We are hearing a lot of people talking about freedom and their right to choose in reference to the COVID-19 vaccine and wearing a mask.  Yet are we really making our own decisions, or are we allowing others with hidden agendas to make decisions for us? 
 
Yes, it’s true that we all interpret situations differently.  Your perceptions are how you view the world around you, but perceptions are not always based on facts.  A perception is by definition—a way of understanding something, a mental impression.  Perceptions may or may not be based on facts and perceptions may or may not be real.  A perception is simply what a person thinks, but when perceptions come from misinformation, false claims, or just plain lies, then those perceptions are as wrong as the misinformation and lies from which they were drawn.
 
Anti-Mask And Anti-Vaccine Mandates Kill
One of the most damaging maneuvers in the misinformation wars over COVID comes straight out of the governor’s office.  I’ll even use my home state of Texas as an example because we have one of the worst.  Governor Abbott has mandated that it’s against the law for anyone, large or small business, public or private school, or whatever to have a vaccine mandate. 
 
Governor Abbott’s mandates are not about freedom of choice.  No, they are about Governor Abbott’s desperate attempt to improve his rating in the upcoming election for governor.  Yes, he’s behind in the polls.
 
As Christian Menefee, a Harris County Texas attorney stated, Governor Abbott’s executive order banning vaccine mandates “strips away choice.”  
 
Governor Abbott and other politicians like him claim that they’re giving citizens the right to choose for themselves and their children.  They claim that they are allowing each person to choose whether they want to wear a mask or be vaccinated.  But that isn’t true. 
 
The governor’s mandate does not allow me, if I were a small business owner, the right to choose whether I want my business to mandate vaccines and masks.  The governor has taken away my rights, my freedom, my ability to choose.
 
Governor Abbott is creating his own mandate; unfortunately, the governor’s mandate encourages coronavirus to continue spreading and killing people, even children. 
 
Politicians, like Governor Abbott, are not standing up for your right of personal choice.  This is not about freedom.  Instead, they’re taking away the right of personal choice, unless you happen to agree with them.  Under Governor Abbott’s mandate, you are only allowed to choose, if you choose what he wants you to choose.  In some countries, that is referred to as a dictatorship.
 
If we allow mandates like Governor Abbott’s to dictate our actions, then COVID-19 will continue to spread and kill even more innocent children, parents, and evenly seemingly healthy young people.  Instead, we need mandates that save lives.  Vaccine mandates save lives.  Mask mandates save lives.  Standing on the street corner shouting "freedom" does not.  Having governors pass anti-vaccine mandates to improve their chances of reelection will not save lives. 
 
I try to stay out of politics.  I leave the political writing to my husband.  
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Bill’s Post: "It’s All About Control:" Conservative Persuasion and Public Health
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However, political problems have marched right into the classroom and are interfering with education.  I’m a psychologist. I work with children who are struggling and failing in reading because we have found that reading failure can totally change a child’s life and not for the better.  That is why I developed a program, and I work to help struggling students learn to read. We’ve been quite successful. We’ve had failing students move up four grade levels in reading in just one year, but now politics is getting in the way. 
 
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Reading Wars are Over!  Phonics Failed.  Whole Language Failed.  Balanced Literacy Failed. Who Won?  It Certainly Wasn’t the Students.
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What Should You Do When Your Perceptions and Ideas Hurt Others?
Vaccine mandates and masks save lives.  It’s been proven over and over.
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For the facts, read:  COVID-19 Misinformation and Lies Are Killing Young People 
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We are hopefully within weeks of having an approved COVID vaccine for children 5 to 12 years old.  If distributed, the COVID vaccine would make life so much safer for children in the classroom.  Yet, the protests have already begun.
 
