It has been my experience that children are generally not as tactful as adults. It seems to be a learned skill. On the other hand, it also seems to me that as people move into their golden years and beyond they do not care as much what others think of them, and exhibit less tact than they did when they were younger. So there must be an age at which tact is at a maximum, and I want to find out what that age is. Please note that I do not mean to imply that there are not some very tactful old and young people. I only believe that people generally get more tactful than they were as children, and then later become less tactful. Of course many children have an innate sense of tact, and many elderly people continue to exhibit tact.
2006-07-12 00:49:09 · 3 answers · asked by Alexander Khan 2 in Social Science ➔ Psychology
Children start learning this 'tact' as a tool to get 'response' or 'attention' in early stages of life. For example, a child 'cries' only when it sees its mother , whereas it remains quizzically calm with strangers. Here the mother has 'taught' with her pattern of action 'I know you need me , only when I see you crying'... Even with strangers, the child learns 'I can get rid of them only when I make this kind of noise & gestures(crying hysterically)...' and so on.
This kind of learning becomes tact with sophistication and practise, and stays or improves depending on how badly the individually gets stuck in mind game (pre-occupied with other sorts of priorities, like mind focused on other aspects). So really there is no age limit. Look at very old people, we call their 'shift' in behaviour as 'second-childhood'.. In fact we tend to even judge others only at surface level due to unconsciously looking at merely this 'tact' behaviour, missing thus the real emotional being hidden behind this surface layer !
It is this very competitive 'tact-for-tact' that has caused erosion of values to each other, crumbling down of traditional family bonds !
2006-07-12 01:05:59 · answer #1 · answered by Spiritualseeker 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My husband, age 50 hasn't a tactful bone in his body and never has, according to his parents. I, on the other hand have always been tactful. Go figure.
2006-07-12 07:59:49 · answer #2 · answered by SUzyQ 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on what they are being tactful about, tactics and tactful both have tact as the stem word
2006-07-12 07:58:37 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