Natural Childhood

Obama Administration Promotes Use of Child Soldiers

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:14:00 +0000

In 2008, President Bush signed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act into law. This law provides protection for children across the globe by preventing the United States government from providing military aid to nations which utilize child soldiers.

Barack Obama has chosen to evade the 2008 law. Obama has effectively placed his own administration above the law in allowing military aid to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

Jo Becker, the Children’s Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, writes “Americans don’t want their tax money used to put weapons into the hands of children. Cutting off US military assistance to countries using child soldiers should make their governments think twice about exploiting children for warfare.”

The six nations currently identified as using child soldiers are Burma, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The U.S. does not provide military aid to the brutal dictatorship currently ruling Burma. This means that, out of five nations which should not receive military aid from the United States taxpayers, the Obama administration has unilaterally decided to grant four wavers. Only Somalia is being sanctioned for the use of child soldiers — and the government of Somalia is fighting a losing war against Islamist insurgents who are allied with Al Qaeda.

So where does that leave the United States? Do we support the use of children in war or do we oppose it? Is training child soldiers in Africa a legitimate use of U.S. taxpayer funds? Do we prefer to put a barely trained 10yr old African child on the front lines, or a well trained 18yr old American Marine? More importantly, do we live under the rule of law or under the rule of men? Why do we bother having laws at all if we allow presidents to simply make up the rules for their own convenience?

Source: Fort Liberty

18,000 women and children trafficked into UK sex trade

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Up to 18,000 females, including girls as young as 14, are working in brothels across Britain after being smuggled into the country to meet the booming demand for prostitutes. Police, unveiling the results of the largest ever crackdown on people smuggling yesterday, revealed that nearly five times more women than previously thought are working under duress in massage parlours and suburban homes.

Operation Pentameter 2, a six-month campaign by police forces across the country, resulted in the release of 154 women and 13 girls put to work as part of a lucrative trade dominated by organised crime gangs, which increasingly co-operate via the internet to maximise earnings from their victims.

The campaign, which saw the arrest of 528 suspected traffickers and the closure of 822 brothels and premises being used to sell sexual services, also revealed an increasing use of young British women, who are trafficked within the UK after being groomed by older men who lure them to towns away from their homes. The Home Office highlighted one recent case in Sheffield where 33 victims had been recruited by men in public places and taken away for sexual exploitation.

Most victims are foreign, with least 85 per cent of the women working as prostitutes coming from countries including Brazil, China, Lithuania and Thailand. Many victims are lured to Britain with false promises of work in bars or nightclubs only to be sold for up to £5,000, often at airports or service stations, to pimps and brothel-keepers. The women are then set quotas of the number of men they must have sex with each week, working for little or nothing under threat of violence against their families.

Tim Brain, the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, whose force co-ordinated Pentameter 2, said that police forces were becoming more effective in tracing prostitution networks and seizing their assets, but admitted that they remained a significant problem. The first phase of Pentameter in 2006 rescued 88 victims and made 232 arrests.

The Government insisted that the success of the campaign, which has resulted in 24 convictions, was evidence of its determination to hinder the work of the gangs behind sex trafficking. Of the 167 women and teenagers released, all but five were being used as prostitutes. The rest, of whom three were children, had been sold as domestic slaves.

Mr Brain also revealed that a large number of residential properties were being used to sell sex (of the 822 premises raided, nearly 600 were private homes). "In some of the cases, neighbours have not suspected any kind of unusual activity," he said.

Prostitution and people-trafficking is now the third most lucrative black-market trade in the world after gun-running and drugs-smuggling. It is being driven by growing demand for prostitutes in the UK, with websites promoting sex flourishing and local newspapers carrying advertisements for prostitutes. Gangs often share the income from internet "bookings".

Ministers also said children were being trafficked into Britain to grow cannabis or to join street crime gangs. There are plans for a further crackdown on fraudsters who smuggle children to make bogus welfare claims.

Olena's story

Olena, 23, escaped last year from a brothel in Sheffield:

"I come from a very poor area of Ukraine. I went to Moldova with a friend who said he could help me get work, but he sold me to some Albanians. They locked me in their house, raped me and beat me regularly. I was taken to the UK, to a massage parlour in Sheffield, where I was forced to see up to 15 clients a day but could not keep any of the money. The men visited my mother and told her that if I returned home they would kill me."

Sex trafficking in numbers

6,000-18,000 Trafficked women are thought to work as prostitutes in Britain

167 Victims identified in a police operation to free them

13 Victims aged between 14 and 17

£500,000 Amount seized in brothel raids

500,000 Number of women trafficked into the EU each year

Source: The Independent

The Relationship Between Feelings and Behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 06:10:00 +0000

Feelings play a crucial role in determining human behavior. Our behavior toward other persons is determined by our feelings toward them. Obviously, we behave differently toward those we like than toward those we dislike.

Assuming that we have no reason to hide or disguise our feelings, if we like certain people, we are more likely to spend time with them, talk with them, confide in them, do nice things for them, and in general we strive to make them happy. On the other hand, if we dislike or are angry with certain other people, we are likely to avoid spending time with them, avoid talking with them, avoid doing nice things for them, and in general we do not strive to make them happy. If sufficiently angered, we may even do things to hurt the other person.

Consider for a moment the case of a young man who wants a certain young woman to marry him. His problem is to determine how he should act so as to produce a specific feeling in her. If he chooses his behavior carefully (i.e., taking the girl to nice places, flattering her, being considerate and attentive, etc.), at some point during the relationship the woman will say to herself: "Oh, I really love that man. I think I'll marry him." In response to the feeling the man induced in her, the woman behaved as he wished. There is an important principle revealed in this couple's interaction: Loving feelings produce loving behavior.