Yes, I know we frequently have protests when any new health or safety measure is first introduced.  I’m old enough to remember when seatbelts were not standard equipment on cars.  Yes, I remember people taking razor blades and cutting seatbelts out of cars or stuffing them down behind the seats where they were out of the way.  Yet, the sole function of seatbelts is to save your life and the lives of those who are riding in the car with you.  Yet, people screamed and yelled, “No one’s going to tell me to wear a seat belt.”  “That thing’s uncomfortable, I’m not wearing that.”  Yes, these are direct quotes and people really did cut seatbelts out of cars.  It was not until the federal government made seatbelts mandatory and started handing out tickets when people didn’t comply that seatbelts became accepted.  It didn’t matter that seatbelts had been proven to save lives.  It was political.  It was a matter of choice.  The government was depriving people of their freedom not to wear seatbelts and to die in an automobile accident.
 
Today, it seems we are in reruns.  Once again, we are fighting against the government’s desire to save lives.  It seems that the federal government is trying to save people’s lives and stop COVID from spreading and killing more people. 

We have a vaccine that is saving lives.  It has been proven over and over that it is saving lives and that the majority of people who are still dying from COVID-19 are those who are not vaccinated.  Yet, the protests are growing.
 
If a person’s perceptions have been distorted by what they’ve read on the internet and social media, heard on the radio, or seen on TV, then a person may not believe or accept the truth concerning the coronavirus pandemic.  A person may have developed distorted perceptions of COVID-19 and may be functioning on those distorted perceptions.  Unfortunately, it is very hard to convince someone that their perceptions are wrong, especially when politics enters the picture.
 
Children Are Dying
Nicole Sperry stood beside her 10 year old daughter’s hospital bed and watched her die of COVID-19.  Teresa was an excellent student, loved to read, and was always kind to others.  The Sperry family chose to be fully vaccinated, always wear a mask, follow social distancing rules, and other safety guidelines.  The two youngest children were not eligible for vaccines but wore masks at all times. 
 
Parents in the neighborhood were fighting mask rules at school, saying children were not in danger.  As a matter of fact, while Teresa lay dying, there were parents speaking at the Chesapeake Public School District meeting claiming that the pandemic was over.
 
Two days after Teresa died, her mother went to the next school board meeting and said,
 
"My message for you and all that are listening is that Covid is not over, no matter what people who have been standing up here have said…. On September 27, during the last meeting, there were parents or concerned citizens that voiced misinformation to you.  They said that Covid is basically over and that healthy people do not die. When they were sharing this information, their opinions, the fact was, I was sitting next to my healthy daughter’s deathbed. She died five days after showing symptoms. I am sure they were speaking to what they’ve experienced, but they are wrong.  Apart from a broken bone in her arm when she was younger, Teresa was a healthy 10-year-old social and happy girl, who never had the flu or even an ear infection….  Children are getting Covid and they’re getting it at schools….  [We need to] do everything that we can to protect our children….”
 
Nicole Sperry said that she hoped by sharing her daughter’s story that she would encourage other parents to get their children vaccinated and encourage everyone to wear a mask.
 
Are You Vaccinated?  Are You Wearing A Mask?
You may not only save your own life, but you may save the life of an innocent child.  Don’t fall victim to misinformation or political games.  Political mandates based on misinformation can kill.

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Why Do People Fear the Vaccine More Than COVID-19? The Perception of Control
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Photo: copyright Elaine Clanton Harpine

The Perception of Control
Let’s talk about control. I contend that it is this “perception of control” that is preventing people from taking the COVID vaccine.  In psychology, we call this Perceptual Control Theory. 

Right now, the majority of people dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated.  It’s in the news almost every day that another unvaccinated radio host, politician, or beloved unvaccinated parent or child has died from COVID-19. 
 
Yet, every single day, there is someone on the news shouting that they will never take the COVID vaccine.  Instead, they say, “I’d rather have COVID-19 than ever take that vaccine.”  What is causing people to act this way? 

 
Why Do People Fear the COVID Vaccines So Much?
There are almost as many answers to that question as there are people trying to answer it.  Unfortunately, none of us really knows. 

Since today, October 10, 2021, is World Mental Health Day, I would like to look at the question from a mental health perspective. 

Many people on the street are talking about the word “control:” 

“It’s not about the virus. It’s about control….”

