Natural Childhood

Babies to 'teach' pupils empathy in Cardiff classrooms

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 03:40:00 +0000

The programme substantially raises the likelihood of children helping each other and sharing, according to research

Babies are set to be brought into primary schools in Cardiff to help improve pupils' empathy levels and help reduce any bullying and aggression.

The scheme, pioneered in Canada, encourages children to interact in a nurturing manner after observing a parent and baby in the classroom.

Reports suggest children who have taken part are more likely to help others, share, and accept peers as they are.

The programme is being run by the charity Action for Children (AfC).

Around 2,000 school children will take part in Roots of Empathy, as the scheme is known, which will see a local parent and young baby visit their school nine times over the course of a school year.

The sessions will be led by AfC staff trained in the techniques of the programme.

'Special'

Debra Ennis, the charity's children's services manager, said the project had been running very successfully in Scotland for two years and a Big Lottery Fund grant had enabled them to bring it to Wales.

"We chose Cardiff as we have a really good relationship with the local authority and already run some programmes here.

"We are looking at other local authorities as well, Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly, and hope to roll it out across the whole of south Wales eventually.

"The results in Scotland have been amazing. I was a bit sceptical at first - babies going into classrooms - but the turnaround in behaviour in children's classrooms and drop in anti-social behaviour has been amazing.

"In Scotland, there was a little boy who was very withdrawn and not involved with other children. He took the baby away in a harness and when he came back said to the teacher words to the effect of 'this baby though I was special. No-one's ever thought I was special'.

'Respectful relationships'

"It was a way in for the teachers to explain that everyone is special and to engage him."

Ten schools in Cardiff will initially take part, in areas of identified as having higher deprivation and greater need, involving children in years 5 and 6.

For nine months, they will have three sessions per month: a preparation session, a second one with the mother and baby and a follow-up.

Brigitte Gater, operational director of AfC in Wales, said: "Roots of Empathy teaches school children to understand their own feelings and the feelings of others by using a baby as the 'tiny teacher'.

"This raises levels of empathy amongst classmates, resulting in more respectful relationships and a dramatic reduction in levels of aggression among school children.

"By increasing levels of 'emotional literacy' in children at a young age we can lay the foundation for safe and caring classrooms and, in the long-term, safe and caring societies."

Source: BBC

Roots of Empathy

Facebook 'may soon allow' under-13s to join the site

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 09:47:00 +0000

Facebook may soon allow children younger than 13 years old to access the site under parental supervision, reports say.

The social networking giant is developing technology to link children's accounts to those of their parents, says the Wall Street Journal.

The publication also claims parents could be allowed to control whom their children add as friends.

At the moment, Facebook bans under-13s from joining the site.

The social network currently has more than 900 million users, and opening it up to under-13s could significantly boost the numbers.

Although when approached by the BBC, Facebook's spokeswoman refused to either confirm or deny the reports, she did say that the company was constantly testing new technologies.

She also added that children's safety had always been of paramount importance.

"Many recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to enforce age restrictions on the internet, especially when parents want their children to access online content and services," Facebook said in a statement to the BBC.

"We are in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment."

Lying about age

Among the main reasons of banning under-13s from accessing Facebook are cyber-bullying, child pornography and trolling.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

We'd take a lot of precautions to make sure that the under-13s are safe”

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook

But many analysts wonder whether simply stating that young children are not allowed to join is really solving the problem.

According to surveys, many under-13s get on Facebook anyway, by lying about their age while completing the application form.

And it seems that often, parents are in the loop.

A recent study by researchers from Harvard, University of California, Northwestern University and Microsoft Research found that 72% of parents who had reported that their child was on Facebook knew that that the child joined the social network before age 13.

In May 2011, Consumer Reports found that "of the 20 million minors who actively use Facebook", 7.5 million were younger than 13 and more than five million were younger than 10.

McAfee conducted a study in 2010 which said that 37% of 10 to 12-year-olds were on the social network.

The social network is aware that under-13s do manage to join, and has a page offering advice to parents to help them educate their children about potential issues in the online world.

Children's safety

In May, the Sunday Times quoted Facebook's head of policy in the UK, Simon Milner, as saying that the social network was getting ready to change its policy with regard to allowing younger users join the site.

"A lot of parents are happy their kids are on Facebook," he was quoted as saying.

"We would like to hear from people what the answer might be."

But Facebook's spokeswoman told the BBC that Mr Milner was misquoted, and that it was not correct to conclude from the interview he gave to the Sunday Times that the network was considering to open up to under-13s.

"All he said was that children's safety is extremely important to us, and he did not say anything new," said the spokesperson.

Last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also mentioned safety.

"My philosophy is that for education, you need to start at a really, really young age," he said, as quoted by Fortune.

"We'd take a lot of precautions to make sure that the under-13s are safe."

BBC

Shock report: cuts to have a 'catastrophic' effect on child poverty

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 30 May 2012 08:56:00 +0000

The UK has a higher percentage of children in poverty than 21 of 35 economically advanced countries surveyed

The Government's spending cuts will have a "catastrophic" effect on British children, a UN agency has warned, endangering their future health, education and employment.

Labour's success in cutting the number of children growing up in poverty could be reversed, according to Unicef. Britain did better than many other rich countries in protecting children from deprivation after the financial crisis erupted in 2008, Unicef said in its annual "report card" on 35 developed nations. But it warned that the Coalition's cuts to tax credits and freeze on child benefit will reverse this progress.

"We know that the number of children living in poverty in the UK is set to increase due to spending cuts," said David Bull, the executive director of Unicef UK. "This will be a catastrophic blow to the futures of thousands of children, putting at risk their future health, education and chances of employment.

"One thing is clear: government policies to tackle the deficit must not harm children. There is only one chance at childhood – we cannot see a generation, growing up in austerity, denied the chance to fulfil their potential."

Today Nick Clegg will answer the Government's critics by extending the provision of 15 hours of free childcare each week. Almost 1,000 two-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, who were due to start receiving free pre-school education from September next year, will now be eligible from this September. All three- and four-year-olds are already eligible for 15 hours of free early education a week between 8am and 6pm. The hours will now be extended to 7am-7pm and parents will be given the option to spread their nursery place over two days rather than three.

Under the Child Poverty Act passed by Labour, the UK's relative child poverty rate is due to be halved to no more than 10 per cent by 2020 and absolute income poverty (defined as living on an income below 60 per cent of the median, about £26,000) cut from 20 to 5 per cent. But Unicef warned that the figures could reach 24 and 23 per cent respectively by 2020 – well short of the legally binding targets, even though they have been adopted by the Coalition.

Unicef's report said the previous government achieved one of the largest reductions in child poverty by providing tax credits, cash transfers and accessible public services. But it said that the UK now has a higher rate of child deprivation than Iceland, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Unicef's league table takes account of whether children have access to 14 items including three meals and fresh fruit and vegetables every day; books; outdoor leisure equipment such as a bicycle; the internet and the opportunity to celebrate special days such as birthdays.

The UK has a higher percentage of children in poverty (12 per cent) – when defined as households with income lower than 50 per cent of the national median – than 21 of 35 economically advanced countries surveyed.

In Britain, 800,000 three- and four-year-olds already enjoy up to 15 hours of free early education every week. Ten areas will trial the entitlement for two-year-olds from this September: Blackpool, Cornwall, Greenwich, Kent, Lambeth, Lancashire, Newcastle, Northamptonshire, Peterborough and Rotherham.

Mr Clegg said: "We're revolutionising the early start our children get in life – there will be more free childcare, it will be higher quality, and it will be more flexible for parents. "Every child should have a fair crack of the whip from the start and be able to go on to fulfil their potential."

* Labour claimed last night there is a £9bn "black hole" in the welfare budget due to higher than expected spending on jobseeker's allowance and housing benefit. It blamed the "failure" of the flagship Work Programme, under which private firms and charities are paid to get the jobless back to work.

Chris Grayling, the Employment minister, dismissed Labour's claim as "nonsense." In a speech marking the programme's first anniversary today, he will admit that providers are finding the task "more challenging than expected" but insist the scheme has made "a decent start". He will warn under-performing providers that they will lose contracts.

Independent

Age Discrimination Endangers Human Rights for Young and Old Alike

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:33:00 +0000

By Jan Hunt

Here is a riddle: "I don't have much hair, I don't have all my teeth, I have trouble walking, I need help dressing myself, I am often misunderstood, and I sometimes feel unwanted. Who am I?"

If you guessed "a toddler", you are correct. If you guessed "an elderly person", right again. These two groups have much in common, but there is one important difference. The frail elderly - and healthy seniors - have spokespersons to help make their needs known. Toddlers have no such help; when they try in the only ways they can to let us know their human rights are being violated, they are seldom taken seriously; instead they are often ridiculed or even punished.

The young and the old cannot manage all of their own physical care, and they need and deserve respectful help. My first awareness of the similarities between the very young and the very old took place in Ohio in 1982. My mother-in-law Anabel, my son Jason, and I were visiting Anabel's parents, then in their eighties. When it was time to leave, I found Jason's shoes, and I began to help him put them on. I happened to glance around the room, and smiled. There was Anabel, kneeling down, tying Grandpa's shoelaces.

But the similarities go beyond physical assistance. A few years ago, in my city, an eighty-year-old woman, suffering from osteoporosis and arthritis, was enjoying a rare excursion downtown. Painfully stooped over, she slowly made her way down the street. At first, she was ignored by the strangers she passed, and she felt lonely among the crowds. Finally, someone noticed her, and spoke; "Look at the hunchback!" Shocked, the woman said nothing. Later, when she arrived home, she burst into tears, and told the story to her son. She then added, wistfully, "They used to say I was pretty."

At an outdoor gathering, I once overheard a young mother scold her one-year-old: "Put on a shirt, you look stupid!"

In a grocery store, a four-year-old boy tried, unsuccessfully, to lift a heavy item his father had just selected. Instead of helping his son, he became angry, and swore at him.

The young and the old are often criticized for things beyond their control, and they deserve our understanding. The elderly should not be blamed for their frailty and lost youth, nor should children be blamed for things they have not yet learned to do. But the similarities in the way society treats these two groups go deeper still.

Both groups find their needs shoved aside when they interfere with the needs of others. Seniors battle age discrimination in the workplace, while families battle "no children allowed" policies in housing. When both children and the elderly voice their opinions, they often find it difficult to get our attention. It is as though children are expected to "stay in their place" - at home, at school, or in day care, while the elderly are expected to "fade away" gracefully from the rest of society. When they are not in "their place" but happen to be present in a group of mixed ages, both children and the elderly are expected to be quiet, well-behaved, and non-demanding. There is something curious going on here; after all, we have all been children in the past, and - if we are fortunate - will also be elderly in the future.

Programs for children, and those for seniors, naturally reflect these negative attitudes, and tend to meet the needs of the institutions that isolate these groups, overlooking their personal needs. More funds are available for institutional care for the elderly than for the type of care that could enable them to remain at home - as most would wish. Similarly, legislators promise more day care programs, rather than offering funding or tax incentives for mothers that could allow babies and toddlers to remain at home, as they would wish.

Both young and old clearly deserve more choices in where and how they spend their time, and they should not be so completely at the mercy of others' decisions. Still, the need for expanded choices for seniors is more acceptable in our society than is the concept of more freedom for children, who are seen as somehow different in nature than the rest of humanity, as property rather than as human beings deserving of human rights.

In response to those who fear the expansion of "children's rights", the educator John Holt replied:

"If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be very wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued. Of course, if we saw someone walking toward an open manhole or some other grave danger, we would shout, "Look out!" In this spirit we often and rightly intervene in the lives of children.

"But this has almost nothing to do with "adult authority", some kind of general right and duty to tell children what to do. It would be equally right and natural if an eight-year-old I know, already an expert skier, should tell some adult that a certain trail was probably too difficult for him, and that he should stay off it. What is speaking here is not the authority of age, but the authority of greater experience and understanding, which does not necessarily have anything to do with age."

It is not just eight-year-old skiers who are expert enough about a matter to give us advice; a newborn refusing a bottle is advising us - in the only way available to her - of the superiority of breastfeeding; a baby who cries when "put down" is an authority on the critical importance of bonding through touch; a child who cries in the night is communicating the wisdom of centuries of families sleeping together.

We need to free ourselves from age stereotypes, so that we can begin to appreciate and respect others of all ages. But until we reach that point, legislation and official spokespersons will be needed for young and old alike.

