary, I’ve been together with, thank you Tim, because it is a challenge every day and 38 years together with the woman. And today, you know, we, we had a misunderstanding. We have to take time and understand because it’s so critical to understand, especially as young couples, men and women, we’re different creatures.
[00:31:48] We think differently, we act differently, but as a couple, we want to think and act alike. So sometimes there’s always that conflict and that can be very emotional and trying. But the best advice is through the individuals that have been there, made the mistakes. I just wanted to re highlight that because everybody goes through things and they feel that it’s different and it’s personal, but yet it might be different, but it’s pretty unique in the way that everybody has to go through those same trying times in life, how we get through it.
[00:32:39] And the ease of getting through it is how responsive we are and how we actually choose to respond. The actions that we take, the choices that we make. This is so critical in life and so often times we take our advice from, like you said, those that shouldn’t be giving advice because they’re popular, they look good,
[00:33:08] they have a big following. Well, you know, that’s not where it’s at. We really have to get back to that homegrown feeling in life to understand where our true securities are, because that’s where our happiness comes
[00:33:26] from.
[00:33:27] Tim McCarthy: Absolutely. Unfortunately we have some bad examples, uh, oh, I just wanted to take off on that a little bit.
[00:33:35] Where in a marriage, in any relationship, if you get into a fight, there’s nobody winning. Well, somebody wins and somebody loses let’s put it that way. If it’s a dance, you learn, operate. And so in my marriage at least, I would much rather dance than fight. And so she has her emotional opinions and I have my logical opinions, but I tend to miss some of the emotional cues
[00:34:06] and she tends to miss some of the logical cues. And so we dance a little bit and come up with a compromise that’s much wiser than either one of us would make. Unfortunately, uh, our role models, that is the United States legislature, does not model that very well. They do not compromise well, they would rather fight
[00:34:29] than dance.
[00:34:31] Ed Watters: That is so true, Tim, you know, and that’s what built our great nation is compromise. That, that first gathering of those, uh, individuals setting up our nation, they took and compromised a lot. And it’s in every aspect of our life. We have to compromise because we’re not going to get everything that we want.
[00:34:56] It’s just the truth. [00:35:00] It’s, it’s weird, but it’s the truth.
[00:35:02] Tim McCarthy: Yeah, that’s
[00:35:03] part of, I guess, the design of this world is that relationships. And I don’t know anyone who is all powerful in this world who can just do whatever they want. You can do almost anything you want if you want to live alone. But if you want to have relationships, there’s going to be compromises.
[00:35:23] And that, back to what I said earlier, it’s the purpose of this life is to prepare your spirit and learn. Learning how to deal with other people or with other, even taking care of the world itself, taking responsibilities. Do I take care of my car? Do I take care of my house? Different levels of responsibility, but it’s all sacrifices I have to make
[00:35:49] uh, in order to maintain relationships. Relationships with my things, relationships with my people, and relationships with my spirit.
[00:36:00] Ed Watters: That’s right. Now, uh, let’s, let’s add to that and build a little more. Let’s talk about communication value and how important it is to communicate in every aspect of your life properly. Because communication skill is very difficult also.
[00:36:22] Tim McCarthy: Absolutely. And communication, of course, I can talk all I want but if you don’t understand what I say, I’m just pleasing myself and, you know, just becoming a blowhard. And so part of communication is understanding who your audience is, where they are, and how to relate to that. And, uh, just one example of, uh, something I do in the book is I introduce each chapter with a story because people understand stories much better than lectures.
[00:36:57] And so stories is one great way to relate to people, uh, parables, to use it from the Bible. Uh, but, uh, you have to understand where your child is, let’s just talk about children, and what a one year old can understand compared to what a seven year old can understand, compared to what a 12 year old compared to what a 16 year old can understand.
[00:37:23] And as you start looking at the four dimensions, not only what they understand intellectually, but what they understand emotionally and how to reach them on an emotional level. And this kind of goes back to my wife again where I’m an academician, I’m very logical, I can give you the facts and figures and can present a very convincing argument.
[00:37:51] But if she’s not in a receptive, emotional state, I’m talking to the wind. So I’ve got to present it in a way that is loving, that is understanding, uh, and take into account her emotional state at the time, her emotional maturity, not that she’s immature, but whoever I’m talking to, their emotional maturity. And some people, adults really never progressed out of the, say the middle childhood stage in my book.