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But Is That True?
Sometimes when mental health collides with reality, perceptions become distorted.  Different people interpret situations in different ways.  Perceptions are not always based on true facts.  A perception is by definition—a way of understanding something, a mental impression.  Perceptions may or may not be based on facts and perceptions may or may not be real.
 
As John Adams once said during a criminal trial,
 
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." 
 
Control is definitely one of the reasons for the resistance to the COVID vaccine, but I contend that it is not a question of government control.  It is an issue of the control that is being exerted through misinformation. 
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See my earlier post COVID-19 Misinformation and Lies Are Killing Young People  
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What Is Perceptual Control Theory?
To simplify, perceptual control theory explains how we as humans try to control our environment.  Yes, that includes the people who live in our families, neighborhoods, and the world as a whole.  With young children and teenagers, we see this constant fight for control.  Children and teens are trying to establish their identity.  As adults, we are supposed to look toward the common good, what is best for all of society, not just for me as an individual.  Yet, if you turn on the news or check on the Internet, common good is not what you will find, certainly not in reference to COVID-19. 
 
Where does this battle for control that we see taking place out on the streets come from?  Researchers explain that,
 
“Conflict within a person can arise quite by accident. A person may have a goal of being a good person. To be a good person, one should be steadfast, both consistent and firm; also, one should be supportive of others; obliging and accommodating. Both of these sub-goals are supposedly ways of satisfying the higher goal of being a good person. But when it comes to selecting a specific way of behaving that will satisfy both goals, the contradiction arises: one can’t be steadfast and obliging at the same time, or firm while being accommodating too. At the level where a specific goal is to be achieved through specific programs, there is direct conflict. To behave one way means not behaving the other way.” (p.9)
 
Conflict arises. We take sides. The vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.  Both sides believe they are right, but unfortunately, both sides cannot be right.  The facts do not support both arguments.
 
The battle lines have been drawn.  The yelling is hot and heavy.  The commercially-made signs are aplenty.  People are still dying, and at present, the death toll is higher for the unvaccinated.  So, why do the unvaccinated continue to fight as their friends and colleagues die around them?
 
How Do You Resolve the Conflict?
Resolving such conflict is not easy.  People never want to admit that they are wrong.  Some people will even risk their life and even death rather than admit they made a mistake.
 
Negative feedback feeds conflict.  If you listen to the radio, the TV, the Internet, negativism is everywhere.  We sell hate or should I say that hate sells the news and keeps the internet humming.  Hate runs our political parties.  Hate is supporting the continuation of  the coronavirus pandemic.
 
We will never overpower the hate that is raging through our country until we're ready to celebrate good news, happiness, and kindness as readily as we are to focus on hate and anger.  Telling someone that they are wrong rarely if ever convinces them to change their opinions. As psychologists Timothy A. Carey, Sara J. Tai, and Robert Griffiths explain, 
 
“Living things, therefore, function effectively when they can achieve and maintain the preselected perceptual states that are important to them, despite environmental effects that would otherwise alter these states.… when stress is experienced in social situations it is due to a lack of control.” (p. 56-62)
 
People are fighting to regain control of their environment.  It is not possible to understand why someone is marching up and down the street protesting vaccines by just watching pictures of them marching around carrying signs. You must understand the individual's “preselected perceptual states”--how they perceive their environment to be run, to be organized, and what they perceive themselves to need to be happy. 
 
The problem is that perceptions are not real; they are perceptions - what you think.  A person's preselected perceptual state may not be derived from factual material.  A person may not read, believe, or accept the facts of the coronavirus pandemic.  A person may have distorted perceptions of COVID-19 and may be functioning on those distorted perceptions.  It is very hard to convince someone that their perceptions are wrong. As Carey, Tai, and Griffiths explain,

“Someone will only be troubled, or bothered, or distressed, or traumatised, or experience some other unpleasantness, if the happenings in their environment overwhelm their abilities to act, or otherwise impair their ability to control. This relativity of control explains why the same event will not be similarly traumatising to all people.” (p. 64) 

 
If Our Perceptions Are Wrong, How Do We Change our Perceptions and Resolve the Conflict? 
It is not easy, nor is it a simple fix.

