Arnold Mol

Articles

A SAMPLE OF ARTICLES WRITTEN BY DR. ARNOLD MOL

• Goal Setting
• Marital Happiness
• Motivation
• Permission without Approval
• The Purpose of a Sexual Relationship
• Raising Confident Children
• Motivation of Learners

Goal Setting

High goals demotivate; low goals motivate because they increase the likelihood of success. Everybody wants to be successful. Nobody wants to be a failure. When people think that they are not going to achieve success, they usually stop trying; at least they can't fail if they don't try.

Marital Happiness

When we talk of marital happiness, there are two things spouses need to do. First of all they have to meet each other’s role expectations – and every couple has those expectations. However, doing only what is expected of you in your role as husband or wife will not bring about marital bliss. For example, I expect my wife to prepare a meal for me regularly. If she did not do that, it would make me very unhappy; but the fact that she does it, does not make me happy. After all, she is only doing what is expected of her. She has many expectations of me. For example, she expects me to fix things when they break (like a leaking tap). If I don’t fix it, she is unhappy; if I do fix it, she is not unhappy. After all, I've only done what is expected of me. To prevent unhappiness in marriage you have to do what your spouse expects of you.

Motivation

Whenever I ask managers to tell me what they mean when they talk of "motivating subordinates", the most common definition is that "motivation is to get a subordinate to do what the manager wants him to do". Some may add that the subordinate has to do it to the best of his ability, but most of them agree that motivation is getting someone to do what you want him to do. Is that in fact what motivation entails? But that is a myth.

Permission without Approval

One of the greatest sources of conflict between teenagers and parents is on the issue of moral values and behaviour. When the kids were small, we as parents could impose our standards on them, but now that they are teens we find that a great deal more difficult to do. As a result more tears have been shed and more harsh words have been spoken than on any other topic. And often so unnecessarily.

The problem is not the parents' values and standards. A survey at a college in the U.S.A. found that something like 80% of students said that their values coincided to a large extent with the values of their parents. (Take heart parents!). The real problem is the way we seek to impose those standards.

The Purpose of a Sexual Relationship

The secular magazines are full of articles on sex, yet not one that I have ever read discusses the actual purpose of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman? What is that purpose? What did God have in mind when He created sex? What needs are satisfied in sexual intercourse? In asking numerous people this question, the following purposes were listed:

- Procreation
- Physical pleasure
- Expression of love

My belief is that sexual relations meets each one of these needs, yet it is not the primary purpose for which God created sex. (There are other deviant purposes for sex. For some it satisfies the need to conquer - and of course such people never have one partner for very long because they become bored with that person. In extreme cases such as rape, its purpose is to express hatred towards the opposite sex. These are obviously not what God intended when He designed sex.)

Raising Confident Children

PARENTAL GOALS

From the day our first child was born, my wife and I set two specific goals for our children. We prayed that by the time they left home each one would be walking with God in a very practical manner. The second goal was that each child should have a healthy self-esteem and feel confident about coping with all the challenges and crises they would face in life. This chapter deals with the things that we as parents can do to raise confident children, and the things we need to avoid doing, so as not to damage their self-esteem.
I want to suggest four basic strategies that parents can use to develop a healthy self-esteem in their children: togetherness, non-judgment, encouragement and acceptance.

The Motivation of Learners

DEFINITION

At the outset it is important to define the concept of motivation accurately. In the business world, when managers are asked what they understand by the term ‘motivation’ the most common definition is “influencing subordinates to achieve the goal that the manager wants them to achieve”. Is that, however, a valid definition of motivation? I believe not, because it does not distinguish the difference between movement and motivation.