Rejection and mistrust of children and seniors is especially prevalent in North America; in other cultures, are more warmly welcomed and accepted. In Scandinavia, government subsidies allow the elderly to remain at home, where they receive free meals, transportation, and care; for children there are laws requiring the initiation of breastfeeding, prohibiting spanking and bullying, and even regulating the design of new buildings from a child's point of view. Norway has a "Commissioner for Children", an independent, public spokesperson who protects children's interests - the first in the world.

These successful programs give us hope and set examples for the work that lies ahead. We have begun the process of legislating the rights of senior citizens, and more needs to be done. We also need to consider the rights of children, who cannot speak for themselves, and who are therefore the most vulnerable group in our society.

As Dr. Seuss reminds us, "A person's a person, no matter how small" - or how frail. We should treat one another with love and respect, free from biases and expectations based on age. When young and old are valued for their ageless spirit within, we will all live more freely and joyfully.

The Natural Child Project

Children are Born Innocent

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:36:00 +0000

by Jan Hunt

What do you see when you look into the eyes of a newborn?

When I first looked into the eyes of my son, I saw trustfulness, curiosity and joyfulness. I saw no deviousness, meanness or selfishness. In that instant it became clear to me that if he ever acted in a devious, mean, or selfish way, his behavior would have been created by circumstances, not by him. In that instant, I knew what a great responsibility I had to honor and protect his innocence and joy in life.

Children are born innocent. They want only to be loved, to learn, and to contribute. Those parents who are not able to appreciate this truth miss what should be the most precious moment of their life. They cannot trust their child - they instead suspect him of being somehow flawed and requiring constant correction. The emphasis is on fixing something, not on enjoying and learning about this new person. The focus, from that point on, is on the child's behavior, not on the parent-child connection.

A parent's attitude is absolutely critical in determining the kind of relationship they will have with their child. I find nothing sadder than seeing a parent who has somehow missed seeing their child's basic sweetness and good intentions, and thus believes that punishment is necessary to set him on the right path. This parent is always watchful, looking for ways to correct the child, which stifles his natural exuberance. This kind of suspiciousness is self-fulfilling - the child who is punished responds emotionally - as does any other person - with anger and fantasies of revenge, and physiologically with a burst of the stress hormone cortisol. The parent then feels justified in continuing and even escalating the punishments. The child is from then on seen as potential trouble - as the enemy.

The parent who is fortunate enough to see in his newborn's eyes only love, curiosity, and joy, will continue to trust and enjoy their child. Instead of looking for "misbehavior", this parent looks for ways to connect and to bring joy into their child's life. This attitude is also self-fulfilling, because love begets love. The child responds to being loved and trusted as we all do - by loving and trusting in return.

What takes place at the moment a parent first looks into their child's eyes sets the stage for a lifetime of joyful connection, or a lifetime of struggle. It sets the stage for a rewarding relationship of trust and connection, or a battle between adversaries. This first meeting carries the seeds of years of happiness or misery. For those who can see their newborn's innocence and pure intentions, parenting may be challenging at times, but it is never a burden.

Look closely at this new being. Learn from him how delightful and simple life is meant to be. It's just an instant of time, but once this truth is fully grasped, it lasts forever.

Natural Childhood Project

10 Insights to Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sat, 05 May 2012 17:19:00 +0000

By Christine Louis de Canonville

Narcissistic behaviour is prevalent in our culture to-day, actually it is reaching epidemic proportions (affecting both males and females), yet not many therapists (Psychotherapists, Counsellors, Coaches, and Supervisors) would be quick to recognise it in the therapy room when clients present with what is now termed as Narcissistic Victim Syndrome (NVS). In order to be able to work effectively with narcissistic victim abuse, it is vital that the therapist first understands what narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is, what causes it, and what the insidious behaviours looks like. Failing to understand the highly complex narcissistic behaviour is to also fail to understand the psychological hell that your client has been through. Once understood, however, you will have the clarity of vision to be able to shine a light on the dysfunctional narcissistic behaviour that has baffled and confounded your client for so long. Narcissistic behaviour is so insidious that it keeps the victim living in a nightmarish hell where they are always walking on eggshells to the point that it impairs their ability to be able to function. In order to avoid clumsy repetition of “he/she” and “his/her” in this article, I will use the pronoun “he” when describing NPD.

The following insights are useful for beginning to understand narcissistic behaviour:-

1. Rejection: Because the narcissist is suffering from the core wounds of abandonment, he fears rejection more than anything else in the world. Because of his deep wounds, his antenna is alerted to the slightest hint of any impending danger of rejection (real or imagined), and he will do anything he has to in order to avoid the overriding feeling of shame that it brings. As a result he builds elaborate defence mechanisms all around him, and he will lie, cheat, abuse and manipulate in any conceivable way in order to protect his fragile false-self.

2. False-self: The Narcissist desperately craves love, but at the same time, because of his inordinate fear of abandonment, betrayal, and rejection, he is terrified of intimacy, therefore leaving him deeply lonely within himself. Never having learnt the art of honest communication, he lacks the skills of forming healthy relationships. His first loving and completely controllable object he attaches to is “himself”. Just like the mythical character Narcissus, he has become the object of his own desire, and he projects that idealized image onto the world through a persona that is a False Self, a false self that he sees as being omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (allknowing). Unfortunately, these images are confabulations, merely elaborate works of fiction which have little or nothing to do with reality. From there he turns others into objects so that they pose no emotional risk. These mental representations of meaningful or significant others become the “Sources of Narcissistic Supply”

3. Narcissistic Supply: Narcissistic Supply really refers to those people who provide a constant source of attention, approval, adoration, admiration etc, for the narcissist. The attention they receive from the “Supply Source” is vital for the survival of the narcissist, without it they would die (either physically or metaphorically), because their weak ego depends on it in order to regulate their unstable self-worth and self-esteem. The narcissist perceives themselves as being very independent. They could not deal with the fact that they need anybody, because needing someone brings with it the threat of being rejected. This would imply some boundary to their power or imply that they are incomplete. Furthermore, they can not tolerate any sign of independence and autonomy from their “supply”, this only serves to enrage them. The narcissistic supply is there to serve them, so they try to cement their source of supply into the role they have made for them, and there they remain under the narcissist’s control. Any attempt by the supply person to not comply sends him into a rage.

4. Rage: His narcissistic behaviour is full of rage. The raging is the narcissist’s way of screaming for attention because it is all about them, their wants, needs and desires. Narcissistic rage is the uncontrollable and unexpected anger that occurs due to a narcissistic injury. Narcissistic injury is a threat to a narcissist’s self-esteem or worth. Rage comes in many forms, but all pertain to the same important thing, “revenge”. It is important to point out here that narcissistic rage should not be confused with anger, (although the two are similar), the narcissist’s rage is not necessarily caused by a situation that would typically provoke anger in an individual. Their rage frightens people, seeing the fear on others face makes the narcissist feel that they have won, so they feel even more powerful and in control of the situation, and this also satisfies their sadistic nature. The rage supports and covers up their cognitive distortions, fragmentation, dissociation, arrested emotional development, their black and white thinking, their false self, their grandiosity, their need for attention (even if negative), their need to be right, and their lack of empathy. In short, the narcissists “rage” houses the actions necessary for the narcissist to defend himself against his hostile world (i.e. splitting, devaluation, projection, projective identification etc), however, these defences, like a double-edged sword, render any closeness or intimacy impossible, whether intentionally or unintentionally. However, the rage makes him feel that he is taking back control whenever in fear of losing it.

5. Power and Control: In his everyday existence he seeks to dominate each individual and group he interacts with, whether that is in the home, the workplace or social events. His power is not “power with”, but rather “power over” all that he surveys. His power and control is his springboard to verbal and emotional abuse. For example, while he enforces financial restrictions over his family, he is free to make decisions regarding expenditure for himself. When it comes to the everyday caretaking of the household he does not partake of the menial tasks, however he undermines and condemns those doing the tasks. His energy is spent on “ideas” as to how things get done, but the doing is left to the “plebs” to carry out the work and ideas for him. As the job gets done, the narcissist criticizes and complains, and he fails to give credit where credit is due. He convinces himself that it is his brains that direct the work, without him nothing would be achieved, and he totally fails to appreciate the work done by others. He is lost in his own grandiosity.

6. Grandiosity: Grandiosity is usually the most outstanding and discriminating feature of individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Grandiosity can be expressed in an unrealistic overvaluation of talents and abilities; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited beauty, power, wealth or success; and a belief in unrealistic superiority and uniqueness. This is usually accompanied by boastful, pretentious, self-centred and self-referential narcissistic behaviour. According to Gunderson and Ronningstam, from “The Diagnostic Interview for Narcissistic Patients” (Archives of General Psychiatry,1990), that the research shows that the grandiose narcissist exaggerates his talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way. He believes in his invulnerability, or does not recognize his limitations. His grandiose fantasies lead him to believe that he does not need other people. To need others would fill him with immeasurable shame.

7. Shame: Shame would appear to be the ongoing tension between the narcissist’s grandiosity and his desire for perfection. When shame is experienced by the narcissist he feels inadequate, flawed, and inferior. Narcissistically injured himself, he is now likely to fly into a sudden resurgence of rage as he feels conspicuous, exposed, and vulnerable to humiliation. He is overwhelmed by anxiety because he believes that he will lose the imagined love and admiration from other people if he isn’t perfect. So we can say that consciously the narcissist is being driven to do better and better within the rigid frameworks they have created for themselves; however, unconsciously they cannot control their behaviour, so they and anybody who surrounds them have to suffer.

8. Perfectionism: Governed by a False Self, the narcissist’s obsessional behaviour sets unrealistic goals. He then struggles to maintain those goals within the realities of what he perceives as an imperfect world. This pressure that the narcissist puts on himself comes from his unrelenting demand for perfection, which of course is necessary if his grandiosity and illusion of omnipotence is to be maintained. Furthermore, since the narcissist is ruled by his “black and white” or “all right or all wrong” thinking, he can only views his achievements in one of two ways, either they are viewed: as being the greatest accomplishments, or they are viewed as the greatest failures. There is no middle space; therefore there is no room for the emergence of a process for further learning. So he either reaches his positive ego ideal (his Eureka moment), where he experiences an elated self-esteem to his liking, where he can feel a great sense of achievement, and flaunt it to the world with pride. Or he experiences a negative ego ideal, where his omnipotence is threatened; throwing his sense of perfection and uniqueness into question. When the latter is experienced, it leads to feelings of shame, vulnerability and failure for the narcissist; his pride of accomplishment is likely to be devalued, and his commitment and capacity to follow through on this achievement is most likely to be scrapped, because it is too painful not being able to live up to his positive ego ideal. Of course this is going to enrage him, and he is likely to be engulfed by feelings of self doubt, self-loathing, and self-reprimanding behaviour. Shame would appear to be the ongoing tension-generating dialectic between the narcissist’s grandiosity and his desire for perfection. When shame is experienced by the narcissist he feels inadequate, flawed, and inferior. Narcissistically injured himself, he is now likely to fly into a sudden resurgence of rage as he feels conspicuous, exposed, and vulnerable to humiliation.

9. Boredom: Narcissists have an insatiable need for excitement in order to feel good about themselves, and they are forever chasing thrills. Because they are so full of aggression, any excitement helps them to burn off their furious anger that is always bottled inside of them. Of course, their aggression comes in many guises, and one of their favourite disguises is boredom. Faced with boredom, the narcissist plummets into the abyss of despair where he touches old feelings of helplessness, and inadequacy born out of earlier experiences (for example, it may be feelings of inferiority that came from an inability to understanding lessons in school, or as a result of being bullied etc). Boredom creates anxiety for them; it simply devastates their morale, so they won’t tolerate it for very long. It is precisely these feelings of anxiety that lead the individual to search for “narcissistic supply” in the first place. In order to assist him in his never ending quest, he looks for fame.