[00:38:27] And, you know, nobody ever brought them beyond that emotionally or, and same thing spiritually. Uh, people have certain spiritual, uh, a path of spiritual development. Uh, Lawrence Kohlberg is a psychologist to set it out and he’s the one I followed through the book. And at a certain stage of your life, you and morality is this level.
[00:38:53] And you don’t understand and you can’t relate to the morality of the next level. And so you have to be dealt with on that level to make it, to bring it home. Someone who is under seven years old is in a punishment and reward stage. And so lecturing them on why it’s right and why it’s wrong is not nearly as effective as if you don’t stop crying,
[00:39:17] you can’t watch TV.
[00:39:21] Okay, so now you’ve got, they understand consequences at that age, it’s punishment/ reward. At about age seven, they’ll move beyond that to a rules based morality. And so they want to know the rules and so that’s a great time to teach them catechism, it’s a great time to teach them civics, it’s a great time to teach them your household rules of what you can do and what you don’t do. Because seven to 10 years old, you like to learn the rules.
[00:39:50] And if you want to be good at the rules, you want to know the rules. And I don’t know if you want to keep going with this, but as you get older, your stages continue to develop. [00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Ed Watters: No, this is what Dead America is about right here, Tim, this is the bread and butter of what we do. You know, getting to the psyche of what’s causing issues, helping people develop ways out of feeling dead in America, because this is what it is.
[00:40:19] All of this in turn, knowledge that we come with. And we don’t realize if we get stuck in one of these areas in our life and we can’t progress out of it, there is no more progression in life, we’ll stay right there. But there’s so much more beyond that and talking about it like this is how we get development underway.
[00:40:45] So yes, please expand all you’d like.
[00:40:49] Tim McCarthy: Okay. Uh, so we were talking about morality. So somewhere around seven years old, you reach a new level of morality, and this is marked by different religions. At seven, for example, in the Catholic faith, that’s when you get your first communion, that’s when you’re ready to learn your catechism, you’re ready to learn the rules.
[00:41:12] You’re not just worried about a God who punishes people, but you’d want to start learning the 10 commandments. You want to start learning the rules of how to live. Somewhere around eight years old, you start to realize that, uh, other, well, need should be taken into account. So that, uh, if you have three brothers and sisters and mom and dad can only afford one pair of shoes, as pre seven, you want the shoes yourself and you cry and you scream and you want these shoes. Somewhere around seven to eight years old, you start to realize that need is part of it.
[00:41:49] And if your older sister has old shoes with holes in them, and you don’t have shoes with holes in them, you say, mom, get the shoes for my older sister. All right, somewhere around 10, you start understanding that there, uh, you treat others the way you would like to be treated, the golden rule. And so somewhere around 10 years old, you start to get to that point.
[00:42:16] And if you’re lucky, somewhere in the early teens, you progressed to universal principles. Which is like, you know, you talked about it, it’s just right or it’s wrong and you do what’s right regardless of the cost. And so that takes a lot of bravery but that also takes a level of spiritual development. You can’t talk to a child about doing what’s right or wrong, regardless, because they’re into the consequences.
[00:42:49] They don’t want to get punished, they want to get rewarded. Doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, they just do what’s going to give them what they want. And so you have to deal with people on their own moral, spiritual level and communicate to them in a way they understand. And as I said, if you’re lucky enough to move on to the universal principles, then you’ve got all kinds of quandaries, like, uh, what is the universal principle at bay?
[00:43:17] And we can argue about that, uh, for example, abortion, okay. What’s the universal principle applying here? Is it the woman’s right to control her body or is it the baby’s right to be born? And depending on which side, which universal principle you believe in, that’s your decision on abortion. And if we have a discussion on it, I should be able to present my side,
[00:43:46] you should be able to present your side. And if your side is, makes more sense, strikes me as being more right, then I should grow and adapt your side. And if my side makes more sense to you, that’s fine, you can grow or not, I can’t control that. I can only present my side and hope you see the light, but if you don’t, that’s fine too.