Report the facts.  Counteract the misinformation.  Show how many people have been rescued from COVID because of the vaccine.  Bombard the news and Internet with positive case studies.  Show that the vaccines work.  

 
What Will It Take to Convince People to Get Vaccinated?
 
Mandates are essential to save society from those who will not take the vaccine willingly.
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See My Earlier Post:  Coronavirus is Raging Through the Schools.  We Must Have Mask and Vaccine Mandates to Protect the Children 

Bill's Post: "It's All About Control:" Conservative Persuasion and Public Health
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The World Health Organization says that the coronavirus pandemic has had a “major impact” on the lives and mental health of people around the world.  Neither the pandemic nor the impact has ended.  COVID rages on.
 
As of October 10th, it was reported that 712,974  people have died from COVID-19 in the U. S.
 
Happy Mental Health Day
I've given you a couple of sources for those who wish to dive further into perceptual control theory, but I've also tried to keep from delving too deep into psychological theory for those who may have no interest in psychology.  Both sources that I've quoted have free access and are fairly easy to read.     
 
My publisher, Springer Nature, is offering free access to chapters and journal articles on mental health this month.  If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to check the listings.

Hummingbird Photo: Elaine Clanton Harpine, copyright 2021

With angry news reports blasting from every corner, stress levels are sky high these days.  If you are feeling stressed from the pandemic—getting vaccinated or wearing a mask, the best answer to reducing stress is reading.
 
“Reading helps reduce stress, decrease blood pressure and improve heart rate which will release tension in our muscles. A study from the University of Sussex shows that stress can be reduced by up to 68% with just reading alone, and it’s more effective than many other stress relievers out there.”
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Reading is even more effective at reducing stress than walking, but don't stop walking, because walking is by far the best exercise for your health.  Our mind and bodies need both.

Psychological Benefits of Reading
You may be saying, “that's great, but I simply do not have time to sit down and read.”  The study, from the University of Sussex, found that as little as 6 minutes a day reduced stress by up to 68%.  We all can manage 6 minutes a day, even children.  Regular daily reading helps reduce depression or just feeling sad. 
 
If your child comes home from school feeling stressed, after a snack and before you start homework, sit down and read together.  If your child is old enough to read, have the child read to you.  Make reading a daily habit.  You may even expand 6 minutes a day to 30 minutes a day. 

Reading has been found to be more effective at reducing stress than watching television, playing video games, or even listening to music.
 
Reading sharpens the mind, increases vocabulary, improves memory, and just makes the day a bit happier, more carefree.  According to research, reading puts our brains into a “pleasurable trance-like state,” similar to meditation.  Reading brings a sense of inner calm. 
 
Research also shows that reading brings about a “heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex.”  This link is essential for teaching children to read effectively.  No, reading to a child will not teach them how to read, but reading to or with a child will help them learn how important reading is as a lifetime skill.
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For More about Teaching a Child to Read:  Is Teaching Decoding and Encoding a Form of Phonics?  No!  
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Reading uses the brain in ways that watching television or playing video games does not.  Both children and adults need this brain stimulation that is only available through reading.

Get Books! 
You may be saying, “I just can't afford to buy a stack of books right now, or I'm not sure it's really safe to go to the library, yet.”  There are free books available for both children and adults. 
 
For adults, look at:  11 Sites That Offer Free E-Books 
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For children, go to:  27 Ways to Get Free Kids Books by Mail & Online
 
I particularly liked “Goodreads” on the children’s list.  Just click on the title, and it will give you all kinds of information.

So, It's Time to Read!
What are you waiting for?  It's free, and it's good for you.
  
Stress is linked to numerous illnesses in our society.  Stress related diseases increase medical costs.  We all need to reduce stress, even children.
 
Go find a novel and escape into a world of relaxation.
 
Don't pick a book for your period of relaxation that makes you angry or upset.  Choose a book that makes you feel happy.  Save the sad stories or violent tales for another time.  When picking a book for relaxation, pick a happy story that will help you totally forget about the stress and worries of the world around you.  For just a few minutes, escape and let your brain and body relax.