10. Fame: One of the reasons that the narcissist has an insatiable need for fame is because it leads him to the inexhaustible repository of praise and admiration which he craves in order to fill the “Gap” of his shameful childhood. The intolerable shame experienced as a child leaves the narcissist to experience pervasive feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness. Since the painful effects of shame cannot be regulated, the narcissist develops an effective way not to experience it. He routinely “splits off” from that part of himself that feels the shame, thus allowing him to “bypass” his shameful feelings. To the onlooker, by-passed shame looks like shamelessness, or an absence of conscience. The “shamelessness” works in such a way that it directs the shame outward, away from the Self, where nothing is ever his fault, thus defending the narcissist against the feelings of self-contempt and unworthiness that he feels. His tried and tested way of alleviating the effects of such feelings is by having admiration from his endless menu of narcissistic supply, and this he manages to maintain by assuming an attitude of grandiosity and entitlement, which in turn makes him feel famous and special. The feelings of fame make him feel alive, and the more alive he feels, the more he plays to his audience. His audience reflects his celebrity image and status back to him, and his very existence is affirmed. This affirmation of himself is expressed outwardly in his narcissist hubris and over-confidence. Hubris refers to the exaggerated self confidence or pride displayed by the narcissist, and it often operates within the connotation that retribution will follow if you should dare to cross him.

To conclude: Narcissism is a pathological condition where the individual experiences great difficulties within his relationships as a direct result of deprivation suffered as a child. The narcissistic behaviours are the narcissist’s self-preservative attempts to protect himself from any further painful narcissistic insult as experienced as a child, through his hostile world and dysfunctional school and family system, his internal regulating system so to speak. Because the narcissist does not possess the internal structures necessary to combat their terrifying sense of fragmentation, anxiety and declining self-esteem, they turn to these external behaviours in their attempt to self-soothe. And as you can see, the narcissistic behaviour becomes an endless spiral that keeps looping back on itself in every situation, causing an endless stream of narcissistic victim abuse in its wake.

The Roadshow for Therapists

Children in care 'risk new abuse on return home'

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:41:00 +0000

NSPCC calls for much stricter assessment of children's needs and parents' problems

Children’s trust in adults can be broken for ever if they are removed from care and suffer more abuse, claims the NSPCC.

Almost half of abused or neglected children who return home from care suffer further harm, the NSPCC is warning.

The charity claims that many returned children are finding their trust in adults shattered by their experiences, as documented in its report Returning Home From Care, published on Monday. Last year, more than 90,000 children were in care in England, the majority as a result of abuse or neglect. But some 10,000 returned home, compared with just 3,050 who were adopted.

The NSPCC report warns: "For too many children, returning home results in further abuse or neglect and often re-entry into care, causing significant long-term harm."

It cites academic research that found 46% of children who entered care as a result of abuse or neglect suffered further abuse or neglect if they returned home. Another study suggested the proportion was 42%.

The NSPCC's warning comes as the number of annual court applications to place children in care has exceeded 10,000 for the first time.

Between a third and a half of children who return home re-enter care or have to be accommodated again as a result of their experiences, according to the NSPCC.

The charity's report is based on interviews with social workers and more than 200 children in care. More than 70% of children consulted by the NSPCC said they were not ready to return home.

Tom Rahilly, head of strategy development for looked-after children at the NSPCC, said its report suggested that, in many cases, keeping vulnerable children in care was the right option. "Care does provide a safe and supportive environment for some of our most vulnerable children," he said. "The trauma caused to children who are abused, go into care, and are then abused again when they return home is unimaginable. Their trust in adults and their motivation to speak out is shattered."

One teenage girl who called the NSPCC's ChildLine said she was too scared to talk to adults because they "are nasty" and "can hurt you".

She said: "When I was little, my parents hit me, so I was taken into care. Then when I was a bit older, I went back to my parents, but things got worse, so I'm now in care again.

"I'm finding it hard being here and I want to go home, even though I know what will happen there. I'm afraid to leave my bedroom — when I go out of the room I get stressed and I can't breathe and struggle to eat. I don't want to talk to anyone because they might hurt me."

Another teenage girl who had recently returned home from care said: "I'm finding it very difficult. There's a lot of shouting and fighting. My social worker said that if I ever wanted to talk I could call her, but she hasn't returned my calls."

The NSPCC said the current focus on adoption was welcome, but fewer than one in 20 children in care are eventually adopted. "Focusing equally on the far higher number who return home would have a substantial impact on reducing repeated harm," the charity said.

The NSPCC argues that children should be returned only when there has been a comprehensive assessment of their needs and effective support provided for them and their parents.

It is calling for the government to publish full data on the outcomes of looked-after children who are returned home, in a bid to increase transparency and accountability. It also claims that there is a need to support problem families to tackle issues such as substance abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues and poor parenting skills both before and after the return of their children.

"Evidence shows that the wrong decision is being made in far too many cases," Rahilly said. "So it's vital that decisions to return a child home are taken cautiously and the risks to the child are assessed carefully. If parents' problems have not improved, the child must stay in the safety of care. And if a child is returned home, the concerns which led to them being removed in the first place must be addressed before they go home."

Last year, the government introduced a framework for children in care that requires local authorities to assess parents' suitability and set out the services to be provided to support them.

"It is right to keep families together where it is in children's best interests," said Tim Loughton, the children's minister. "It is wrong for local authorities to return children to potentially abusive households repeatedly, without being 100% sure they will be safe.

"We've toughened up the law, so local authorities must make a rigorous assessment of parents' suitability and set out the expert support they will provide, before sending a child home."

By Jamie Doward

Guardian

Jeremy Deller's inflatable Stonehenge gives Glasgow's Children a bounce

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:11:00 +0000

2012 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art
By Jeremy Deller 'Sacrilege'

The Turner prize winner's bouncy new interactive artwork, Sacrilege, kicks off the Glasgow international festival of visual art

"It's a bit weird and random," says Michael Mclaughlan, 50, bopping gently up and down in the middle of the giant inflatable Stonehenge that has sprung up on Glasgow Green. "They should get Alex Salmond down here to bounce about."

Around him, children and adults are discarding their shoes and climbing tentatively on to the grandest of bouncy castles, a large-scale interactive work by the Turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. Titled Sacrilege, it's Deller's first major public project in Scotland and a centrepiece of the Glasgow international festival of visual art which launched on Friday.

"It's something for people to interact with, it's a big public sculpture," says Deller, who was on hand for the project's launch. "It is also a way of interacting with history and archaeology and culture in a wider sense.
"We had 112 kids bouncing on it this morning. It's a very entry-level way into thinking about ancient history for five-year-olds. It's good to play with our history and culture. Stonehenge is part of British identity but no one knows what it was for."

Deller doesn't think Scots will care that Stonehenge is a classic British – if not English – icon.
"It's about tribes. It's not about politics. It's pre-political, literally. It's great doing it in Glasgow. This is a city where you can get things done as an artist."

The GI festival, which runs until 7 May, will showcase the work of more than 130 artists across a variety of venues. Highlights include the Turner prize nominee Karla Black, who will be exhibiting a series of major new sculptures at the city's Gallery of Modern Art, and the artist and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis, who will give the Scottish premiere of a new performance work for stage at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA).

"For the past two decades, Glasgow has been the home of some of the very best new talent in contemporary visual art," said Sarah Munro, the festival chair. "The city is ambitious in its determination to support artists working at the cutting edge today."

Sacrilege will be at Glasgow Green for the 18 days of the festival before being shipped to other destinations across the UK and finally to London for the Olympic Games.

The installation is deflated at 6pm every night and re-inflated in minutes the following morning. Project manager James Hutchinson said it had caught the imagination of Glaswegians.

"I think it would take a mean heart not to smile as you are passing by," he said. "People have been wanting to get on and we have had all ages from seven to 70. Nobody knows what Stonehenge is for. It doesn't belong to anybody. Not the Druids or those interested in British or English history or Glaswegians."

"We come to the green a lot and I was surprised to see it and wondered what it was, but I think it's great," says Robert Barnes, 72, who lives locally. "My grandson's been playing on it and I can't get him off."

Guardian

It Doesn’t Mean You’re Crazy – Talking to Yourself Has Cognitive Benefits, Study Finds

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Most people talk to themselves at least every few days, and many report talking to themselves on an hourly basis. What purpose is served by this seemingly irrational behavior? Previous research has suggested that such self-directed speech in children can help guide their behavior. For example, children often talk themselves step-by-step through tying their shoelaces, as if reminding themselves to focus on the job in hand.

"One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening." Franklin P. Jones once said.

Can talking to oneself also help adults?

In a recent study published in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, psychologists Gary Lupyan (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Daniel Swingley (University of Pennsylvania) conducted a series of experiments to discover whether talking to oneself can help when searching for particular objects. The studies were inspired by observations that people often audibly mutter to themselves when trying to find, for example, a jar of Peanut Butter on a supermarket shelf, or the stick of butter in their fridge.

In the first experiment, participants were shown 20 pictures of various objects and asked to find a particular one. In some trials, participants saw a text label telling them what object they should find ("Please search for the teapot.") In other trials, the same subjects were asked to search again while actually say the word to themselves. It was found that speaking to themselves helped people find the objects more quickly.

In a follow-up experiment, participants performed a virtual shopping task in which they saw photographs of items commonly found on supermarket shelves and were asked to find, as quickly as possible, all the instances of a particular item. For example, participants would be asked to find all the bags of apples, or all the bottles of Diet Coke. Here, too, there was an advantage to speaking the name of the object when participants were looking for very familiar products. For example, saying "Coke" when looking for Coke helped whereas saying "Speed Stick" when looking for Speed Stick Deodorant actually slowed people down.

The next time you lose your keys, you may want to mutter "keys keys keys" to yourself while searching for them, and just ignore the strange looks you may be getting…

Science Daily

Save children's relationship with the outdoors

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:10:00 +0000

Evidence of a long-term and dramatic decline in children’s relationship with the outdoors is ‘overwhelming’ and urgent action is needed to bridge this growing gap before it's too late, according our new report published today.

In his Natural Childhood report naturalist, author and TV producer Stephen Moss charts years of academic research and a steady stream of surveys on the subject, highlighting how a generation of children is finally losing touch with the natural world.

The report outlines a clear need to tackle the rise of ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’, a term coined by the US based writer Richard Louv, to describe a growing dislocation between children and nature.

Report author Stephen Moss, said:

“We have all seen the headlines about the decline in children’s play in the outdoors.

“We all know the benefits being outdoors can bring, and as parents we want our children to spend more time outdoors than they do.

“But despite this overwhelming evidence and the different initiatives and schemes run by organisations across the UK, our kids are spending less and less time in the outdoors.

“The time to act is now, whilst we still have a generation of parents and grandparents who grew up outdoors and can pass on their experience and whilst there remains a determination to do something positive in this area.

“Organisations that have an interest in this area, whether working in our towns and cities or in the countryside, have to connect what they are doing and commit to a long-term approach that really makes a difference.”

Call for ideas
A two-month inquiry, facilitated by the National Trust, will take evidence from leading experts and the public to look at how we can reconnect this and future generations of children with the natural world.

The National Trust is working alongside Arla, the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and film-makers Green Lions, to organise a summit this summer to bring together a range of experts to develop a roadmap for reconnecting children and nature.

Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of the National Trust, said:

“Getting outdoors and closer to nature has all sorts of benefits for our children. It keeps them fit, they can learn about the world around them and most of all its fun.

“That’s why it’s so worrying that so many children today don’t have the opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature. Building a den, picking flowers, climbing trees – the outdoors is a treasure trove, rich in imagination. It brings huge benefits that we believe every child should have the opportunity to experience. And there are huge costs when they don‘t.

“As a nation we need to do everything we can to make it easy and safe for our children to get outdoors.

“We want to move the debate on and encourage people and organisations to think about how we take practical steps to reconnect children with the natural world and inspire them to get outdoors."

During the last decade conservation groups, academics, social and health professionals and the media have charted the rise of so-called ‘cotton-wool kids’ and countless examples of what is going wrong.

The statistics reveal that things have changed dramatically in just one generation:

Fewer than ten per cent of kids play in wild places; down from 50 per cent a generation ago

The roaming radius for kids has declined by 90 per cent in one generation (thirty years)

Three times as many children are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed, as from falling out of trees

A 2008 study showed that half of all kids had been stopped from climbing trees, 20 per cent had been banned from playing conkers or games of tag

Authority figures and layers of bureaucracy have combined with a climate of ‘don’t do that’ to create an environment where fewer and fewer children play in the outdoors. This has led to a situation where kids having fun in the outdoors are painted as showing signs of anti social behaviour.

The research shows that capturing children before they enter the teenage years is crucial with the research clearly showing if you get kids hooked before they reach twelve years old, you’ll create a lifelong passion for the environment.

Stephen Moss, continued: “The good news is that almost everyone – parents, grandparents, teachers, health professionals, conservationists, social commentators and politicians from all across the political spectrum – agree that something needs to be done to reverse the trend towards housebound kids.