[00:44:16] And again, we just have compromises. And so we have things like the Supreme court to make decisions. We have legislatures who have to argue about it and come up with the majority opinion for our laws and not everybody gets what they want. But by learning to communicate to people on their own level, hopefully you can make an impact,
[00:44:39] you can educate them so that they have a better understanding of the principles involved.
[00:44:46] Ed Watters: Yeah, that’s very, very informative. And, you know, it’s, it’s really what builds us and makes us better when we grow to that understanding level that we’re not going to get what we want [00:45:00] all the time. And we should always try to choose the right thing,
[00:45:05] it’s not always the best thing. You’re, you’re very knowledgeable and I, I want to talk about, because you have a section in here on sex. Sex is big in our world and it’s polluted anymore in my opinion. Uh, I think we’ve kind of went off the deep end but as you were saying, everybody has to choose their lifestyle, their morals for themselves.
[00:45:36] I really think sex is a big part of life and it drives a lot of people. There are so many issues that people face with sex and there’s a lot of argument right now in our nation about sex education and how early we should adapt it into our education, or if sex should be adapted into our education system.
[00:46:09] Everybody has different opinions on this and it really boils down to that. But what, what is your opinion on sex and how should we actually have this taught to our children? Should it be in the home? Because the home sometimes doesn’t educate well about some of these things because frankly they weren’t taught well. But yet the insensitivity of our schools and how they, one size fits all approach to everything, it’s pretty confusing and it can be very hostile to some people.
[00:46:58] So if you would, could you talk to us about your opinion on sex, how it should be taught. And how sex in the home and around our society should be portrayed.
[00:47:13] Tim McCarthy: What’s my opinion on sex? I am all for it and that’s part of it. That’s an easy go, it’s an easy joke, uh, and it sells, sex sells. So you’re going to see it in advertisements,
[00:47:26] you’re going to see it in magazines, and internet. Uh, so it’s pervasive, uh, it is a basic human need, so advertisers appeal to it. Uh, so what should we do about educating children? My opinion is sooner than you think. That we don’t want our kids to be exposed to something that they’re not prepared for. So in the middle childhood section, which is seven to ten year olds, I have a talk on sex. And the preteen years, I have a talk on sex,
[00:48:04] I have in adolescent years, I have a talk on sex. And they are not completely different, but different in degree, based on the need and the level of understanding of the child. Uh, do, should it be taught at home? I believe, yes. I believe it should be. Uh, and this goes, this raises some big questions about the education system.
[00:48:30] Uh, so I’m going to go off on a tangent here. The original education system was, you were taught by your parents. And if your parents couldn’t teach you everything, they would find a master and you would become an apprentice and you would learn from the master. Sometime around the industrial revolution,
[00:48:48] we needed workers to work in a factory. So we came up with classrooms and we sat everybody in neat little rows and taught them to do the same thing at the same rate. So they could go into the factories and do the same thing at the same time. And apparently survive the day screwing in the same bolt over and over and over again.
[00:49:08] And that’s the basis of our current education system. Uh, nowadays there’s more education on the internet than really anywhere else. Uh, you don’t even go to a library anymore, you just access the library through your computer, or your laptop, or a tablet. The new education system, in my opinion, is individualized learning where you are guided on what to learn and you do your own research.
[00:49:40] And I think they’re trying to incorporate that into classrooms more and more. The teacher teaching, basically one third of the class will go at the teacher’s pace. One-third of the class will be slower than the teacher’s pace and not really understand what she’s doing. And one third will be so far ahead of the teacher that they’re [00:50:00] bored stiff and they start to throw paperclips at each other.
[00:50:03] So it’s a challenge to be a teacher and I know I’ve been there. And you try to teach to the minimum. No, I’m sorry, you test to the minimum and you teach to the maximum. So in other words, you throw stuff out there for the bright kids to keep them involved but when the test comes, you make it easy enough for the dumb kids to pass because that’s all they’re capable of.
[00:50:25] And so that’s why if you can get a 70, you pass, and if you’re really smart, you get a hundred or an A plus, or you get extra credit. So back to sex education, um, yes, you need some basic education because as you said, some parents were not taught. My father, uh, knew I was a studious guy, he gave me a book, said here read that and ask me any questions. And I’m sorry, but that wasn’t enough.