This principle acts also in the production of negative feelings. Suppose, for example, that after this couple marries, the husband becomes less sensitive to his wife's needs. He no longer says complimentary things to her. He ignores her birthday, Valentine's Day, and their anniversary, and he begins spending his evenings away from home in the company of his boyhood friends. Gradually, the feelings of love in the wife will be converted to anger. Reflecting this anger, her behavior toward the husband will change. She may begin to scold a great deal, to become less affectionate and less sexually responsive. If sufficiently angered, she may sever the relationship entirely by divorce. The behavior of this young couple from courtship through divorce illustrates the operation of a significant law that governs interpersonal relationships: Loving feelings produce loving behavior. Angry feelings produce angry behavior. This is a law of human nature as predictable and inevitable as any of the laws that govern the physical universe.

This law is highly significant for parents, because it operates in parent-child relationships as forcefully as in all others. If we want our children to spend time with us, to like us, to confide in us, to value some of the things we value, and to try to make us happy (for example, by refraining from the use of dangerous drugs), we must behave toward them in ways that create feelings of love toward us rather than feelings of dislike or anger. We cannot reasonably expect to receive "good" behavior from our children unless we create "good" feelings in them. Parents cannot create angry feelings in a child over a period of many years and then expect that the child will show loving behavior in return.

The key to understanding human behavior lies in understanding the feelings that underlie and produce the behavior. The key to guiding children's behavior into socially desirable channels consists in knowing how to create in the child those positive, loving feelings which will produce positive, loving, and, therefore, non-delinquent behavior. Or, conversely, the key lies in the parents' avoiding the production, cumulatively, of those angry feelings in the child which will produce angry, negativistic, delinquent behavior. Unfortunately nature has introduced several factors into the parent-child relationship that make it extremely difficult for even the most sincere, well-meaning parent to convey to the child his/her true, loving feelings. The first of these is the complex nature of love itself.

Love is experienced in two different ways: (1) as an inner feeling or sensation and (2) as a series of overt actions. The person who is "in love" is aware of certain feelings or sensations taking place entirely within his own body. These feelings as such cannot be communicated to another person, except through some form of overt action. The person who is loved can know it or feel it only as he is the recipient of certain loving actions toward him on the part of the individual who is "in love." Unfortunately, in the human species there is no instinctive or otherwise inevitable connection or relationship between the inner feeling of love and the kinds of overt actions that demonstrate the love. This means that it is entirely possible for a parent to love a child totally, inwardly, and yet to act toward that child in ways that do not reveal his love.

It happens often that parents who are genuinely loving in their inner feelings for a child, have by a misguided selection of actions, conveyed to the child the message that he was not loved. Informing the child verbally of the parents' inner feelings and hugging and kissing him are usually insufficient to overcome the child's response to other long-term parental actions. Those parents with whom I have worked over the years have always been able to state honestly that they loved their children. Their children, however, had not experienced them as loving parents, because the children were responding to the parental actions and not to the inner feelings or intent.

Many parents, when they first come in for counseling regarding their children, are somewhat angry with psychologists and clergymen. They say things such as: "You have always told us that if we just loved them, they would be all right. Well, we do love them - and they're not all right. They even say they hate us. Why?" Their problem, of course, was not that they had failed to love their children, but that they had failed to choose correctly those forms of behavior by which their inner feelings of love could have been revealed to the child. Very often I have said to such parents, "You know that you love your child and I know it, but he doesn't know it." Counseling with such parents does not consist in urging the parents to love their own children. Rather, it consists in helping the parents to discover which forms of behavior may best reveal to the child what the parents have felt toward him from the beginning.

By Sidney D. Craig, Ph.D.

Excerpted from Craig, Sidney D. Raising Your Child, not by Force but by Love, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1973, pp. 15-18

Source: The Natural Child Project

Natural Childhood is being redesigned

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 05:55:00 +0000

Natural Childhood is in the process of being redesigned.

Post's will continue throughout the process

I thank you for your patients while the blog redesign takes place

Nature or Nurture?

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:55:00 +0000

I was recently asked about the book The Nurture Assumption, and the argument that peers, and not parents, are most responsible for who children become.

I'll start with an excerpt from a wonderful article on the origins of teenage rebellion, "The Relationship Between Feelings and Behaviour" by Dr. Sidney Craig:

"If we want our children to spend time with us, to like us, to confide in us, to value some of the things we value, and to try to make us happy (for example, by refraining from the use of dangerous drugs), we must behave toward them in ways that create feelings of love toward us rather than feelings of dislike or anger. We cannot reasonably expect to receive 'good' behavior from our children unless we create 'good' feelings in them."

Because it is so painful, often too painful, for an adult to recognize and remember the pain of betrayal in infancy and early childhood, he/she can easily fool themselves into self-deception. They'll blame anything outside themselves rather than face the painful truth. In her landmark article "Childhood Trauma", Alice Miller explains:

"...information about the cruelty suffered during childhood remains stored in the brain in the form of unconscious memories. For a child, conscious experience of such treatment is impossible. If children are not to break down completely under the pain and the fear, they must repress that knowledge. But the unconscious memories of the child who has been neglected and maltreated, even before he has learned to speak, drive the adult to reproduce those repressed scenes over and over again in the attempt to liberate himself from the fears that cruelty has left with him."

Early childhood is the starting point for all love and for all cruelty in later years. To the degree that an infant/child has been given compassion, they will pass it on to others in the future. There's a Swedish saying, "man far den respekt man ger": "one gets the respect one gives". Unfortunately the converse is also true, when we give disrespect (including all forms of punishment) to a child, we breed disrespect, anger, and retaliatory impulses within that child that will be passed on to others later.