“Now we need to work together to achieve simple, effective ways to get them outdoors.

“I truly believe that just as children need a good diet, education and healthcare, so they need to connect with the natural world. Now we have a real chance to turn Britain’s cotton-wool kids into free-range children.”

There are many ways that people can get involved in the inquiry.

More information about the inquiry, including details of how to contribute

National Trust

Abuse Against Women and Children at Extreme Levels

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:42:00 +0000

Scale of abuse against women revealed

Wave of internal migration as 19,000 women are forced from homes by domestic violence while forty per cent of groups working with abuse victims have cut staff or services in past year

The number of women and children across Britain being forced out of their homes by violent relationships is revealed for the first time today, raising fresh fears about the impact of council funding cuts on local refuges.

Almost 19,000 women aged between 15 and 88 sought state help to find emergency housing in 2008-09, showing the previously hidden scale of domestic-violence "migrants" forced out of their homes. Sixty per cent, or 11,300 victims, found shelter at a women's refuge – many of which are overstretched and facing unprecedented cuts.

A separate study, also being presented today, reveals for the first time the true level of cuts to frontline services for domestic-violence victims. Two-fifths of organisations working with victims of sexual and domestic abuse have laid off staff in the last 12 months, while 28 per cent have cut essential services such as outreach and children's workers to keep refuge beds open.

Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, said: "The Government's approach to domestic-violence services is irresponsible and ultimately dangerous.

"Ministers need to commission an urgent audit to assess the impact on women's safety. And they need to explain urgently how they will ensure that women whose safety is at risk will still get the help they need." The migration analysis, carried out by researchers at London Metropolitan University, used data from the Government's own Supporting People programme to build up the first picture of where victims of domestic violence go.

The study, which will be presented at the British Sociological Association's annual conference today, found that more then 9,000 women took children with them as they escaped, with 190 mothers fleeing with five children in tow. One in 10 suffered from an addiction, mental-health problem or learning disability; a third came from an ethnic minority. The average distance travelled was 20 miles in search of safety and housing support.

The research provides an insight into how far and why women are forced to migrate within the UK. The database captured all women seeking formal help in England after being forced to leave their home, highlighting which local authorities do not have adequate provisions. The Supporting People programme, for which funding was ring-fenced between 2003 and 2010, was fully devolved to councils last year. Janet Bowstead, a PhD research student at London Met's child and woman abuse studies unit, said: "Many of the women have tried to use the law to stay put and get rid of their violent partner, but it hasn't worked – they are forced into these journeys because of their perpetrators."

Last month, The Independent revealed that funding from local authorities for domestic and sexual-abuse organisations fell by 31 per cent from £7.8m in 2010-11 to £5.4m in the last financial year. Yet on average 230 women a day are turned away from refuges and despite under-reporting, police receive a call about domestic violence every minute.

The second study, by the University of Worcester, gathered evidence from 37 organisations across the UK. The scaling back of services and job cuts were common, with worries also raised over the ability of volunteers to take on the necessary child protection and safeguarding responsibilities.

Ruth Jones, a researcher, said: "The Big Society agenda isn't going to work. Most organisations are already run with some volunteers, but they are underpinned by paid professional staff. Without them, the services will not stay viable which means ultimately victims unable to leave potentially life-threatening situations."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We have ring-fenced nearly £40m of stable funding up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual-violence support services and made it clear that [these] services shouldn't be an easy target for local authority budget cuts."

Case study: 'Things will only get worse as the cuts take hold'

One woman, who spoke to 'The Independent' on condition of anonymity, set up a support group after failing to find adequate help dealing with her own history of abuse. She said that further scaling back of services could only make it more difficult for other victims to find a way out.

"If there is no support being offered, then people will stay in abusive relationships; they may not have the confidence to try to find it by themselves," she said.

"It is possible for people to come forward and replace lost services but the best qualification you can have is personal experience. Someone who has no idea what these people have been through cannot handle a group of their own. There needs to be more money put up by the Government.

"The situation is only getting worse as the cuts take hold. Centres are scaling back services because they don't have the money for them any more.

"I didn't have much support, so I can only comment from bad experiences. But other people have had support from different groups and they have seen it as a great help. But there is not enough awareness of the issue; and it is not just women who suffer."

Independent

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:46:00 +0000

Suffering emotional trauma such as witnessing domestic violence or being abused early in life may inhibit children's intellectual development, according to a new study.

The researchers also found that the impact of trauma seems to be most damaging when it occurs during the first two years of life.

The U.S. study included 206 children whose intellectual development was assessed when they were aged 2, about 5 and 8 years old. The researchers also determined whether children suffered neglect; physical, sexual or emotional abuse; or witnessed domestic violence against their mother.

More than one in three (37 percent) of the children had suffered abuse or witnessed violence by about age 5. This occurred before age 2 in about 5 percent of children, during preschool (24 to 64 months) in 13 percent of children and during both periods in 19 percent of the children.

Children who suffered abuse or witnessed violence against their mother had lower-than-normal scores on tests of intellectual development. Those who experienced this type of trauma during the first 2 years of life had the lowest scores.

"The results suggest that [maltreatment and witnessing domestic violence] in early childhood, particularly during the first two years, has significant and enduring effects on cognitive development, even after adjusting for [other risk factors]," wrote researchers led by Michelle Bosquet Enlow, at Children's Hospital Boston.

The study, which found an association between witnessing violence and IQ but did not prove cause-and-effect, was published online April 2 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
.
Even after accounting for other factors that could influence IQ, such as socioeconomic status, mother's IQ and birth complications, children who had witnessed or experienced violence had IQ scores that were more than 7 points lower than kids not subjected to mistreatment.

The researchers noted that the brain develops most rapidly during the early years of a child's life.

"Because early brain organization frames later neurological development, changes in early development may have lifelong consequences," they wrote.

More information

Zero to Three has more about early brain development.

Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

WMBF NEWS

Dr. Bruce Perry Child Development

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:43:00 +0000

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Child Trauma Academy

A Place for Everyone: Nurturing Each Child's Niche

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:02:00 +0000

By Bruce Duncan Perry, M.D., Ph.D.

"Thomas can climb high, Prudy can dance, Robbie can read, and I am good at painting."
— A 5-year-old lists the special skills of her classmates to her grandmother.

One of the core principles of nature is that diversity brings strength. The strength of our families, communities, and societies comes from our diverse array of interests, skills, and strengths.

Identifying Strengths

Genetics and experience work together in ways that give us each a set of individual preferences and personalities. Some children are timid, some bold. Some like to observe, some are more active. Some children like dinosaurs, some like dolls. Some children can hear something once and remember it while others need many repetitions. To some, music is soothing during quiet time, to others it is distracting. Each child has a unique combination of emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social skills and capacities.

While we often recognize the presence of individual differences in children, it's important to appreciate the value of them. We can teach with individual learning styles in mind and measure and acknowledge a child's progress in all domains.

Educators of young children are challenged by the pressure to focus on academic achievement that filters down into the early childhood classroom. More than any other part of the education system, the early childhood classroom is an ideal setting to help identify and nurture a child's developing skills in all domains.

Supporting Special Skills

A major task of the early childhood teacher is to help a child find and develop his own area of solid competence — a niche. This niche is different for each child. For some children this will be their special skill with clay; for others it will be how fast they can run. When a teacher helps the child feel special and capable in any area, this will serve as a safe home base from which the child can continue learning in all areas.

In some cases, it's easy to identify a child's special skills. Children prefer to do those things that they can most easily master and in which they can most readily demonstrate competence. When you recognize a child mastering something in his niche, reward the child with praise and attention. This praise will have two important effects. First, it will reinforce the child and make him feel valued. Second, by openly acknowledging each child's unique strengths, you will help all the children in the classroom begin to appreciate diversity in interests and skill.

If a child can learn to appreciate the contributions of others and learn to recognize that our differences should be treasured and not feared, he will have an easier time discovering his own place, passion, and value.

Teacher Tips

Resist pressure from those who too quickly push "academic achievement" at this age. Help parents understand the need for healthy emotional and social development in order for cognitive development to be optimal. Search for articles and/or materials that help you make this point and share them with parents.

Reinforce the curiosity, focus, and dedication children exhibit when following their interests. The good citizen in the class should feel as valued as the good reader and the good athlete. You can do this by working with the class to create a list of strengths. Encourage children to work in teams, identifying their own strengths, as well as those of their partners, from the list. Later, review the exercise with children, reinforcing their strengths and possibly adding others to their lists.

Use children's primary interests to expand their skills. For example, if a child likes sports but shows little interest in art, music, reading or math, introduce him to books, music, and paintings about sports.

Child Trauma Academy

WHAT YOUR CHILD REMEMBERS

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:52:00 +0000

New discoveries about early memory - and how it affects us

By Robin Grille

Most of us have been told at one time or another that children aren’t supposed to
remember anything that happens to them before – roughly – the age of two. Emotionally
painful experiences during infancy will therefore have no lasting impact. These words
might have been reassuring, if they didn’t also imply that our infants don’t remember the
love we have given them, and so our love at this time has no lasting impact eithe r. As
science continues to throw open the mysteries of the brain, and the nature of memory,
this kind of advice will gradually vanish. Every emotionally meaningful experience -
whether joyous or painful - is stored in memory and has a lasting impact on a baby’s
developing nervous system. The way our world feels to us as babies influences our
unfolding personality, emotionality and relating styles profoundly, for the long term.
There are different kinds of ‘memory’, beyond the stories we can recount. And we
‘remember’ a lot more than we realise.

Within the limbic system of the brain - an area concerned with processing emotions - are
the amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala processes highly-charged emotional
memories, such as terror and horror. The hippocampus processes narrative, chronological
memory. The amygdala is mature at birth, so babies are able to feel a range of intense
emotion, even though they cannot understand the content of the emotion and its relation
to what is going on around them. The hippocampus on the other hand, does not mature
until sometime between the second and fourth years. Until then, babies are relatively
unable to organise memory meaningfully in terms of sequences of events. Only rarely
does anybody consciously recall the events of infancy. However, the storage of the
emotional content of memory is facilitated by the amygdala. We therefore remember
every emotion and physical sensation from our earliest days, and even if we have no
clarity about the events that took place, these memories imbue the way we relate to each
other as adults.

Just as memory can be divided up into the dual categories of ‘Short Term’ and ‘Long
Term’, there are also two qualities of memory: ‘Explicit’ and ‘Implicit’. The capacity for
‘explicit’ memory reaches full maturity at around three years of age. This is the kind of
memory that is conscious and enables us to tell a story that makes sense of what
happened. ‘Implicit’ memory is available from birth or earlier, it is unconscious, and is
encoded in emotional, sensory and visceral recall. In other words, what we don’t
remember with our minds, we remember with our bodies, with our hearts and our ‘guts’ –
with lasting implications for our thinking, feeling, and behaviour.

The process of ‘forgetting’ is more superficial than we once thought: it only rubs out
conscious recall. Even as adults we are mercifully capable of deleting any record of
traumatic events. If we are unlucky enough to face a situations of panic or terror which
we feel helpless to escape, the brain secretes endogenous opioids in order to numb us to
overwhelming emotional or physical pain. These brain chemicals also interfere with the
storage of explicit memory, though implicit memory of the trauma remains available.
Experiences that are emotionally too overwhelming to deal with are stored somatically,
as a body memory. Thereafter they are expressed as an unconscious response to stress.
When we over-react to mildly stressful or even innocuous situations without knowing
why, this might be the result of implicit, traumatic memories dating back to childhood or
infancy.

The memory centres that govern narrative recall, emotional memory and body memory
can operate independently of each other. Despite being in a coma, one man went into
physiological anxiety states when exposed to a smell that was associated with a personal
trauma. It is possible to have strong emotional reactions without conscious recall, even
without consciousness! Another man whose damaged brain had lost all capacity for short
term memory, still reacted aversively to specific doctors who had conducted unpleasant
tests on him, without any recollection of having met them. A brain-damaged woman who
had also totally lost her short term memory refused to shake the hand of a doctor who had
earlier hidden a sharp pin in his hand. She was bewildered by her own refusal, since as
far as she was aware, each time she met him was the first. So, much of what we think,
feel and do is induced by implicit memories ‘written’ into muscle, sinew, fascia and
viscera. Not one of our experiences is lost to us. Each experience, particularly those that
are charged with emotion, adds to the complex mosaic of our personality.