[00:50:55] So we need a little more master- student relationship, father, father- son, mother- daughter. The challenge comes where if your family is no longer together, for whatever reason, a father has to talk to his daughter about sex or a mother has to talk to her son, that’s even more uncomfortable, but you’ve got to get over the discomfort.
[00:51:20] And what do you do? How do you do it? Too much for now? But it’s in the book. At each age, what kind of things you say. Back to the school system, if the parents aren’t doing it and the kids are getting pregnant then you need to teach the kids how they get, how they get pregnant or how they get pregnant, how not to get pregnant, what to do about it.
[00:51:44] And so it’s, you know, it’s the nanny state, it’s the government taking over the parent’s role. But if you’ve got parents who aren’t taking the role and in our society, unfortunately there are a group of parents that don’t take the role. I mean, they barely feed the kids, they may be stuck on drugs themselves, they may be having economic challenges and they’re trying to work two or three jobs.
[00:52:10] The kids are out on the street, whatever the reason, they’re not able to spend enough time with the kids, even if they had the time, they don’t have the education because they didn’t read my book. So the school system has to try to take, to fill that gap. Um, but again, to answer your question, I think earlier than you think. I think there should be some, in the seven to ten year old range, there needs to be some presenting education.
[00:52:37] What puberty is, what to expect. So you don’t freak out when you start growing hair or you start bleeding. Uh, you know, the different functions of the penis when it’s pointing up and when it’s pointing down, because sooner or later it’s going to point up and you’re not going to know what to do with it.
[00:52:54] And then, you know, once you’re a preteen, now we need to start talking about kissing, what’s okay. Is kissing okay? Is petting okay? What about manual sex? What about oral sex? And so you’ve got to have those discussions with your child as to what your family values are. Because if she gets it from her friends who knows what they’re going to say, and of course, if they get it from the internet, they’re going to think sex is a porn movie where there’s no love,
[00:53:26] women are treated as sexual objects, they do amazing feats of daring that have, probably not going to be able to do and certainly not with any, another young child. So, uh, let me back up one other thing. Education, uh, and your mental and the mental dimension, okay. Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and the mental dimension,
[00:53:53] they are the building blocks and the building blocks of your mind are the things you choose to look at. So if you read scripture, that literally forms the way your brain works. If you look at porn, that literally forms the way your brain works, the brain is plastic, it adjusts. And so depending on what you put in, that’s what you get out.
[00:54:23] And so in a society, as you said, where sex is prevalent, what you choose to put in, what you design to put in, if you’re an educator, makes a difference on the way the kids think. So kids definitely need some sexual guidance, some sexual education, preferably at home. But if they’re not getting it, the school system has to do some kind of bare minimum to keep children from freaking out when they start bleeding, to keep children from getting pregnant and not knowing why. And getting diseases [00:55:00] and, you know, getting aids, all kinds of issues that they need to know about and how not to get them.
[00:55:09] And also how to deal with feelings. I mean, when you get puberty, all of a sudden you’ve got this rush of feelings that you’ve never had before, how do you deal with those? You need some guidance on that. Somebody who’s older, wiser, been through it. Somebody who can tell you, Hey, you’re not the only one that feels that way.
[00:55:30] I went through puberty, the priest down the street went through puberty, your coach went through puberty. Everybody does it, it’s not trivial, it’s important to you. It’s kind of scary, but everybody does it. You’re not unique and this is how you deal with it. Is that enough?
[00:55:49] Ed Watters: Yeah, yeah. That’s great, Tim. Uh, you know, I want to kind of expand a little more on that because I think what you said is extremely valuable.
[00:55:59] And as a society, we need to kind of get control on the aspects and how we look at giving welfare to mothers and families. So, I’m, I’m all for helping individuals, I love it. But you cannot help an individual just by giving them something they’re going to become dependent. So to structure our society, to form strong bonds, and a culture that is worth being in, we have to ensure what we pay for. As citizens,
[00:56:45] we get what we’re paying for. So taking into account that everybody loves to have kids, they love to make babies, but owning up to those, that’s a responsibility. And taxpayers they don’t want to pay for children that are going to be bad children. So to ensure this, we know children learn and like you said, there’s these learning stages in our life. Being responsible about this,
[00:57:21] yeah. If the parents are not capable of teaching and educating, and they want to take the reins of teaching and educating, and they are going to be on a welfare system where the state is paying for the child being raised, fed and housed. It’s great that the parents want to have that initiative, take that step to ensure that their children are safe, educated well, but if they’re not educated well, they should have to take an education in the places of raising children, parenting.