Here is an analogy: compassionate early parenting is like a well-built boat, protecting the child from the sea of all subsequent disappointments, temptations, frustrations, and sorrows. Blaming teenage crime on peer pressure (or video games, movies, music, clothing, the Internet, the media, or anything else in current culture), is like blaming a storm for overturning a child's poorly-built boat. We know that there will always be storms in our children's lives. There will always be temptations, disappointments, sorrows, even tragedies. Their ability to cope with these events is what really matters. Do they have a strong enough boat, or do they have a boat with holes? Do they have any boat at all, or have they been put to sea without any protection? And when they drown, do we blame the wind and the rain, the wake of passing motorboats, and the clutching hands of their boatless peers, or do we start building better boats for all of our children?

Let me use my son Jason as an example. Because he has been treated with love, compassion, and trust from birth, he is riding over the sea of life in a very sturdy boat. I find it difficult to imagine any circumstance or experience that would lead him to an inhumane action, because he would simply withstand any such attempts. I will go even further and say that he would not only withstand them, he would put every effort into helping his peers to have their relevant emotional needs met in a more sane and healthy way. I've seen him do this.

Because of the pain of recognizing the hurt and disappointment in our own childhood, we'll blame anything else to avoid feeling that sorrow. But the truth is as simple as a bumper sticker I once saw: "A happy childhood lasts forever."

By Jan Hunt

Source: The Natural Child Project

Girls 'routinely sexually harassed'

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:14:00 +0000

Almost a third of young women say they have been subjected to unwanted sexual contact at school, a poll has found.

Many more face harassment such as name calling on a regular basis, it said.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), who commissioned the poll, is calling on ministers to address violence against girls in schools.

The poll of almost 800 16 to 18-year-olds found that 29% of girls questioned had been the victim of groping, kissing or touching while at school. Around one in seven (14%) of the boys questioned said the same.

More than a third (37%) of all the young people questioned said they had heard girls being called names such as "slut" or "slag" at school on a daily basis.

And less than three in 10 (29%) said they had never seen sexual pictures on mobile phones during school hours.

Nearly one in four (24%) of everyone questioned said teachers had never told them that unwanted advances such as touching or name-calling were unacceptable, while a fifth (20%) said they had never received lessons or information at school about sexual consent.

EVAW chair Professor Liz Kelly said: "Not only is sexual harassment against girls at school routine, everyday and unquestioned, our results show that sexual assault is in fact commonplace in school environments.

"Disturbingly, our results show that students rarely hear from their teachers that these behaviours are unacceptable. Schools are failing in their legal and ethical responsibility to effectively challenge all forms of violence against women and girls and provide safe and supportive environments for their female students."

She added: "Violence against women and girls in our communities will not be eliminated unless the attitudes that excuse and normalise these behaviours are challenged before they are formed. The EVAW Coalition is calling for prevention through education, led by the Department for Education, to be a priority in the Coalition Government's forthcoming strategy to tackle violence against women and girls."

© Press Association 2010

Source: The Herald

State Violence against the Zapatistas in Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:26:00 +0000

Zapatistas from Pamalá, in the municipality of Sitalá, had informed the JBG that, at the end of August, Manuel Vázquez had been forcibly ordered by the authorities and leaders of the political parties in San Marcos and Pamalá to dismantle the autonomous school. The authorities told him that they were then going to attack other communities which had autonomous schools. The JBG stated that "the purpose of these attacks is to prevent the education of our children and to stop the progress of construction of our autonomy". Manuel Vázquez was thrown into prison on the 21st August, where he was threatened, harrassed and intimidated in an attempt to force him to abandon autonomous education. When Pedro Cruz Gómez came to help Manuel Vázquez, he was also imprisoned. A knife was planted in his trousers in an attempt to accuse him of intention to murder. When the prisoners were freed, they were told to abandon the Zapatista organisation and to leave the lands they had bought ten years ago. Threats were made to cancel the land rights of fifteen families.

On the 24th and 25th August the aggressors seized 29 hectares of land with 5,850 coffee trees, 10 hectares of maize, beans, cattle, horses and three houses, and destroyed a banana plantation. On the 8th September, they took cattle, pulled down fences and fired shots into the air. They threatened to "take the land next, and to evict the men and kidnap the women and children and burn the houses". "The three levels of the bad government don't know how to stop the Zapatista struggle for national liberation, so they are trying to stop our autonomous education", said the JBG. "However, we are going to continue with autonomous education throughout Zapatista territory; our sons and daughters will no longer attend the official schools where they will never teach the truth about how we live as indigenous people and how all the poor of Mexico live. We demand that our evicted companer@s be allowed to return home and be treated with respect".

The Network for Solidarity and Against Repression immediately issued a statement "This act of barbarity designed to destroy the autonomous school, has led to the displacement of 170 people from the lands they have worked for ten years....If it were not for our Zapatista compas, there would be no schools in these indigenous communities.....Lies, deceit and repression are the way the state government constantly behaves....Zapatista education in the autonomous communities is an example of how another Mexico is possible, where with honest hard work a level of community development can be achieved which those from above neither understand nor accept. To fight power and its money with learning and knowledge is the best way to build the foundations of a new Mexico".

Source: No Sweat
Also See: Schools For Chiapas

Alice Miller's Gift to Humanity

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:08:00 +0000

Alice Miller died on April 14, 2010 at the age of 87. The contribution of her writing to her readers, as well as to the cause of children and of humanity, is unparalleled.

The lives of all who have read her books, from The Drama of the Gifted Child to Free from Lies, have been deeply transformed. To read Alice Miller is to be brought back to your own center, to the child you once were. No matter what invalidation or mutilation you have suffered, you regain contact with this child. You are able to sweep away the judgments that have been leveled against children – about their foolishness, their original sin, their innate bestiality, and their drives – that the culture of contempt for children has stuck onto them. You can dare to declare that as children we were totally innocent. No one before Alice Miller had been so radical. Starting from the certainty that her books communicate to readers, a true resurrection becomes possible, simply because each reader is able to reconnect with the child one was, with the source of life within oneself.