Our brain has an amazing capacity to make associations. Something or someone that
‘reminds’ our brains of a traumatic situation - a smell, a song, a person that looks like
someone from our past – triggers our automatic, self-protective ‘fight, flight or freeze’
responses. This reflexive reaction occurs too quickly; before the information reaches the
cortex where it can be evaluated rationally. That is why we sometimes over-react to
things, people or situations reminiscent of a traumatic event, without any conscious
recollection of the event in question.

There are occasions when implicit memory can be made explicit. Since implicit memory
is ‘stored’ in the body, repeating certain movements, gestures, breathing patterns, or
assuming certain postures associated with highly-charged emotional memories can
bounce these memories into explicit, conscious awareness. It is as if the body releases its
secrets to the mind. Many individuals have been able to retrieve traumatic memories,
both from adult and infant experiences, when induced by strong emotions associated with
the original experience. In certain states of consciousness, in psychotherapy or
meditation, people have spontaneously recalled things that happened to them as babies.
Many have remembered how it felt to be a baby, howling for a mother who would not
come. In reconstructing a particular body posture, or talking about a similar emotionally
charged event, the contextual memories of unbearable longing, rage or terror come back
into focus. It is equally possible for sweet, joyous memories of a parents’ loving face to
resurface. This phenomenon is called ‘state-dependent memory retrieval’, and while it is
not essential, it can bring healing under certain conditions.

But even if not consciously remembered, early memories show themselves indirectly
through behaviour. It is intrinsically human to re-enact defensive reactions to forgotten
traumas, though our reactions are no longer relevant. Often early memories become
evident through persistent feelings that don’t seem to relate to a present situation, or
through bodily sensations that don’t seem to make any sense. More commonly, these
early memories of emotional pain or hurt are indirectly evident through persistent
difficulties in relationships, particularly in intimate relations.

Implicit memory - or body memory - explains why, for instance, a woman who was
molested as a child remains fearful of intimacy - at least with men that ‘remind’ her of
the perpetrator – even without a trace of conscious memory of the traumatic episodes. A
man fears being alone because it triggers an emotional memory of terror as he cried in the
crib, and no-one came to comfort him. He has no recollection of the event, and all around
him find him likeable and congenial. He has no understanding about his compulsive
avoidance of solitude. Though successful and functional, many people can be avoidant,
clingy, or perhaps insensitive in relationships. These are just some of the problems of
relationship that have their roots in hurts we felt at the advent of life. To some extent,
most of us suffer from some behavioural manifestations of painful implicit memories.

Unbeknownst to our ‘rational’ minds, we sometimes respond mistakenly to current
challenges as if they were the hurts we suffered originally. This dynamic holds true in our
relationships with our children. There are many reasons why, for instance, we might find
our children’s expressions of need aversive and overwhelming. Here is a common
scenario: when a baby screams, our bodies react the same way as when our parents
screamed at us as children, we are neurologically conditioned to escape or push away,
rather than to respond with spontaneous compassion. Alternatively, our baby’s cry might
trigger in our bodies an implicit memory of a time when our own cries, as infants, were
not met with a loving response. Either way, our baby’s cries evoke our own painful
memory, and so we seek refuge. We are all biologically capable of a wellspring of
spontaneously loving responses toward our children, and toward each other. Sometimes
this love is blocked by automatic defensive reactions to unresolved, implicitly
remembered hurts. We are not insensitive nor neglectful; we are wounded.

When a child is reprimanded, an image of the scolder’s looks of disapproval gets stored
in the lateral tegmental limbic area of the brain. The growing child and adult judge their
own behaviour through the lens of these stored inner representations, which are imprinted
as images charged with feelings of shame. These inner visual and auditory records of the
shamer usually – but not always - operate beneath conscious awareness. The experience
of parents setting healthy boundaries literally grows the child’s orbitofrontal brain, whose
purpose it is to contain and regulate raw emotion. But when the parent imposes limits, for
some time following the symbiotic time of infancy, the toddler feels a degree of hurt and
betrayal. This developmentally necessary change in the parent-child relationship is
emotionally stressful. It is important that the parent soothe the toddler after imposing
restrictions on him, to help him cope with his ‘shame-stress’. Reassurance of the parent’s
love repairs the child’s wounded ‘self’ and restores his self-confidence. If parents diligently
assist with their child’s shame–repair, he soon learns to take over, and based on
his parents’ role modelling, repair his own shame when needed. Inner representations -
stored as emotional and narrative memory in the brain - of a soothing and reassuring
parent are used later in life as a template for shame-repair. This internal portrait of a
reassuring adult is essential so that as an adult the individual won’t be disabled or overly
inhibited by experiences of shame. Though this process is usually unconscious, it secures
our ability to self-soothe, and to recover from shame when needed.

Psychological and social problems arise when a child grows up with too many images of
a disapproving face stored in the brain centres that store implicit memory, without the
subsequent images of a soothing and reassuring adult. A child that lacks these positive
images, stored in his emotional memory centres, is at risk of slipping into depression,
becoming overly inhibited, or defensively hostile.

From the earliest moments of life, parental nurturance shapes the child’s emotional makeup,
literally altering the course of brain- growth. One of the key elements of secure parentchild
attachment is affectionate eye-contact. A parent’s sustained, loving gaze and smile suffuses infants with indescribable joy. What ensues is a cascade of dopamine, endogenous opioids, enkephalins and endo rphins in the baby’s brain - all feel-good chemicals associated with loving relations. This joy-precipitated surge of brain chemicals promotes the maturation of precise regions of the cortex, which are concerned with healthy regulation of emotion later in life. Every baby requires this kind of nourishing experience regularly and frequently, for healthy brain development.

By the end of the first year, the infant has stored an internal representation of her
mother’s loving face in the area connecting the anterior temporal and the orbitofrontal
cortices. These images, though rarely consciously remembered, form the basis for an
internal working model of relationships. It is as if the child has filed a video-clip of her
mother in her brain’s ‘hard-disk’. Hencefo rth, these inner representations will animate
her core emotional responses, forming the basis of her fundamental relationship style.
When she feels her emotional needs are consistently attended to, this engenders in the
child an enduring expectation of a supportive world. This attitude is pervasive and
unconscious, and it inclines the child toward friendly and considerate behaviour.

Just as we might not remember learning to walk, yet our legs and feet seem to play their
parts perfectly, some of our most pivotal lessons in human relations were learnt at a time
that our bodies, but not our minds, can remember. The greatest gift in these discoveries is
the knowledge that every loving moment we share with our children, from the very
beginning, will stay with them for life.

PDF: By Robin Grille
WHAT YOUR CHILD REMEMBERS

Our Emotional Health.com

HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF CHILD REARING

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:29:00 +0000

For the past 40 years I have been researching with over a hundred of my fellow psychohistorians the slow, uneven evolution of historical child rearing practices. We have discovered that there have been six parenting modes that have evolved historically:

    1.infanticide (tribes, early states),

    2.abandoning (early medieval),

    3.ambivalent (late medieval)

    4.intrusive (early states)

    5.socializing (early nations)

    6.helping (modern nations).

All six modes are still present in modern nations, and less developed nations are still in the earlier three modes of extremely abusive childrearing. My book The History of Childhood posits that "the further back in history one goes, the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused."

Other aspects of our scholarly work focuses on wars and social violence, showing that as nations evolve their less abusive childrearing practices they can create adults who are not time bombs, and rates of wars and social violence decrease. Obviously the ability to give real care and love to children reduces the amounts of fears and violence embedded in their brains and removes the need to repeat their abuse on others.

One of my studies on the origins of war and interpersonal violence in child abuse is my research into the childhood of Nazis. The true cause of WWII and the Holocaust can be seen in the horribly abusive childrearing practices in German families in the early 20th century. Most families, even wealthy ones, committed infanticide without guilt. Newborns were tightly swaddled, covered with blood-sucking lice, and were usually handed over to usually brutal wetnurses. Because little children were considered evil, they were "hardened" by being burned and thrown into icy lakes, and were kicked and routinely whipped by parents and teachers, "whether they deserved it or not." Sexual abuse of children was also common.

All this brutality resulted in German adults who had to re-inflict their childhood cruelties onto scapegoats. For instance, they called Jews "lice," and said they had to kill them "to prevent them from poisoning their German blood." They repeated their own childhood toilet training on Jewish prisoners and called them "filthy shits" — forcing hundreds of them to stand for hours to wait for one toilet. (Evidence for historical child abuse practices can be read free on www.psychohistory.com)

Proof that it was the horribly abusive childrearing of Nazis that was the cause of WWII and the Holocaust can be seen by what happened after the war, when there were serious efforts to change childhood in many European nations. Over sixty years ago, several middle European nations vowed not to repeat their usual abusive childrearing practices, and passed many laws that achieved this — laws prohibiting hitting children (even spanking by parents), laws giving mothers three full years of pay for each child born so they could give them proper care, laws providing free parenting center advice, etc. The result of this near elimination of child abuse was that in most European Union nations today adults have little interest in military ventures, and young men simply don't want to join armies.

When I give speeches to academic audiences and describe my psychohistorical findings, they regularly ask at the end of my talk: "Are you really saying that if you give children around the world love and care and not abuse you will eliminate wars?" My answer is: "You understand me.The way to stop wars and terrorism is by giving more help to mothers toward improving child care, not by increasing military power." I then describe how to establish neighborhood parenting centers, child abuse prevention groups and courses on childrearing in schools.

One of the nations in which we must work to improve childrearing is the United States, which today is 26th out of the most developed 27 nations in terms of healthy childhoods. Half of U.S. children are still hit (five years ago it used to be over 90 percent). Hitting children in school with paddles is still legal, and is practiced in 21 states. American girls have the highest teen pregnancy rates. Over half of American mothers have no spouse and must work, so have to leave their children to others for child care, etc.

The poor childrearing of so many Americans explains why the U.S. has the largest military in the world and continues to be in the middle of unnecessary wars around the world, plus has one of the highest murder rates of developed nations. Ending child abuse must be the goal of all families and nations on earth for the next 50 years, so that the world in the future will be like the European Union today — uninterested in starting wars in order to re-enact the violence of their brutal childhoods.

By Lloyd DeMause

Lloyd DeMause / Psychohistory

Psychohistory

Emotional Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Above some Emotionally Intelligent Young People

What is emotional intelligence?

'We define emotional intelligence as the ability to reason with emotion.' John Mayer and Peter Salovey

US psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey published the first formal definition of emotional intelligence in 1990. Their publication also claimed that it might be possible to assess and measure a person’s emotional intelligence.

Mayer and Salovey believed that emotional intelligence is a subset of social intelligence and is about a person’s ability to:

Perceive emotion in oneself and others

Integrate emotion into thought

Understand emotion in oneself and others

Manage or regulate emotion in oneself and others.

They have also described emotional intelligence as being ‘knowledge of self and others’ and, more specifically, ‘the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking’.

Since 1990, Mayer, Salovey and David Caruso have developed a set of tasks that assess this four-dimensional model. These include identifying emotions in human faces. They claim their research indicates that emotional intelligence can be measured reliably and that it is related to, but independent of, standard intelligence.

The development of emotional intelligence

Although theories of emotional intelligence have been around since the 1920s, writers such as Howard Gardner and Daniel Goleman have championed the importance of emotions and feelings in learning more recently. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence pioneered the view that intra and interpersonal intelligences were as important as other forms such as linguistic and logical. Daniel Goleman, who later coined the phrase ‘emotional intelligence’, put forward the argument that emotional intelligence (EQ) mattered more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient).

Goleman broadened the definition of emotional intelligence devised by Mayer and Salovey. He defined it as ‘understanding one’s own feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living’. Goleman also identified what he called the ‘the five domains of emotional intelligence’ namely:

Knowing one’s emotions

Managing one’s emotions

Motivating oneself

Recognising emotions in others

Handling relationships.

Goleman’s critics point out that motivation has never been recognised as a component of emotional intelligence in any scientific tests, and that Goleman confuses mental abilities with personality traits. Some infer that Goleman equates emotional intelligence with moral character, or being a ‘decent human being’, which they say takes his book into the realms of pop psychology, far beyond the idea of mental abilities.