[00:58:10] We need to start ensuring the individuals receiving taxpayer money knows how to raise children properly and ensure their education is coming in, they’re nutrition is coming in. Because I, I was raised by a welfare family and I’ve seen the abuse of welfare. And if you do not take the personal responsibility, you’ll always be stuck in that repetitive motion.
[00:58:44] So I know there’s a need for welfare in certain situations, but we have to take responsibility for how that is distributed. The funds are allocated in the proper manner and they are being used properly because there’s a lot of slop in our system. It’s going to continue if we don’t address these areas of our system or our community.
[00:59:17] Tim McCarthy: Uh, it goes back to the very simple example if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life. Yes. And so that goes right into what you’re saying, if you give somebody food, they want food tomorrow. If you can educate them on how to earn a better living, then you don’t need to give them food every day because they’re earning their own.
[00:59:41] So, yes, I agree. Education, education, education. And, you know, the only thing that struck, the one new thing that struck me with what you were saying is possibly tie some sort of parental education or education to the welfare system [01:00:00] where, uh, okay. If you’re going to get welfare funds, you need to, uh, if you’re, especially, if you’re not working, you need to attend these classes. And whether those classes are online or in-person or whatever, um, it seems like a fresh new idea that might help the system grow. So brilliant.
[01:00:20] Ed Watters: Yes, we need that. And, you know, that’s speaking, coming out of that system and understanding to grow, we need to fix what’s already in place and it’s not a bad thing to help people. Educating them properly so they learn to help themselves, that’s going to lessen the burden on society. And I know we have brilliant people like you, Tim, that can put classes together that can help our society, our world grow and get us out of this dependency nature and bring us back into the Hoover area where we want to do it for ourselves.
[01:01:03] That’s so important. I’m, I’m taking way too much of your time, I know. I, I’m, I have so much more than I could cover and want to. You’re a brilliant man and you’ve done remarkable work. I want you to tell people how to get involved with you, get your book and any call to action that you might have for our listeners.
[01:01:30] Tim McCarthy: Well, it’s very simple, uh, we’re at 4 D as in dimension, 4 d hyphen 2 d.com. Don’t leave out the hyphen, you’ll go somewhere in China. 4d-2d.com or 4d dash 2d.com. Uh, it explains the book, as you said earlier, if you’re not sure about it, you can find the chapter for your child’s age for under a dollar.
[01:01:58] Read it, if you like it and you have more children or you want to, know your child is going to grow out of that stage, you can buy the whole book for under five bucks. And again, immediate download, it’s available. Uh, very, very simple and I hope you’ll put that link, uh, somewhere on the website when, when you post this interview.
[01:02:18] Ed Watters: I will.
[01:02:19] Tim McCarthy: A call to action.
[01:02:21] Very simply, you don’t own your children, okay? They are not your possessions, you are not the star of their movie. You can be the director of their movie, but they are the star. You are not king Arthur, you are not, uh, you are Merlin the magician who educates king Arthur to become the hero, okay. So take time, learn as much as you can, but understand that your child is not you, he’s not going to, you
[01:03:00] can’t relive your baseball dreams through him. You are a gardener who helps your child grow. And so a call to action, one of the ways you can do that of course, is to get my book and learn how to develop a four-dimensional child. One who is physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually developed for his age, and how to get him to the next level to reach, uh, the next developmental milestone.
[01:03:33] Then please join me and if you can raise your children that way, hopefully they will raise their children that way. And in the future, we’ll have a society and perhaps a world that appreciates all four dimensions of the human existence.
[01:03:51] Ed Watters: Tim, you are a very strong and beautiful individual. I thank you so much for sharing with us and being on our Dead America Podcast.
[01:04:00] Thank you so much.
[01:04:02] Tim McCarthy: Thank you for having me, I look forward to the other guests you have on the show.
[01:04:13] Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today. If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way, please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another great episode of Dead America Podcast. I’m Ed Watters your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you may be.