Alice Miller contributed infinitely to the cause of childhood. She showed, without minimizing as others often tend to do, all the forms of violence to which children are subjected: lack of tenderness, neglect, absence of care, sexual abuse, and, above all, ordinary educational violence, which is the most widespread and is everywhere considered normal and pedagogical. For many people, the profound effect of her work is surely seen in the adoption by 25 countries of legislation prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment and humiliation. Thanks to her and to her studies of the major mass criminals of the 20th century, we have been able to understand how what had happened in the intimacy of the family microcosm led to extremely grave consequences in the macrocosm of the social and political life of adolescents and adults.

We must hope that in the future all that Alice Miller contributed to the cause of humanity will be understood. In showing that the life of adults – their familial, social, and political life, all their history – revolves around childhood and children, Alice Miller, like her fellow countryman Copernicus four centuries earlier, put the world right-side-up again. Freud had failed to do it. By inventing the theory of drives, after his father's death and so as not to accuse him, he thereby returned to the old accusation against children as being the agents of the worst drives. Alice Miller, through empathically listening to her patients, understood that this theory was false and had the courage to denounce it. And courage was certainly needed because she found herself immediately rejected by a number of her former colleagues. However, in shining light on the principal origin of human violence, Alice Miller's work gives us hope for reducing, in its many forms, this violence stemming from ravaged childhoods.

Alice Miller is no longer with us, but her books remain for us. Likewise, we still have her website that I hope Brigitte Oriol will continue to take care of. Would it not be possible for Alice Miller's readers, with the agreement of Brigitte Oriol, to undertake the translation of the articles on this site into the maximum number of languages so that Alice Miller's thinking becomes accessible to all and is spread even more widely than when she was still here?

By Olivier Maurel

Translated from the original French by Mitch Hall, April 24, 2010.

Source: Project NoSpank

Alice Miller, Psychoanalyst, Dies at 87; Laid Human Problems to Parental Acts

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 20:21:00 +0000

Photo by Julia Miller

Alice Miller’s theories on children created a sensation.

Alice Miller, a psychoanalyst who repositioned the family as a locus of dysfunction with her theory that parental power and punishment lay at the root of nearly all human problems, died at her home in Provence on April 14. She was 87.

Her death was announced Friday by her German publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag.

Dr. Miller caused a sensation with the English publication in 1981 of her first book, “The Drama of the Gifted Child.” Originally titled “Prisoners of Childhood,” it set forth, in three essays, a simple but harrowing proposition. All children, she wrote, suffer trauma and permanent psychic scarring at the hands of parents, who enforce codes of conduct through psychological pressure or corporal punishment: slaps, spankings or, in extreme cases, sustained physical abuse and even torture.

Unable to admit the rage they feel toward their tormenters, Dr. Miller contended, these damaged children limp along through life, weighed down by depression and insecurity, and pass the abuse along to the next generation, in an unending cycle. Some, in a pathetic effort to please their parents and serve their needs, distinguish themselves in the arts or professions. The Stalins and the Hitlers, Dr. Miller later wrote, inflict their childhood traumas on millions.

“The Drama of the Gifted Child” struck a chord with mental health professionals. “Clinically, she is almost as influential as R.D. Laing,” the British psychologist Oliver James told The Observer of London in 2005. “Alice Miller changed the way people thought.”

The book also stirred the general public, selling more than a million copies. Its central argument was easy to grasp and, for many readers, offered a tempting explanation for their sorrows and failures.

Dr. Miller is often credited with turning the attention of therapists to child abuse, both physical and sexual, but also with encouraging millions of adults to regard themselves as victims.

Daphne Merkin, assessing Dr. Miller’s book “The Truth Shall Set You Free” in The New York Times Book Review in 2002, wrote that Dr. Miller “could be said to be the missing link between Freud and Oprah, bringing news of the inner life, and especially the subtle hazards of emotional development, out of the cloistered offices of therapists and into a wider, user-friendly context.”

Dr. Miller further developed her ideas in two books published immediately after “The Drama of the Gifted Child’: “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence” (1983) and “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child” (1984). She applied her theory of childhood development to explain the passivity of the German people in the face of Nazi tyranny and took aim at Freud, whose theories, she believed, cast parents as innocents and children as depraved.

Often she used prominent artists as her case studies. In “The Untouched Key” (1990), she held up Friedrich Nietzsche, Pablo Picasso, Kathe Kollwitz and Buster Keaton as illustrations of her theories. In “The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting” (2005), she put Dostoyevsky, Proust and Joyce under the microscope.

Alice Miller was famously reclusive, and deliberately kept details of her early life sketchy. She was born in Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), on Jan. 12, 1923. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Warsaw, which operated underground during the war.

After the war, a Swiss charity arranged for her to continue her studies at the University of Basel, where she wrote her dissertation on the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert and received a doctorate in 1953.

After undergoing Freudian psychiatric training in Zurich, she went into practice as an analyst. In the 1960s a wave of revisionism swept over the profession, as psychoanalysts adapted the ideas of Freud and Jung to social criticism.

Strongly influenced by the education writer Katharina Rutschky’s notion of “black pedagogy,” a term for the authoritarian style of German parenting, Dr. Miller came to view all forms of parental coercion, and even mild physical discipline or emotional coldness, as fatal to healthy psychic development. In her English books, the term is rendered as “poisonous pedagogy.”

“Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away,” she writes in an explanatory essay on childhood mistreatment and abuse on her Web site, alice-miller.com. “Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love.”

By the time she wrote her first book, published in German in 1979, Dr. Miller had stopped practicing psychiatry. The relationship of analyst to patient, she came to believe, replicated the insidious power relationship of parent to child. Her initial critique of Freud led to a full-scale break described in “Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries” (1990), a semi-autobiographical work that revealed her own abuse as a child, which she discovered through paintings she created spontaneously.

