In many ways that hope is frightening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t want to go back to whatever some people considered normal.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the lives of too many people right now\u200a\u2014\u200awanting to \u201cgo back to normal\u201d means wanting to go back to a time that they idolize but many did not live in. Like the 1950s or the 1850s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting back to \u201cnormal\u201d is not possible\u200a\u2014\u200aand thinking that you can go back to normal\u200a\u2014\u200awell\u200a\u2014\u200athat\u2019s not normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whenever I teach any kind of psychology course, I tell the students what we\u2019re going to cover. I give them a curriculum\u200a\u2014\u200awhich I handed out on Day 1 when I taught in person, or for an online course\u200a\u2014\u200athey read it online\u200a\u2014\u200aand it was available to read well before they signed up for my class!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet almost every time I teach\u200a\u2014\u200aone of the first questions I get is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n when are we going to talk about abnormal behavior?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My usual answer is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have to know what is considered normal development and normal behavior before you can start looking at and talking about what you think you want to talk about\u200a\u2014\u200awhich are deviations. Those are a very very small percent of any population and it\u2019s not what we\u2019re talking about in this course.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then\u200a\u2014\u200aafter the grumbling\u200a\u2014\u200aI ask: what exactly is normal?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And being me, I answer my own question\u200a\u2014\u200ahere \u2026 and in classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of people and behaviors\u200a\u2014\u200anormal is a moving description. It all depends on where the average is at a given time\u200a\u2014\u200aand averages move. For example, the average heights of adult males and females in the USA have increased over time. And so what had been considered the normal heights decades ago are no longer the current normal heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For some behaviors, the prevailing culture defines what is or is not normal. In the field of Psychology, behaviors that were once labeled \u201cabnormal\u201d are now considered normal. The \u201cbible\u201d of diagnoses is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/em> (DSM\u20135<\/em>) and the diagnoses have changed over the years\u200a\u2014\u200aas we and our cultural \u201cnorms\u201d have changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also spend a fair amount of time talking about behaviors in several different cultures to show that different cultures have<\/p>\n\n\n\n And because my students and I are mostly in the U.S., I add that we are going to be talking about normal development in the United States. It\u2019s not always the same as for people in other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even \u201cEnglish\u201d is different in all English speaking countries. It\u2019s even different within different states and regions of the United States. Just like Spanish is different in different Spanish-speaking countries and French is different in different French-speaking countries, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And part of this is to show my students that humans have a wide variety of behaviors\u200a\u2014\u200aand it\u2019s all considered normal; normal for the culture in which you find it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is important when you talk about normal\u200a\u2014\u200ait is a very constricted thing. There is normal for a specific population, there are broader normals like a normal age for children to walk and talk and even broader normals for cities, states, regions, etc. There may be an average age for these things to happen but there are deviations from that average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote about this in an article about IQ testing but I\u2019m putting in the normal curve again [and article link] to show you the range of what is considered normal or average IQ [85 to 115] although we all hear it\u2019s 100!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n IQ Testing: 5 Reasons To Be Concerned<\/strong> That\u2019s my short take on normal<\/em><\/strong> in the realm of psychology. And the students \u201cget it\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200awell most of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Normal is usable in many areas of life. Its arithmetic form covers a lot of territory other than psychology. It covers all sciences and for some reason, it tends to now include ideas from previous decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I said above we don’t like arithmetic when it doesn’t fit or narrative and so we use the word normal to describe past fantasies of what life was\u200a\u2014\u200aand decide that that was normal and that is what we should be getting back to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I say fantasies because people have an imagined idea of what the past was like. A lot of the people proposing that we need to live in more \u201cnormal times\u201d like the 1950s did not live through the 1950s. And especially when they say they like what was going on around the time of the Civil War\u200a\u2014\u200athey were certainly not alive then to know what life was really like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they are actually saying is code for \u201cI would like to go back to when white men were in charge and we could do what we want.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t really wish to get into the politics of all of this or even the history because that’s not the point of this article\u200a\u2014\u200abut it does stick in my head when I hear people say they want to go back to normal and they hope next year is getting us back to normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\u200a\u2014\u200aalso in the back of my head\u200a\u2014\u200ais the idea that you can never do the same thing twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first time you do something is the first time you do it\u200a\u2014\u200athe second time\u200a\u2014\u200awhen you think you are doing the same thing is a different point in time\u200a\u2014\u200aso you are different you and what you are doing is a different thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In your head you might think you are repeating but you aren\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s like you can not step in the same stream twice because the water keeps moving\u200a\u2014\u200aand it’s different water each time you step in it. And you are a different you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are old philosophical\/psychological concepts but they fit with this idea of \u201cgoing back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever you thought that normal was\u200a\u2014\u200ayou can not go back and repeat it\u200a\u2014\u200ayou cannot make it the same now because nothing else is the same\u200a\u2014\u200athe world has gone on, people have gone on, you\/we have changed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, you can try, and that’s what many political people are trying to do these days\u200a\u2014\u200abut they can’t take us back. They can try\u200a\u2014\u200abut ultimately they cannot undo the past. They can undo some of the laws they do not like, but the same actions that changed those laws in the past can start changing those laws again now. I think it’s sad that we have to re-fight the old fights\u200a\u2014\u200abut the fact is if that that’s what we have to do, we will do it\u200a\u2014\u200aas many times as it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The past is past. We cannot bring past normal into present day living. We change, we create new norms, we create new averages, we create new thoughts. We develop that’s the good thing about humans. Some take longer than others\u200a\u2014\u200athat’s what I teach\u200a\u2014\u200athat’s what I say here\u200a\u2014\u200awe all develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish you the same\u200a\u2014\u200ayou can be as happy as my dog, or your dog, or any dog, or cat, or pet\u200a\u2014\u200awhatever\u200a\u2014\u200aI’m flexible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Why Would You Want To Go Back To Whatever You Thought Normal Was? The year 2022 is right around the proverbial corner and I hear people saying: wow I hope 2022 will get us back to normal! In many ways that hope is frightening. I don’t want to go back to whatever some people considered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1189],"tags":[1304,1453,86],"class_list":["post-2025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-human-interest","tag-politics","tag-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/lynnsrants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\nSince I have been a professor of Developmental Psychology much of my life\u200a\u2014\u200alet me start with something that I do when I teach.<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs if that is the most important part of the course\u200a\u2014\u200aand according to those students\u200a\u2014\u200ait is missing.<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nNormal is a statistical term<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
We universally ignore the standard deviations\u200a\u2014\u200aafter all that\u2019s arithmetic\u200a\u2014\u200aand we don\u2019t like to think of arithmetic when it doesn't fit our narrative.<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1600\/1*X-FAN9A7cJqLK-e2ad8rPA.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
short takeaway: it\u2019s really not all it\u2019s cracked up to be<\/em>lynndorman.medium.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nPast normal ideation is not transferable to the present<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nI do have a collection of much stuff in the back of my head.<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nHere comes 2022!!!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1600\/1*Jjv6d8MgNCBattRMRFoBRA.png\")
Me? I\u2019m heading into 2022 with the desire to be as happy everyday as is my dog.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Just don’t wish us backwards\u200a\u2014\u200athank you.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"