The Importance of Environmental Roots

 * Excerpts from Theodore Isaac Rubin's 1967 book entitled,
The Winner's Notebook .

 To have lived in one place, or at least not to have moved
about excessively, and to have gone to one elementary and to one secondary school is a distinct advantage. People who have moved about a great deal in childhood find it difficult to adjust to adult moves. People who lived in one place and went to one school usually find it easier to adjust to adult moves, other things being equal. This is so because living in one place and going to one school gives the child the needed opportunity to familiarize himself with his environment and friends. This gives him a proper sense of identity and confidence in dealing with his environment. Identity and confidence, as well as a sense of security and well-being, when fed by other necessary later life developments, will be all-important in adjusting to new situations and places and people all of his life. I would like to point out here that environment is much more important to children than it is to adults. Their sense of who they are is not yet formed and the formation of self is infinitely connected to where they are and whom they are with. Therefore, being in one place long enough and with the same people (especially friends) is all-important in developing a feeling of relating to the environment and to developing a self.