Let me just bluntly state that such theories are nonsense.
I’m not sure where that myth originated from, but I can safely assert that
whatever the indicators are, these are similar to the criteria that were used
to convict innocent people in the 17th century Salem witch trials.
Let’s lay these myths to rest before innocent people are wrongly accused of
being “evil” or perhaps worse, to lay our trust in a dog or a child who is
friendly toward a person with malicious intent.
Let’s take a step back and rationally think about things for
a few minutes – starting with the pets. Pets and livestock have their reasons
for being afraid of a particular human. They are their reasons and have nothing
to do with whether a person is good or evil or has good or evil intentions. Based
upon my own experiences, there are dogs that really love me and there are some
that want to tear me apart. They are not necessarily bad dogs, but they are simply
doing what dogs do. Besides my own personal experiences with animals, I have
researched and found information from reputable pet experts to back up my
claims. We don’t always understand why dogs bark, growl or run away from
certain people but are friendly toward others. It may be a scent or biases
based upon the way a person looks. Dogs have prejudices the same as people. You
may think your dog is special, but honestly it’s not. Dogs are creatures of
instinct and (as all animals) they do possess unique personalities and that’s
why one animal will behave differently than another, despite any training from
humans. We had a dog once that would go into a barking frenzy whenever one of
our friends came over. It may have been because he had a beard or because he
looked like somebody that abused her, but the guy was definitely not a bad guy.
The dog also hated gloves for some reason and would tear them up if we left
them outside. Personality quirks. I’ve also seen dogs that were friendly… even
loyal to known felons. It’s not intuition that drives their behavior. It is
instinct, personality and conditioning.
The same principle applies to children. This is the main
reason why as parents we don’t allow children to make all their own decisions.
If we let them act on their “intuition” they could end up in serious, even
deadly circumstances. I have raised and taught many children in my life and
each one of them has their reasons for feeling uncomfortable around a person.
Just as with pets, maybe it has something to do with how a person looks, smells
or something in their voice. I can even remember being a child and there were
adults who I was afraid of, but I couldn’t explain why. They weren’t bad people
though. I also did not possess the wisdom (or “intuition”) to determine whether
a person was bad, simply by a “gut feeling” or some kind of supernatural
instinct that supposedly children have but adults don’t. In retrospect, there were
actual bad people I knew and never
even had a clue as a child. My parents would warn me to stay away from certain
people because they were pedophiles or those who had committed violent crimes,
though they didn’t explain the nature of their wrongdoing in my early years.
Children (like adults) use logical reasoning to base their decisions. Their
logic may be completely illogical to adults. They may determine that a man is
really nice because he gives them candy (and I know of several instances such
as this). I’m not saying that all adults that give out candy to children have
malicious intent, but children can’t always determine the difference and this
is why we warn children not to accept candy from adults unless they are in the
presence of a parent or other trusted adult. Contrarily, there are many
children who think an adult is “evil” because they are strict or because they
don’t give them things they want or because they are not smiling. I’ve
experienced many instances like this as well. Even infants are subject to such
conditioning. I remember several teachers I thought were “evil” because of such
reasoning.
I think it’s time to lay some of these myths to rest and
start using adult reasoning as a
judge of a person’s character and not rely on “supernatural” criteria from pets
or children. As far as having a “vibe” or “intuition” or a “gut feeling” about
a person’s character, use your own instincts. What are those vibes telling you?
A child or pet is no more privy to possessing special powers of discernment
that any adult can have. Something else to think about is the vibes that we
give off to our children and pets, which are sensitive to nonverbal cues and
unease. Oftentimes, we are the ones
that create these vibes that, in turn, transfer to our pets or children.
I’m not going to reference any studies about this, but rest
assured that the evidence overwhelmingly supports what I have written. Just do
a simple Google search if you’re not convinced. Finally, stop relying on memes,
unattributed quotes or theories that are not backed by credible evidence as a
basis for your beliefs.