It has also been pointed out by many academics that Goleman ignored the growing body of empirical research already carried out in the area of emotional intelligence. This omission, they argue, led Goleman to:

make unsupported claims about the power and predictive ability of emotional intelligence that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny

broaden the definition of emotional intelligence to include aspects of personality and behaviour, which are not correlated to emotional intelligence as it is scientifically defined

make premature and exaggerated claims about the extent to which we can increase our emotional intelligence.

The link to emotional literacy

In the UK, the concept of emotional intelligence has influenced those promoting the importance of self-esteem in learning, but these proponents have tended to use the term 'emotional literacy' rather than 'emotional intelligence'.

In recent times, those who have championed what might be termed the ‘self-esteem movement’ in schools regard emotional intelligence as being closely connected to the building of self-esteem. Elizabeth Morris (2002) argues that it is hard to feel good about yourself if you don’t know yourself well, and if you can’t recognise and manage emotions such as anger and frustration. The more able you are to read body language and relate to other people and their emotional states, the more likely you are to be popular. Morris and other academics argue that this is what encourages a sense of belonging and builds self-esteem.

Their view is based on a belief that, although emotional literacy helps to develop self-esteem, it is not the same as self-esteem and they distinguish between the two concepts as follows:

Self-esteem - the inner perception people have as being more or less valuable, worthy and powerful in the world

Emotional literacy - the practice of being aware of, understanding and managing emotional states in both oneself and other people.

Neurology
The idea that the emotions are central to learning, and that handling our own and other people’s emotions is crucial for success and happiness, goes back a long way in both western and eastern philosophy.

Advances in neuroscience and brain imaging techniques, however, have enabled scientists to understand much more about the way that the human brain works. They have been able to distinguish between the emotional centre of the brain - which gives rise to feelings and emotions - from the neocortex, which is responsible for thinking and reasoning. Today most scientists believe that our emotions are intimately involved in the rational decisions and choices we make, and there is increasing evidence to show that what is known as emotional intelligence has a far greater impact on our ability to learn and our future success than was previously recognised.

Scientific psychology

Peter Salovey and Jack Meyer, who first coined the term ‘emotional intelligence’ in 1990, are qualified cognitive psychologists who base their claims about the nature of emotional intelligence and how it can be measured on scientific research, citing over 160 academic studies. Salovey and Meyer are still working on and refining the instruments that they use to measure emotional intelligence. Their ability tests focus on, in particular, whether emotional intelligence can be grown and developed, although they accept that some people are born with higher levels of emotional intelligence than others.

The main messages

Human beings are emotional animals and their emotions play a critical part in learning and in life.

Being able to monitor our own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide our thinking is, perhaps, the most important life skill.

Some people are innately more emotionally intelligent than others. However people can develop emotional intelligence, particularly at critical periods including infancy and teenage years.

Emotional intelligence is a very complex area and, although our understanding is growing, there is still a great deal we do not understand.

Emotional intelligence was popularised as a result of Daniel Goleman’s work, but many of his claims about the nature of emotional intelligence and its influence were premature and exaggerated.

As yet, there is no universally recognised method of measuring emotional intelligence accurately, or demonstrating that it can be developed.

Schools can help to teach young people how to develop their emotional intelligence. Classrooms also need to be emotionally secure places for both teachers and learners.

The emotional brain

'In the brain and the central nervous system, the emotions have a privileged position over thought.' Joseph Ledoux (1998)

We now know that in certain situations, emotions have a stronger impact on human behaviour than thinking. When humans are in a situation of high threat, emotions take precedence over rational thought. This is what Goleman calls an ‘emotional highjack’. Strong emotions, such as anxiety and stress, can overwhelm our ability to think and make good decisions. This explains why in tests and examinations candidates often misread questions or express themselves poorly. Even when we are relaxed and in the optimum mood for learning, our emotions play a very strong role in how we come to learn and whether we will be successful in learning. This makes the case for developing emotional intelligence in young people very strong.

It seems likely that if we are aware of, and can understand and manage emotional states in ourselves and other people, we are more likely to have robust self-esteem and be happy in life. People with highly developed emotional intelligence are usually self-smart - they are able to make sense of what they do, the thoughts they have, and why they feel what they feel. They also communicate effectively and are able to tune in and empathise with others. They are better at handling relationships of every kind and are more likely to be happy and fulfilled.

Emotional intelligence and success

Goleman focused to a large extent on the power of emotional intelligence to help individuals achieve success and he closely equated success with money and earning power.

Goleman also claimed that 20% of success in life is down to IQ and 80% to EQ, although critics argue that he had little or no scientific evidence to back this up. Whilst Mayer and Salovey claim that there is research to show that IQ contributes to 25% of the success achieved by individuals, they cannot make similar quantifiable estimates about the impact of emotional intelligence on achievement.

The implications for learners
Emotional intelligence can be thought of as a set of skills that help learners to be successful in school, at work and in relationships. As a consequence of this, they are more likely have robust self-esteem and be better placed to cope with disappointments and setbacks.

To become effective learners, young people need to develop a strong sense of self-worth and confidence in their abilities. They need to learn to take responsibility for their own learning and performance, and demonstrate persistence and resilience in the face of obstacles or setbacks.

They must also be able to manage their emotions and help others to do the same. It is less to do with controlling emotions and more to do with recognising and understanding the effects of these emotional states and developing coping strategies. Young people must also come to understand that negative feelings can be valuable since they provide personal insights into thoughts, feelings and motivation to learn.
The implications for schools and teachers

The foundations for emotional intelligence, self-esteem, happiness and success in life are laid in childhood and adolescence. Schools and teachers can play a significant part in helping young people to establish these foundations for themselves.

Many proponents of emotional literacy believe that schools must set time aside specifically to teach young people strategies for managing their emotional states and developing empathy with others. Others argue, however, that this should not be treated as a separate area of the curriculum, rather developing emotional literacy ought to be a core part of every teacher’s work with young people.

Whichever approach prevails, schools must establish classroom environments that enable teachers and learners to discuss and share their feelings, beliefs and values openly and honestly.

The writer Andy Hargreaves proposes a four-point plan for making schools more emotionally positive and supportive workplaces. He proposes that schools should seek to:

scale down the number of contacts between teachers and pupils, between pupils and pupils and between teachers and teachers

develop structures that strengthen the emotional bonds between teachers and learners

develop genuinely collaborative structures and ways of working that help teachers to work with and in front of their peers, without feeling that they are being judged

encourage teachers to use their emotions in their teaching.

Many schools also advocate the teaching of positive strategies in order to promote optimism and positive thinking, and to create resilient and confident learners. Teachers can support this approach by creating classroom climates that promote optimism and by using language rich with optimism.

Journey to excellence

Emotions are Not Bad Behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:34:00 +0000

by Robin Grille

Excerpted from Heart to Heart Parenting

A child's right to receive attention

One of the most commonly heard parental laments is about how children try to get attention. So many behaviors that adults don't like are brushed off as "merely" attention-seeking devices. "Don't worry about him," we say, "he is just doing it to get attention."

When children use oblique ways to get attention, such as causing a ruckus, exaggerating or feigning their hurts, picking on other children, showing off, being coquettish - they risk being ignored or put down, as nearby adults roll their eyes in exasperation.

Sometimes, this also happens to children even when they directly and openly call for the attention they crave. Instead of scorning the child, why don't we ask these questions: When a child is being manipulative, instead of direct, how did he learn to do this? How did he come to feel that he shouldn't openly ask for a hug, an answer to his question, sympathy or just to be noticed or played with?

All children begin their lives with complete frankness about their needs. Babies and toddlers reveal their longings with no compunction: what you see is what you get. If a child reaches out for attention and for warmth and she gets it, her ability to be open and directly assertive is reinforced. By begrudging our children's healthy attention-seeking behaviors, we unwittingly train them to be indirect. We leave them little room for much else, so they go for the attention they need and deserve through the back door.

Our society tends to consider children's needs for attention as a bother. No wonder children become indirect attention seekers, some even going to great lengths to fall ill or get injured in order to be noticed. Children who have too often been denied attention can become insatiable, as if no amount of limelight ever fills their cup. Attention is life-giving, a basic need and a human right. Children deserve all the attention they want.

When you wholeheartedly give a child the attention she asks for from the beginning, she soon has her fill. This is precisely what helps her to become more autonomous. As she grows, she asks for less of your attention (research shows that well-attached babies grow into children who are more independent), and when she does want attention, she asks directly, boldly and clearly.

Punished for feeling

Time and time again children are heavily reprimanded for committing the offence of crying or being angry. Let's get this straight: emotions are not bad behavior. Emotions don't hurt anyone. Suppressing children's emotions does, on the other hand, cause them harm: over time, if done repeatedly, it unbalances their brain chemistry, it stresses their immune and digestive systems, and it undermines their ability to relate to others.

Emotional censorship starts early. One of the most common things we say to a crying baby is "Shhh!" We say it soothingly, but why exactly do we shush them? Think of all the lullabies that start by telling our little babies to "hush", and "don't you cry". Have you ever paused to wonder why, in trying to comfort our babies, we ask them to be quiet? It seems as if the first thing we want is for the crying to stop - instead of connecting with our baby until the reason for crying has gone.

Instead of berating your child for feeling her feelings, give her the space to feel, and comfort and support her if she needs it. Sometimes when our children cry, sob or yell in anger we feel overwhelmed, irritated or burdened. Our children don't deserve the blame for this. When our child's emotions press our buttons, we need to own the problem. We need to somehow honor our own need for support or rest without making our children responsible.

What does listening mean?

The listening I am talking about here is not just about receiving and storing information, not just about remembering what your child said. I am talking about listening with your heart, not just with your ears. Real listening is all about feelings. All you need to be a good listener is a genuine interest in your child's emotional world. When you truly want to hear, no special skill is needed. Your child senses your interest in the tone of your voice, in your body language and the look in your eyes. You know you have listened when you feel moved. You might feel compassion, protectiveness, you might feel some pain about your child's hurts, pride or excitement about his achievements, or joy to meet his joy. Listening means letting yourself feel touched somehow, and being aware of the feelings that move through you.

What listening is not

Sometimes listening comes easy. You find yourself intently listening in stillness, without even having decided to, and there is a wonderful and natural flow between you and your child. But sometimes listening can be hard. Our children's emotions spark off our own, and in discomfort we turn away, or we try to talk them out of their feelings. Whether it's because we cannot bear to see our children in pain or because they are freely feeling something that we were never allowed to express - anger, joy, sadness, fear, passion - we block them out, we nip the connection in the bud.

I remember the embarrassment many of us felt as students of counseling psychology as we awkwardly practiced our listening skills together in the classroom, how often we appeared to be listening, while inside we were miles away, disengaged from the person speaking to us. It was often funny, and always quite confronting, to ask ourselves and each other: Are you listening right now, or just nodding your head a lot while you wait for your turn to speak? Are you actually listening, or sitting in judgment? Are you really listening, or just taking mental notes and storing facts? Are you listening, or just thinking about how you can change me?
How often we tell ourselves we are listening intently when in fact our minds are wandering elsewhere. It is unlikely that consistently good listeners exist. For most of us, good listening is a skill that comes and goes with our fluctuating moods. All counselors, psychologists and anyone in the helping professions are imperfect (and sometimes lousy) listeners, and we should be honing our listening capacity for the rest of our lives. It is humbling to note that anyone can be a profoundly good listener without any training whatsoever, since all it takes is an open heart and an interest in the other person.

Blocking empathy

It's a fact of human relationships that our capacity for listening is elusive; we lose it, we regain it, we lose it again. Sometimes it is hard to see whether we are listening so that our children really feel heard. We kid ourselves. We think we are listening when really we are avoiding contact - and then we are bewildered by and surprised at our child's frustration. It can be very useful to get a clear picture of what is listening and what is not. When our own fears, our shame, our jealousies or our emotional exhaustion get in the way, we tend to play some pretty clever games to deflect our children's communications so that their feelings won't touch us. One of the biggest reasons we avoid listening is because our children's disappointments make us feel guilty. Our evasive tactics are called "empathy blockers". Empathy blockers save us the trouble of listening, but they cost us our connection with each other.

