‘We teach our children to be kind and polite and considerate, and then we send them out as young adults into a world that only rewards the aggressive and strong.” Can a person be aggressive and kind?’

Many believe the ideal environment to foster the growth of their children is a home that offers unconditionally kindness and love. Whether or not these qualities are taught to the children, the children would eventually catch these qualities themselves through their own experiences. Perhaps an ideal home is the only place in the society where competition does not exist, where everyone is accepted and rewarded based on who they are, and not what they do. When the children grow older and move out into the society, it seems too cruel to send them into a place where only the strong and aggressive are rewarded. How do they reconcile these two different worlds and value systems? Can they learn to be kind and aggressive at the same time? Being kind and aggressive does not necessarily have to be contradictory to each other. One does not have to look upon these qualities as personality traits, but as attitudes when responding to different stimuli. We see living examples of individuals w...