“Not once did she apologize to me or express any kind of regret,” she later wrote of her mother in “The Body Never Lies.” “She was always ‘in the right.’ It was this attitude that made my childhood feel like a totalitarian regime.”

Having broken with Freud, Dr. Miller resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1988 and embraced a number of alternative therapies. She became a disciple of J. Konrad Stettbacher, an advocate of regression therapy, and expressed enthusiasm for Arthur Janov’s primal-scream approach, but soon rejected both. Over the years she became increasingly reclusive.

She is survived by a son and a daughter.

Uncompromising and often strident, Dr. Miller preached her message with an often messianic fervor and a polemical style of argument that cost her support from early admirers. The underlying precepts remained unchanged in later works like “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence” (1991) and “Free From Lies: Discovering Your True Needs” (2009).

By WILLIAM GRIMES, The New York Times, April 26, 2010

Source: Project NoSpank
AliceMiller's Website

Preface to From Rage to Courage

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 11:41:00 +0000

I have decided to publish these answers in book form because there are still people who have no access to the internet. But even those who can read these responses online may find it more convenient to own the book for quick reference when they are looking for a particular passage. A degree of computer literacy is however necessary for those who wish to read the original letters.

When I was young, I was an avid reader of Sigmund Freud. But I lost my interest in psychoanalysis when I started working with patients. I found that the concepts and theories I had been confronted with during my psychoanalytical training were an invitation to blame individuals themselves for their distress. Those theories were in fact designed to “repair” them or “put them straight.” In this approach I detected elements of the disastrous and highly abusive ideal of education and upbringing known in German as schwarze Pädagogik (“poisonous pedagogy”).

What interested me was how this distress had come about, the childhood factors that might explain the sufferings of these adults, and the ways in which they might be able to free themselves from the severe consequences of cruel parenting. None of the theories I came across seemed genuinely willing to engage with childhood reality, and this put them fully in line with the attitude of society in general.

It was my patients themselves who provided indirect answers to my questions. Their reports on what they had been through in childhood revealed facts that had hardly ever been addressed during my training: the severe cruelty inflicted on children by their own parents.

At the same time, I became aware of my patients’ deeply entrenched resistance to remembering these painful events: they were extremely reluctant to feel the tragic situation they had been in as children and to take it seriously. Some of them described acts of monstrous cruelty with a complete lack of emotion, as if they were something that was only to be expected. They believed their parents had loved them and that as children they had richly deserved severe punishment because they were so insufferable. The regularity with which true feelings were denied or split off made me realize that almost all of us tend to deny, or at least play down, the pain caused by the injuries we suffered in childhood. We do this because we still fear punishment at the hands of our parents, who could not bear to accept us as we truly were. These childhood fears live on in the adult. If they remain unconscious, that is if they are not identified as such, then they will retain their virulence to the end of our lives. Unfortunately, these fears also live on in those who advance theories that camouflage childhood reality and that concentrate instead on the nature of “psychical structures.” This approach began with Freud and was later taken over by C.G. Jung and others. Like present-day “spiritualist” interpretations, these theories all served one purpose: to allay the fears of the maltreated children these therapists still were.

As almost everyone on this planet received beatings when they were small and do their best to repress the fear of punishment at the hands of their parents, it is difficult to make this unconscious dynamic apparent. After all, no one wants to be told about sufferings they have been fighting to suppress for decades, sometimes sacrificing their health in the process. After listening to the tragic stories of my patients for 20 years without letting myself be confused by the theories of Freud and others, I wrote The Drama of the Gifted Child, in which I pointed the finger at facts that almost everyone knows but strongly denies. Subsequently, I published For Your Own Good, referring to three biographies to indicate the social consequences that cruel parenting can have. One of the things the book revealed was the way in which the complete and utter eradication of empathy from the earliest years and constant persecution by the father turned the former child Adolf Hitler into a mass murderer with the blood of millions of people on his hands. In my later books I have repeatedly demonstrated how the political careers of mass murderers like Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, and others were rooted in the denial of the humiliations inflicted on them in childhood.

I received a great deal of praise for my investigations, and yet no one followed in my footsteps. Why? Presumably because almost all of us are victims of more or less severe cruelty, but this is something we either cannot or will not acknowledge until we have finally faced up to the fact.

Naturally I cannot prove this hypothesis because I cannot investigate the lives of all the people in the world. But the letters addressed to my website in the last few years reveal the reality of childhood abuse in a way that can hardly be denied. The authors of those letters have decided to break their unconscious vow of silence DESPITE their understandable fear. Encouraged by my books and articles, they have attempted to unearth the memories of their early childhood years, to admit to their true feelings, and to take seriously their indignation, anger, and rage at the behavior of their parents. They were astonished that instead of being punished for this they achieved much greater freedom by recalling those memories. Suddenly they were able to understand the course of their own lives much better and to revive their lost empathy for the children they once were. In this way they learned something they were never allowed to learn as children: to take their own pain, and other feelings, seriously. One reader wrote to me recently: “When I was small, I once fell off a wall. An adult passing by asked me if I had hurt myself. I shall never forget it because it was the first time in my childhood that anyone had ever asked me that question. For my parents my pain and my sorrows just never existed, so I had to wipe them out too.”

The man used this example to illustrate the entire atmosphere of his childhood, something we have to discover in order to free ourselves of it and the consequences it has had. This goes well beyond the active engagement with individual traumas that present-day trauma therapy sets out to induce. It is the discovery of years of unremitting captivity, a discovery achieved by finally owning up to our feelings. That captivity was a time defined by indifference, lack of understanding, refusal of contact, cruelty, sadism, deceit, lies, and very often perversion.

The contents of these letters are by no means exceptional. Millions of people have shared the same fate, but this fact has been concealed (so far) by their silence, their inability or reluctance to put their sufferings into words. So the writers of the letters I answer here are pioneers. They are exceptional because they have dared to overcome the fear of their parents, because they have had the courage to admit to their own truth. I can no longer ask them for their permission to publish their letters in book form, but those letters can be found on my website. My answers show how I have attempted to accompany these people in their quest for their own selves.

