Are you trying to say, mold a child into becoming either a taker or a giver? Be a bully or be a victim? It's a very myoptic way of looking at people. Givers aren't Victims, but are relegated it with improper guidance. Takers aren't Bullies, but likewise inadequate guidance let's them fall into this trap. Parenting isn't one size fits all. Just ask parents with multiple children, each child has vastly different personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc.
doesn't matter much which way you lean to teach your children,they will learn on their own by experiment ......unless you've a child like Forest Gump
Can you cite examples about how you see the concepts as mutually exclusive? I'm having a hard time understanding how anybody's perception of the world can be so black-or-white. Life is nothing but gray, and with that comes the idea of duality and existence as a big picture and small picture issue. We are capable of holding both concepts in our minds at the same time, and therefore, we should.
All you need to teach kids is to respect people, the environment of a situation and especially respect the abilities of people of what they can or cant do, be it harmful or helpful.
It's interesting that you ask that. I created this thread as a result of a recent incident we encountered. long explanation of the incident is in the spoiler Spoiler This happened a few days ago, no Monday. It's a petty occurrence, but it's exemplary of my point. My family went to our usual haircut place - nobody else was there and from the parking lot, we could see that my barber was reading a newspaper. My wife and daughter usually wait in the car while my son and I get our hair cut. After parking, I opened my car door to get out and took a moment to power-down my tablet computer. Another car (with a woman and two kids) started to pull into the parking spot next to us. My wife, out of consideration, suggested that I close my car door to let her park. I did, briefly, and then opened my door to get out of the car. As I did, the other lady sent her oldest son running out of their car into the hair cut place ahead of us. He jumped in the barber chair ahead of us. Clearly, the woman had instructed her son to specifically run in and get ahead of us when she saw that we were going to get our hair cut. "That was a crappy thing to do," I thought to myself. "That'll teach us to be considerate of others." But it wasn't that big of a deal, right? My son and I walked in, I looked at my barber and he looked at us and said we're next, after the kid. We sat down. In a few minutes, the mother walked in with her other, younger boy and sat down. She said to the barber, "We're with him [the boy getting his haircut]. Can you cut my other boy's hair next?" I said to her, "No - we're in line next. We're after him, then you're after us." Her: "I'm talking to him [the barber]." Me: "And I'm talking to you - we're next in line." Her: "Well you don't need to be talking to me and you don't need to be rude to me! blah blah blah" She continued for a moment to tell me how rude I was (although I said nothing more than I've described and, although, I was confrontational, I was not rude). She then got on her phone and called someone to tell them how rude I was (of course, describing it in a loud voice for me to hear). I said nothing more. I don't care what she thinks and I don't care what she tells her friends/family about some stranger at a haircut place. Although this just a petty, isolated incident. Almost all of the time that I find us being considerate of others, the result is that other people come out on top and we, the considerate people, get taken advantage of. There are times in life when things are gray, as you indicate, but there are also many times when things are not. One kid goes first, the other waits. One kid jumps ahead and gets the one item. The others get nothing. I've found that when my kid and his "be considerate of others" upbringing, meets another kid and their "me first!" upbringing, the other kid almost always comes out on top. I don't want my kids' "be considerate of others" upbringing to result in them always losing out to others and being taken advantage of throughout life. Or is that an antiquated philosophy? Does that guide them into being too passive? Should kids instead be taught that "nice guys finish last", that others will only look out for themselves and they should do the same?
That lady's kid getting in line before you entered the door is fair and you getting in line after is fair. She shouldn't expect her other boy to be next if he took his time getting to the door. There are times when I'll park after another person but I walk with more pace to get to the door and stand in line. It's not that I'm being rude, I'm just not waiting for the other person to walk faster. There are other times when the store has a weird layout and new guests don't know where the back of the line starts. Whoever gets to the line first has the right of way, but you can be polite to let the waiting person go first if he/she didn't know where the line began.
IMO, I don't think you were wrong to feel what you felt and there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with "be considerate of others". Yes, you will "win" less when you are considerate, but be true with who you are and what you believe is "right". If you are religious, then just think about what the bible preaches about. If you are not religious and beleives in karma, then think about the other who takes advantage of you will get his/her at the end. If you don't believe in either, you can still let it go and say to yourself "hey, I did what I believe is the right thing, it just didn't turn out the way I wanted to". I don't believe being considerate makes a person passive. Some children can be that way, but as long as the parent teaches them to not be taken advantage of while being considerate, I think children will turn out fine. BTW, it is nice to hear that there are still people who practice them.