Sometimes we use empathy blockers inadvertently because we are anxiously trying to save our children from emotional pain. Ironically, the greatest salve for our children comes from being heard, not from us trying to change how they feel. For all of these reasons, we all use empathy blockers from time to time, quite automatically and unconsciously. You could say we are all quite skilled at blocking. Here are some of the most common examples used when children become emotional:

As you can see, on the surface most empathy blockers are not malicious, they are not ostensibly attempts to shame the child, and sometimes they can even be well intentioned, but they do not help the child to feel heard and connected to you. It might seem surprising, even bewildering, to hear that when you try to cheer up a child who is upset, this can often backfire - she might even feel more distressed, even angry. This is because she feels that her feelings are not accepted when what she actually needs is support for feeling the way she does. If this is hard to understand, then think of the last time you felt deeply upset, offended or anxious and someone told you to lighten up. How did that make you feel? Empathy blockers leave anyone on the receiving end feeling shut out and frustrated, and as if there must be something wrong with them for feeling the way they do.

Take a few moments to check this out for yourself. Have you ever heard yourself use one, a few or perhaps even all of the above empathy blockers with your child? How did your child respond? Can you imagine what you could have done instead? Now, in case you're tempted to become self-critical, remember: we all put up barriers to listening from time to time. Those of us who teach others about empathy blockers know them too well because we've used them so much ourselves.

By the way, not all of the responses in the table above are always inappropriate. There sometimes is a place for advice or a helpful opinion, but unless we take the time to hear our children's feelings first, advice comes too soon and it alienates our child from us. Before jumping in with advice, we need to ask our children if they want it. The most important thing for us to get is that primarily, our children just want to be heard. First and foremost they want evidence that they are not alone, that someone sees how they feel and cares about them. This makes more of a difference than all the advice in the world.

Empathy blockers really muddy the connection between parents and children; they create detachment and distance, and they frustrate children's attempts to reach out. The more we use empathy blockers, the less our children are inclined to come to us with their feelings, the less they want to tell us about their lives and the less they want to listen to us. When we are concerned that our children don't listen to us, perhaps we need to take an honest look at how well we have listened to them.     Listening is at the
heart of connection.

It is sad when blocked empathy diminishes our sense of closeness with each other, and particularly worrisome when our children feel lost or in some kind of trouble but don't turn to us for help. Our children's trust in us is a function of how safe they feel to open up to us without feeling manipulated, expected of, judged, put down or criticized. Listening is at the heart of connection, and if we can't listen well, we cease to be an influence in our children's lives.

Excerpted from Heart to Heart Parenting It is available in Australia through ABC Bookstores. The USA edition will be available in May 2011 and can be pre-ordered now at Amazon.

Robin Grille is a Sydney-based psychologist and author of Parenting for a Peaceful World. He has a private practice in individual psychotherapy and relationship counseling. For further information and articles, visit Robin's website our-emotional-health.com and blog hearttoheartparenting.org.

Emer Martin - Dyslexic Novelist, Painter and Filmmaker

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:22:00 +0000

UNACCOMPANIED: – A FILM BY EMER MARTIN

“Unaccompanied” is a new short fiction film shot by novelist and filmmaker Emer Martin (Breakfast in Babylon), stars Maria Hayden (Bloom, The Dead), and was produced by Niall McKay and the Media Factory. The movie features novelist Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) as a social worker who finds a traumatized young boy from Africa on the streets of Dublin.

Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers’ Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S. in 1997. More Bread Or I’ll Appear, her second novel was published internationally in 1999. Emer studied painting in New York and has had a sell-out solo show of her paintings at the Origin Gallery in Harcourt St, Dublin. Her new book is Baby Zero, published March 07. She has just completed her third short film Unaccompanied. She produced Irvine Welsh’s directorial debut NUTS in 2007. Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. She now lives in the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland.

Emer Martin

Marshall Rosenberg - Nonviolent Communication

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:25:00 +0000

San Francisco Lecture / Workshop

The Center for Nonviolent Communication

Gaza and Ramallah: Learning as a community

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:31:00 +0000

UNRWA and OLPC have been working together in Gaza and the West Bank to implement community laptop programs this year. In many schools in such as this one in Ramallah, students use their XOs in class and out. These girls are on their way home.

OLPC's mission is to empower the world's poorest children through education

We aim to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. To this end, we have designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

One Laptop Per Child

Nicholas Negroponte

Attachment: The First Core Strength

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:06:00 +0000

"My teacher!" The 5-year-old child blurted out in the grocery as she ran, smiling, to hug her kindergarten teacher. It made both their days.

Throughout life, each of us will form thousands of relationships. These bonds take many forms. Some are enduring and intimate-our dearest friend-while others are transient and superficial-the chatty store clerk. Together, relationships in all forms create the glue of a family, community, and society. This capacity to form and maintain relationships is the most important trait of humankind, for without it none of us would survive, learn, work, or procreate.

The first and most important of all relationships are attachment bonds. Initially, these are created through interactions with our primary caregivers, usually parents. First relationships help define our capacity for attachment and set the tone for all of our future relationships.

What Is Attachment?

Attachment is the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional relationships. An attachment bond has unique properties. The capacity to create these special relationships begins in early childhood.

Unique Features of an Attachment Bond

Enduring form of a bond with a "special" person

Involves soothing, comfort, and pleasure

Loss or threat of loss of the special person evokes intense distress

There is security and safety in context of this relationship

At birth, a baby is essentially emotionally "unattached." Despite the obvious physical connection of the umbilical cord, the newborn does not yet have strong connections to another human. During infancy and early childhood, one form of attachment-socio-emotional-begins to replace the original physical attachment of the cord. As dependent as ever, a baby requires constant attention and care from another human being in order to survive. Calories and a "bath" of physical sensations-sight, sounds, smells, touch, and taste-help the infant survive and grow to meet her potential. This "somatosensory" bath from a loving caregiver-the rocking, hugs, coos, and smiles-is transformed by the infant's sensory systems into patterned neuronal activity that influences the development of the brain in positive ways. It is in this dependent relationship between the primary caregivers and the infant that the new form of attachment grows. This attachment-the emotional relationship-is not as easy to see or document, yet it is nonetheless as important for human development as the umbilical cord is in utero.

It is these experiences of infancy and early childhood that create the roots of attachment-the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional relationships. Except in the most extreme cases we are all born with the genetic capability to form and maintain healthy emotional relationships. When the infant has attentive, responsive, and loving caregiving, this genetic potential is expressed. And as this infant becomes a toddler and more people-family, friends, peers-enter his life, he will continue to develop this capacity to have healthy and strong emotional relationships.

Attachment and Pleasure

Our brain is designed to promote relationships. Specific parts of the human brain respond to emotional cues (such as facial expressions, touch, scent) and, more important, allow us to get pleasure from positive human interactions. The systems in the brain that mediate pleasure appear to be closely connected to the systems that mediate emotional relationships. Indeed this inter-relationship-the capacity to get pleasure from other people-creates a major positive learning tool of infancy and childhood. Young children want to please their teachers. They model adults and children they admire.

When attachment capacity develops normally, the child gets pleasure from interacting with other people. The degree of pleasure is related to the degree of attachment-pleasing a parent brings more pleasure than pleasing a stranger. It is this very property that helps parents and teachers shape pro-social and social behaviors in a child. In the process of teaching children emotional, social, and cognitive tasks, the strongest rewards for a child are the attention, approval, and recognition of success that the parent or teacher can give. Conversely, when a child feels he have displeased a parent or teacher, he can be devastated.

Attachment Capacity Matures

In order to be capable of forming the wide array of healthy relationships required throughout life, a young child's attachment capacities must mature. While the roots of attachment are related to the primary caregiving experiences in early childhood, full expression of attachment potential requires social and emotional interactions with non-caregivers. As children become older, they spend less time with parents and more time with peers and other adults. This time with peers and other adults provides many opportunities for continued emotional growth. In early childhood, the relationships with peers start as acquaintanships. With more time together, however, young children create friendships and the opportunity for strong emotional bonds can develop. In a similar fashion, a young child may form a strong connection with an attentive and nurturing teacher. The acquaintance, the friend, and the teacher all provide different and complementing social and emotional opportunities that help a child's attachment capabilities mature.

When Attachment Goes Wrong

If a child has few positive relationships in early childhood or has had a bad start due to problems with the primary-caregiving experiences of infancy, this child is at risk for a host of problems. In a very real sense, the glue of normal human interactions is gone. A child with poor attachment capacity is much harder to "shape" and teach. This child will feel little pleasure from the teacher's smile or approving words. And he does not feel bad disappointing, angering, or upsetting a parent or teacher. Without the capacity to use human interactions to "reward" and "punish," the teacher and parent often are confused and frustrated in their attempts to promote appropriate social behavior. In extreme cases, the child with poor attachment capacity demonstrates no remorse when harming others and risk developing further anti-social or even aggressive and violent behaviors. This child needs help. Research and clinical experience show that attachment capacity is easiest to shape if early identification and intervention takes place.

What you can do to promote the development of healthy attachment:

Smile and look children in the eyes as you greet them

Spend time with the child. Quantity matters. During this time, get on the floor, listen and establish eye contact.

Use touch to comfort-even as a pre-school teacher, it is appropriate to hug, gently touch a shoulder, or hold hands.

Help children learn appropriate social-emotional language (how close to stand, how to use eye contact, when to touch, how to touch).

Remember that there are many styles of forming and maintaining relationships-a shy child is not an unattached child. If you sense a child is having a hard time engaging others, help facilitate this by actively including her or pairing her with another child who has a matching temperament.

By Dr. Bruce D Perry

Also See:

Self-Regulation: The Second Core Strength

Affiliation: The Third Core Strength

Awareness: The Fourth Core Strength

Tolerance: The Fifth Core Strength

Respect: The Sixth Core Strength

KEEP THE COOL IN SCHOOL - Promoting Non-Violent Behavior in Children

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:57:00 +0000

By Bruce Duncan Perry, M.D., Ph.D.

As you watch children cross the classroom threshold at the start of a new school year, you can't help but wonder: Will they connect with me? Will they get along with one another? Today, as children enter the "world" of school, you must consider another factor-how can I ensure the safety of all the children in my group?

School shootings and the graphic violence we all see in the media change the way adults and children view the world-from a world bright and full of promise to a dark and potentially dangerous place. Even at the tender age of 2, children may experience a bully's threat. A toddler may imitate his favorite cartoon character and suddenly tackle a friend on the playground. Exposure to violence can change the way children feel, act, and behave-and not in positive ways.

Children are born with a remarkable range of potential. They are not born violent, nor are they naturally immune to the effects of violence. Yet some children are more resistant than others and a rare few are unaffected. During these early years, you can increase children's ability to be responsible, caring, and creative. You might say it's the chance of a lifetime!

A Vaccine Against Violence

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D, a leading expert on brain development and children in crisis, has identified six core strengths that children need to be humane. A child who can form and maintain healthy emotional relationships, self-regulate, join and contribute to a group, and be aware, tolerant, and respectful of himself and others will be more resourceful, more successful in social situations, and more resilient. Studies show that when a child is violent, one or more of these core strengths did not develop normally. The child without these strengths will be in greater danger of becoming violent and also less able to cope with bullies and other verbal or physical abuse. A child who does not develop these core strengths is a vulnerable child. Significantly, though, children with these core strengths rarely become violent and, in fact, recover more quickly when exposed to violence.

To help children develop these crucial strengths, Scholastic has launched KEEP THE COOL IN SCHOOL, a company-wide campaign against violence and verbal abuse. With this campaign, we hope to offer teachers, parents, and children the tools to identify, develop, and enhance these core strengths. Promoting a child's emotional health is the most successful approach available to fighting violence. And the payback is unparalleled: With your help, more children will grow up to be kind, thoughtful, and productive.

The following article by Dr. Perry offers an explanation of these six strengths. Over the year, Early Childhood Today will present six additional features, each focusing on one of the core strengths.

The Six Core Strengths

Violence infects our children. This infection is virulent in some and barely noticeable in others. Why do some children re-enact the violence they see on television while others do not? Why do some chronically teased children cope by developing a sense of humor, while others become self-loathing and yet others plot to shoot their taunting peers? Why do some children who make these murderous plans actually act on them?

It's almost impossible to answer these questions. We rarely know what makes a given child violent. But we do know that children with core strengths rarely become violent. Healthy development is an antidote to the violence they're exposed to.

These core strengths build upon each other to contribute to a child's emotional development. Together, they provide a strong foundation for future health, happiness, and productivity. Attachment, self-regulation, affiliation, awareness, tolerance, and respect will each be explored in depth in later issues of Early Childhood Today. Here is an overview of the six core strengths and why each is essential to healthy development.

1. ATTACHMENT: Being a Friend

Attachment is the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional bonds with another person. It is first acquired in infancy, as a child interacts with loving, responsive, and attentive parents and caregivers.