Very severe cruelty in childhood is hardly ever recognized as such. Usually, it is considered part of quite normal upbringing. The extreme – often total – denial of the pain we have suffered not only thwarts recognition of the wrongs done to us. Above all, it negates the anger of the little child that has to be suppressed in the body for fear of punishment. Parents are honored out of fear, the adult child waits a whole lifetime for their insight and love, thus remaining trapped in a form of attachment sustained by the fear of being abandoned. The consequences of attachments that are dependent on the absence of true feelings are mental and physical disorders and the suppression and sacrifice of life satisfaction and happiness.

These answers to the question posed me by my readers show how they have attempted to find the way to their own truth. Initially they recognize the lifelong denial of their reality and sense for the first time the pent-up though justified anger caused by the threats they were exposed to - beatings, humiliation, deceit, rejection, confusion, neglect, and exploitation. But if they manage to sense their anger and grief at what they have missed out on in life, almost all of them rediscover the alert, inquisitive child that never had the slightest chance of being perceived, respected, and listened to by the parents. Only then will the adult give the child this respect because he/she knows the true story and can thus learn to understand and love the child within.

To their great surprise the symptoms that have tormented them all their lives gradually disappear. Those symptoms were the price they had to pay for the denial of reality caused by awe of their parents.

Unquestioning adulation of parents and ancestors, regardless of what they have done, is required not only by some religions but by ALL of them, without exception, although the adult children frequently have to pay for this self-denial with severe illness symptoms. The reason why this is the case is not difficult to identify, though it is rarely taken into account. Children are forced to ignore their need for respect and are not allowed to express it, so they later look to their own children to gratify that need. This is the origin of the Fourth/Fifth Commandment (“honor your father and mother”).

This intrinsic dynamic is observable in all religions. Religions were obviously created not by people respected in childhood but by adults starved of respect from childhood on and brought up to obey their parents unswervingly. They have learned to live with the compulsive self-deception forced on them in their earlier years. Many impressive rituals have been devised to make children ignore their true feelings and accept the cruelties of their parents without demur. They are forced to suppress their anger, their TRUE feelings and honor parents who do not deserve such reverential treatment, otherwise they will be doomed to intolerable feelings of guilt all their lives. Luckily, there are now individuals who are beginning to desist from such self-mutilation and to resist the attempt to instill guilt feelings into them. These people are standing up against a practice that its proponents have always considered ethical. In fact, however, it is profoundly unethical because it produces illness and hinders healing. It flies in the face of the laws of life.

----- Original Message -----

By Alice Miller R.I.P

© 2010 Alice Miller
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php

Norton, 2009

Collected for the first time, Alice Miller's most helpful, therapeutic, and invaluable answers to thousands of readers' letters.

The renowned childhood researcher, psychotherapist, and best-selling author Alice Miller has received, throughout her long and distinguished career, countless personal letters from readers all over the world. Here, in From Rage to Courage, Dr. Miller has assembled the most recent, producing an insightful work that illuminates the issues and consequences of childhood abuse. Whether exploring the connection between repressed anger and physical illnesses like cancer, the reasons why many survivors of abuse turn to drugs or crime, or the cycle that condemns generations of families to cruelty in childhood, Dr. Miller's answers are sensitive, honest, and supported by decades of experience. A practical guide to Dr. Miller's unique therapeutic concept, this work once again affirms the healing and liberating power of retrieved emotions.

"Alice Miller makes chillingly clear to the many what has been recognized only by the few: the extraordinary pain and psychological suffering inflicted on children under the guise of conventional childbearing." –Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are

Alice Miller's still best-selling study, The Drama of the Gifted Child, brought her much international attention and recognition. Since then she has written a great number of books, including Free From Lies. She lives in France.

http://www.alice-miller.com/books_en.php

Update Alice Miller Died, she left us on April 14th, 2010.

INFORMATION.

Friday April 23, 2010

Dear readers,

It is with immense sorrow that I have to communicate that Mrs. Alice Miller died, she left us on April 14th, 2010. In these lines she wanted to tell everybody her utmost gratidude for all the hearty and encouraging letters she received during her last days of her life, granting the respective honours to her literal works.

Alice Miller is not among us anymore but she will always be remembered by her considerable literal works and also in the web you will be able to call her website should you need any advice or want to continue specific research.

There is not any doubt that Mrs. Alice Miller’s greatest wish in her life was that everybody does fully understand that maltreating a child has a disastrous impact on his future life and finally will reflect negatively on the entire society.

Alice, thank you very much indeed for having sacrificed a considerable part of your life with your outstanding literature, we will always take into special consideration your studies and are convinced that they are a very essential heritage for our future.

Brigitte Oriol

http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php

Comment: Alice Miller and her books changed my life and made me want to live an authentic emotionally honest live. R.I.P. Alice Miller I cried when I heard you had left us. You were one of lives great pioneers and the mother of Children's Human rights, gone but never forgotten.

All-party pact over children's referendum scrapped

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:18:00 +0000

THE Government has scrapped the cross-party agreement for a children's rights referendum because it would have knock-on effects on other areas of law and mean more funding would have to be allocated.

The Irish Independent understands the majority of concerns have been raised by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education.

The Department of Justice fears that under the equality provisions outlined in the wording, it could see an avalanche of refugee and asylum cases.

There is still no sign of a date being set for the vote.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced yesterday that the all-party committee's proposed wording of a referendum article to protect children would not be used.

The Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, chaired by Fianna Fail TD Mary O'Rourke, put forward the wording earlier this year.

The Irish Independent understands there are at least two major roadblocks to the children's referendum.

The Department of Education is understood to have expressed concern about the development of socio-economic rights if the referendum is passed -- with huge consequences for budgetary resources.

The Department of Justice is also said to be concerned it could face an avalanche of refugee and asylum cases on behalf of children if all children are treated as equal under the Constitution.

Yesterday, Children's Minister Barry Andrews said the implications included concerns about children being left in inappropriate care. It was also feared it would have implications for immigration policy and the idea of providing a so-called 'voice of the child' would lead to inappropriate arrangements.

An example of this would be if the child was suspended from school it could result in legal representation being required on both sides.

"There will be some changes to the wording. It is more important to get this right than the timing of the referendum," Mr Andrews said.

Landmarks

He said there were "various" electoral landmarks next year that would give the Government an opportunity to put a proposal to the people.

Mr Cowen said an examination of the wording by ministers had uncovered far-reaching implications, which could give rise to substantial costs to the State.

"Consequently, the Minister for Health and Children was asked to develop further work on the referendum, in co-operation with the Attorney General, and that has to be brought back to Government in due course," Mr Cowen said.

However, chief executive of Barnardos, Fergus Finlay, said any significant change to the wording could result in the current consensus falling apart.

- Patricia McDonagh

Source: Irish Independent

Cuba to Consolidate Children's Protection

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:03:00 +0000

The Cuban program "Por un Mundo al Derecho" is celebrating its tenth anniversary of promoting actions for providing more protection for childhood, in line with the UN Convention on Children's Rights.

The project was founded in 2000, via an agreement with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and with financial support from Finland.

Its goal is to raise awareness among children, teenagers and adults regarding laws protecting minors under the age of 18.

The Justice Ministry reported that the program aims to strengthen respect for children's rights and pave the way for the promotion of a culture on the issue.

In that sense, the ministry and other government agencies are preparing a series of social and cultural activities to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the project.

"Por un Mundo al Derecho" is also targeted to achieve more children's leadership, increase participation of minors within society, and create a strategy of training and promotion.

The Convention on Children Rights is a UN treaty and is compulsory.

That international rule covers civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, reflecting the different situations of children and youth worldwide.

The convention has 54 articles that recognize that all children under 18 years old have the right to full physical, mental and social development and to express their opinion freely.

Cuba signed the Convention on Children's Rights on January 26, 1990 and ratified it on August 21, 1991 and it came into effect in September of that year.
by PL

Source: Escambray

Children spot neglect in peers but services to help face cuts

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:29:00 +0000

Needing a helping hand: There has been a steep rise in the number of children showing signs of neglect in Scotland.

Most Scottish children have witnessed signs of neglect in their classmates, a new survey has revealed as a leading charity warns that public spending cuts may hit essential services for vulnerable young people.

A poll of more than 250 eight to 12-year-olds found most were aware of problems with their peers, and 55% identified telltale signs in someone they knew.

Charity Action for Children said the findings blew the lid on the prevalence of child neglect in Scotland, less than one month after official figures showed a steep rise in cases referred to authorities.

Young people were asked confidentially whether they knew anyone who regularly turned up at school dirty, or who said they did not get meals at home. Other signs of child neglect include people whose clothes don’t fit, are old or unwashed, or smell. Children with no friends at home or whose parents don’t know what they’re doing in their free time may also be at risk.

The 253 children surveyed each knew an average of three people who fitted the bill for neglect. Though the survey does not arrive at any figure for the number of children who are neglected themselves, it shows that friends and classmates of those affected are aware of the problems from a very early age.

The Action for Children poll comes on the back of official figures, published last month, which record a 6% year-on-year increase in the number of child protection referrals in Scotland between 2008/09 and 2009/10. There were 13,523 in the past year, the Scottish Government said – equivalent to 37 every day.

Of these, 421 were flagged up as risk cases before they were even born, largely because their parents were drug addicts or their siblings had already been subject to neglect.

Sexual abuse cases were up by 12%, and emotional abuse by 4%. In the vast majority of cases (84%), the primary known or suspected abuser was the child’s natural parents.

Action for Children warned that around one in 10 children in the UK experiences neglect at some point, and neglect is the main reason for children to need protection plans.

Young people affected are likely to be dirty, smelly, lonely and hungry, the charity said, and they may experience bullying from classmates who spot their vulnerability.

Louise Warde Hunter, Action for Children’s strategic director in Scotland, said the country faced an uphill struggle to nip neglect in the bud before it ruined more lives.

“Child neglect is a real danger if it is not tackled early on. It’s worrying that children as young as eight are spotting these issues in other children, confirming our fears that child neglect remains a widespread issue,” she said.

“We must raise awareness and make sure that the resources are there to help children as early as possible to tackle child neglect and prevent it from cascading down generations.”

The charity was concerned that with the Comprehensive Spending Review due just one week from today, budgets for essential child protection services could be cut across the UK. It is urging politicians of all parties to ensure that these issues are prioritised.

The Herald revealed last month that teachers in Glasgow were struggling to overcome a catalogue of social issues in some of the city’s most impoverished areas.

In one east end P7 class, 21 pupils out of 24 were identified as having additional needs, ranging from parents with drug and alcohol problems to having to cope with domestic violence.

A parenting programme already piloted in five Glasgow schools was due to be rolled out across the city to tackle the problems preventing these children from getting an education.
Case study
‘I just felt embarrassed about my life’

Rosie, from Central Scotland, was flagged up to authorities last year after teachers noticed her erratic attendance at school.

A Children’s Hearing exposed a bleak picture of her and her two sisters’ grim existence. They were dirty, underweight, and lived in a filthy house. The three girls also had problems with gum and tooth decay.

Though Rosie was only eight, her mum forced her to carry out household chores and bring up her younger siblings.

The final straw came when Rosie’s mum was alleged to have beaten her. Social workers became involved, and the three girls were placed in foster care.