Why it's important: This core strength is the cornerstone of all the others. An infant's interactions with a parent or primary caregiver create his or her first relationship. Healthy attachments allow a child to love, to become a good friend, and to have a positive and useful model for future relationships. As a child grows, other consistent and nurturing adults such as teachers, family friends, and relatives will shape his ability to develop attachments. The attached child will be a better friend, student, and classmate-which promotes all forms of learning.

Signs of struggle: A child who has difficulty with this strength has a hard time making friends and trusting adults. She may show little empathy for others and act in what seems to be a remorseless way. Children unable to attach lack the emotional anchors needed to buffer the violence they see. They may isolate themselves, act out, reject a peer's friendly overtures, or withdraw socially. With few friends, and apparently disconnected from her peers, this child is also at greater risk when exposed to violence.

2. SELF-REGULATION: Thinking Before You Act

Developing and maintaining the ability to notice and control primary urges such as hunger and sleep-as well as feelings of frustration, anger, and fear-is a lifelong process. Its roots begin with the external regulation provided by parents or significant caregivers, and its healthy growth depends on a child's experience and the maturation of the brain.

Why it's important: Pausing a moment between an impulse and an action is a life tool. Developing this strength helps a child physiologically and emotionally. But it's a strength that must be learned-we are not born with it. As children grow, our expectations for them must be age appropriate. For instance, it's unreasonable to expect a 2-year-old to have complete bladder and bowel control before his body has matured. In social situations, the age-appropriate strength to self-regulate may spell a child's success and build his self-confidence.

Signs of struggle: When a child doesn't develop the capacity to self-regulate, he will have problems sustaining friendships, learning, and controlling his behavior. He may blurt out a thoughtless and hurtful remark and express hurt or anger with a shove or by damaging another child's work. Just seeing a violent act may set him off or deeply upset him. Children who struggle with self-regulation are more reactive, immature, and impressionable, and more easily overwhelmed by threats and violence.

3. AFFILLIATION: Joining In

The capacity to join others and contribute to a group springs from our ability to form attachments. Affiliation is the glue for healthy human functioning: It allows us to form and maintain relationships with others-and to create something stronger, more adaptive, and more creative than the individual.

Why it's important: Human beings are social creatures. We are biologically designed to live, play, grow, and work in groups. A family is a child's first and most important group, glued together by the strong emotional bonds of attachment. But most other groups that children join-such as a preschool class, kids in the neighborhood, friends made while traveling-are based on circumstance or common interests. It's in these groups that children will have thousands of brief emotional, social, and cognitive experiences that can help shape their development. And it is in these situations that children make stronger connections with peers-their first friendships.

Signs of struggle: A child who is afraid or otherwise unable to affiliate may suffer a self-fulfilling prophecy: She is more likely to be excluded and may feel socially isolated. Healthy development of the core strengths of attachment and self-regulation make affiliation much easier. But a distant, disengaged or impulsive child won't be easily welcomed into a group. And in fact, she may act in ways that lead others to tease or actively avoid her. The excluded child can take this pain and turn it on herself, becoming sad or self-loathing. Or she can direct the pain outward, becoming aggressive and even violent. Later in life, without intervention, these children are more likely to seek out other marginalized children and affiliate with them. Unfortunately, the glue that holds these groups together can be beliefs and values that are self-destructive or hateful to those who have excluded them.

4. AWARENESS: Thinking of Others

Awareness is the ability to recognize the needs, interests, strengths, and values of others. Infants begin life self-absorbed and slowly develop awareness-the ability to see beyond themselves and to sense and categorize the other people in their world. At first this process is simplistic: "I am a boy and she is a girl. Her skin is brown and mine is white." As children grow, their awareness of differences and similarities becomes more complex.

Why it's important: The ability to be attuned, to read and respond to the needs of theirs, is an essential element of human communication. An aware child learns about the needs and complexities of others by watching, listening, and forming relationships with a variety of children. He becomes part of a group (which the core strength of affiliation allows him to do) and sees ways in which we are all alike and different. With experience, a child can learn to reject labels used to categorize people, such as skin color or the language they speak. The aware child will also be much less likely to exclude others from a group, to tease, and to act in a violent way.

Signs of struggle: A child who lacks the ability to be aware of others' needs and values is at risk for developing prejudicial attitudes. Having formed ideas about others without knowing them, she may continue to make categorical, destructive, and stereotypical, judgments: "She speaks English with an accent, so she must be stupid" or "He's fat, so he must be lazy." This immature kind of thinking feeds the hateful beliefs underlying many forms of verbal and physical violence.

5. TOLERANCE: Accepting Differences

Tolerance is the capacity to understand and accept how others are different from you. This core strength builds upon another-awareness (once aware, what do you do with the differences you observe?).

Why it's important: It's natural and human to be afraid of what's new and different. To become tolerant, a child must first face the fear of differences. This can be a challenge because children tend to affiliate based on similarities-in age, interests, families, or cultures. But they also learn to reach out and be more sensitive to others by watching how the adults in their lives relate to one another. With positive modeling, you can insure and build on children's tolerance. The tolerant child is more flexible and adaptive in many ways. Most important, when a child learns to accept difference in others, he becomes able to value the things that make each of us special and unique.

Signs of struggle: An intolerant child is likelier to lash out at others, tease, bully, and, if capable, will act out his intolerance in violent ways. Children who struggle with this strength help create an atmosphere of exclusion and intimidation for those people and groups they fear. This atmosphere promotes and facilitates violence.

6. RESPECT: Respecting yourself and others

Appreciating your own self-worth and the value of others grows from the foundation of the preceding five strengths. An aware, tolerant child with good affiliation, attachment, and self-regulation strengths gains respect naturally. The development of respect is a lifelong process, yet its roots are in early childhood, as children learn these core strengths and integrate them into their behaviors and their worldview.

Why it's important: Children will belong to many groups, meet many kinds of people, and will need to be able to listen, negotiate, compromise, and cooperate. Having respect enables a child to accept others and to see the value in diversity. He can see that every group needs many styles and many strengths to succeed and he can value each person in the group for her talents. When children respect-and even celebrate-diversity, they find the world to be a more interesting, complex, and safer place. Just as understanding replaces ignorance, respect replaces fear.

Signs of struggle: A child who can't respect others is incapable of self-respect. She will be quick to find fault with others, but she can also be her own harshest critic. Too often the trait a child ridicules in others reflects something she hates in herself. The core of all violence is a lack of respect, for oneself and for others. When respect is missing, children will likely become violent-because they value nothing.

These core strengths provide a child with the framework for a life rich in family, friends, and personal growth. Our world changes daily and becomes increasingly diverse-and how much more complex that world will be when our children become parents! Teaching children these core strengths gives them a gift they will use throughout their lifetimes. They will learn to live and prosper together with people of all kinds-each bringing different strengths to create a greater whole.

Teachers Scholastic

Continue Reading Here : Attachment: The First Core Strength

Dr. Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority on brain development and children in crisis. Dr. Perry leads the ChildTrauma Academy, a pioneering center providing service, research and training in the area of child maltreatment (www.ChildTrauma.org). In addition he is the Medical Director for Provincial Programs in Children's Mental Health for Alberta, Canada. Dr. Perry served as consultant on many high-profile incidents involving traumatized children, including the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado; the Oklahoma City Bombing; and the Branch Davidian siege. His clinical research and practice focuses on traumatized children-examining the long-term effects of trauma in children, adolescents and adults. Dr. Perry's work has been instrumental in describing how traumatic events in childhood change the biology of the brain. The author of more than 200 journal articles, book chapters, and scientific proceedings and is the recipient of a variety of professional awards.

Dr Bruce D Perry

Benefit reforms 'will hit single working mothers' warns Save The Children

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:22:00 +0000

Single working mothers in Wales will be hardest hit by reforms to the benefits system, a charity has claimed.

Save the Children said more than 50,000 single working mothers could lose as much as £3,500 a year under the UK government's new universal credit, pushing some below the breadline.

The report also claimed second earners will be affected.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said the charity was "wrong" and being "disingenuous".

Save the Children said mothers on low incomes will be "forced" to make ends meet by either working longer hours or by getting into debt.

The charity also claimed the changes made it "less attractive" for parents to move off benefits and in to work because of poor childcare support available.

James Pritchard, head of Wales for Save the Children, said the reforms must be re-examined.

"In trying to reform the benefit system the government is in danger of condemning a whole generation of Welsh children to a life of poverty," he said.

"There is no doubt that the new universal credit will help lots of families, but our research has shown that mums working to keep their heads above water are its big blind spot.
'Better off'

"A mum on £370 a week simply can't afford to lose £70, as our projections suggest they will."

He said there should be more help for working mothers.

But the government said the charity was "wrong to assert that lone parents will lose as a result of the introduction of universal credit".

The DWP said: "The truth is, 600,000 lone parents will be better off under a system which will incentivise work and make work pay."
'Unrealistic examples'

By the time universal credit is fully implemented, the government expects 900,000 people to be lifted out of poverty and accused the charity of not using real examples.

"Save the Children estimate that 150,000 lone parents working 16 hours or more a week will be pushed deeper into poverty. This appears to be based on an assumption that as these lone parents are currently in poverty they will be automatically worse off under universal credit," they said.

"This assumption fails to take into account the fact that other circumstances, for example, the number of children they have or housing costs, may mean that some lone parents will see no difference in the level of their award or will be better off under universal credit.

"Save the Children are being disingenuous because they are cherry-picking unrealistic examples to demonstrate where families could lose."

The government said to lose £68 the lone parent would have to have three children under school age, use childcare for 40 hours a week and be claiming both tax credits and housing benefit.

CASE STUDY

Mother-of-three Geraldine Henderson, from Rhymney, Caerphilly, and her partner, who works full time, claim working tax credit and child tax credit to "boost" their income.

She said: "We've already noticed cuts in these so any further cuts would impact on everything. I've already cut back on food costs by sacrificing things we like either by buying cheaper brands or even trying to shop around.

"Up until now I have been a stay-at-home mum. This is a very rewarding and worthwhile job and I wanted to be a part of my children's lives growing up.

"There was not enough childcare provision in the area to make me want to go to work and leave my kids. Child minders can also be very costly, especially if you are on a low income.

"We would only be around £10 to £30 better off after paying for childcare than if I wasn't working, which is not much of an incentive.

"But I am at the moment setting up my own online craft business to earn some extra money to meet with the rising bills and so that I can work from home and also juggle my hours around the school run and childcare.

"It's a real concern that the UK government is planning to cut the support provided for some families, especially with the price of food, clothes, leisure activities, travel still rising.

"It's just not right that mothers and children are being hit worst."

Source: Save The Children

BBC

PARENT CHAMPIONS

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:30:00 +0000

MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR PARENTS AND CARERS IN YOUR COMMUNITY

The Dyslexia-SpLD Trust wants to recruit a team of Parent Champions across the UK. The Trust supports parents and carers of children with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties. This Parent Champion initiative is a collaborative project supported by Dyslexia Action, The British Dyslexia Association, Springboard for Children and Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre.

WE WANT YOU TO BE

OUR VOICE IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

Every term, you’ll receive a newsletter from the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust with the latest news about support, expert advice and resources available to parents of children with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties. We want you to tell as many mums, dads and carers as possible about it – in the playground, through schools, charities and community groups etc… Give them the contact details and website address for The Trust and its member organisations so that they can take a look and begin to get support, expert advice and resources from there too.

OUR EARS IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

The Trust will occasionally ask you to respond to surveys that help us to know what issues are important to parents, what is working well that we can build on – and where there are gaps. This information is vital to us because it means that we can ensure that we are offering the best, most relevant and practical support that will really make a difference to parents.

OUR HEART IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

We want you to be our heart in the local community and to be someone that parents can talk to so they know they are not on their own. Your role is vital – not as an expert on dyslexia and learning difficulties (the Trust and its member organisations provide that) but as someone who can offer support to mums and dads at a time when they can feel worried and isolated. Having a chat with you will mean a lot because you know what they are going through. You may like to do this on a 1-to-1 basis or perhaps organise a coffee morning where parents can get together and share experiences and chat in a friendly and supportive environment.

We would really like your help to build our network of Parent Champions by recruiting one or two people in your local community who are as passionate as you are about supporting other parents. We’d like them to become Parent Champions too. We would also like you to join our virtual community so that you can keep in touch with all our other Parent Champions.

Parent Champions.org.uk