Action for Children assessed the mother’s capacity to parent children, and on the strength of their findings Rosie and her sisters were adopted. All three are now thriving.

Other young people spend far longer in the shadow of neglect.

Jane, 18, from Glasgow, lives with her mother and father, both of whom are drug addicts.

Jane said: “I was bullied at school; mostly by people saying my mum was a smack head.

“I feel embarrassed about my life and haven’t really thought about it as neglect until now.”

“It was hard bringing any pals home because of the state of the house and my mum and dad. I can also remember getting a bike one Christmas, which my dad had stolen from another family.”

Jane now discusses her problems with an Action for Children key worker, and is learning the skills that will enable to lead her own life.

By Chris Watt

Source: The Herald

Claims of sex abuse by women grow

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:24:00 +0000

A huge rise in the number of children calling to report sexual abuse by women has been revealed by ChildLine.

Over the past five years, the charity says the number of such calls has risen five times faster than youngsters reporting abuse by a man.

Of 16,094 children who called ChildLine about sex abuse last year, 2,142 told of abuse by a woman, up 132% on 2004-5.

Men still account for the majority of child abuse claims, but the NSPCC said female sex abuse was under-reported.

This is because there is a reluctance or unwillingness on the part of professionals to acknowledge or identify sexual abuse by females, the charity suggested.

The research follows the recent high-profile case of nursery worker Vanessa George, who abused children in her care. She was a member of an internet paedophile ring along with another woman.

Mothers

Childline's report did not claim that sexual abuse by women is on the rise.

It instead suggested that, as more boys are tending to call its helpline, more cases are being reported.

The research said nearly two-thirds (1,311) of the claims it received about sex abuse by a female involved the child's mother.

Just over twice as many victims (2,972) said they had been abused by their father - which amounted to 45% of calls about sex abuse by males.

The number of children claiming to have been abused by men grew by 27% in the same four-year period.

The ChildLine research also showed that 42% more children were calling the helpline in 2008-9 than in 2004-5.

Sue Minto, head of ChildLine, said: "Most sex abuse calls to ChildLine come from girls saying they were assaulted by a male.

"But a growing number of callers now say they were sexually abused by a female. This may be partly because more boys are calling us than previously.

"Many would find it shocking that any woman - let alone a mother - can sexually assault a child. But they do."

'Internalising'

Dr Lisa Bunting, senior researcher at the NSPCC, who has studied the issue, said: "There is such an intense stigma in disclosing incidents of abuse by women.

"We get a lot of stigma with any type of sex abuse, but this is particularly the case in the participation of women."

She said this often led to victims "internalising" the abuse because they could not believe it had happened and did not think they would be believed.

She added: "If you don't think females are capable of committing sex offences, then you are never going to be looking for that."

The ChildLine report said the issue of female sex offending was not well-reflected in policy, practice and guidance on child protection and offender management.

It added: "It is important that regardless of what is currently known about the numbers of female offenders, more is done to understand the nature of sexual offending by women [and to] raise awareness among the public so that they can report it."

Source: BBC

Free from Lies: Discovering Your True Needs By Alice Miller

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:24:00 +0000

Norton, 2009

Reading this book is a therapeutic encounter with one's own life's story. Dr. Alice Miller, author of such world-renowned books as the Drama of the Gifted Child and The Truth Will Set You Free, has devoted her life to empowering people who have severe symptoms from denying that they suffered physical and emotional abuse as children. Here, in Free from Lies, she tackles uncharted territory as she shows how former victims can finally heal the scars of their youth by finding the true history of their childhood instead of denying it.

Abandoning traditional concepts of psychoanalysis that often - like society on the whole - protect the parents and accuse the child, Dr. Miller explains why a therapist should become a partial, empathic witness to the survivor of obvious cruelty rather than a neutral analyst. She further provides a guide to help patients find the right therapist who will always and unconditionally stay on the side of the wounded child. Dr. Miller explains as well how to identify the causes of the unconscious pain that manifests itself later as depression, self-mutilation, primal inadequacy, and loneliness.

The journey "from victims to destroyer" explores the dynamic that turns once-abused children into abusive parents. Dr. Miller's revolutionary analysis of this cycle of destruction helps us understand what occurs when the abusive behavior reaches beyond the family unit to threaten the whole society. Abusers are able to deny the most obvious and absolutely undeniable facts without the slightest hesitation. They imitate their parents, who were teaching them to lie by telling their children that they were beaten "out of love." As Free from Lies makes clear, this cycle of suppression and repression of truth originates in a cultural mindset that accepts, and even condones, child abuse by calling it "the right upbringing." Excerpts from Dr. Miller's answers to the startling readers' letters sent to her Web site show that a wide variety of abuse is inflicted daily on children throughout the world.

The media's attention is only captured by extreme cases, but the plight of children who are regularly subjected to ordinary abuse in their "upbringing," like spanking, kicking, and others forms of humiliation, remains silenced or even highly encouraged by many.

Held hostage by anger, guilt, and denial, survivors of child abuse will find in Free from Lies the tools necessary to break the cycle, because Dr. Miller's compassion, experience, and guidance provide a much-needed liberation from the crippling lies transferred to us for millennia.

Reviews
Free From Lies

Jordan Riak, executive director, Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education

A moving and perceptive work on how adults can finally overcome the traumas of their childhood.

"Once again, Alice Miller, holding her lantern high, marches straight into the forbidden territory of the human psyche. She knows her target well. She understands the grim consequences of early mistreatment, and armed with this understanding, she is able to penetrate the barriers to self-understanding that imprison the afflicted. She illuminates the dark corners of child abuse as few other scholars have done. I strongly recommend Free from Lies."

Stephen Khamsi, PhD, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco

"One of psychology's most important bodies of work continues in Free from Lies by Dr. Alice Miller. In this volume, Dr. Miller offers instruction on how to deliver oneself from lies, illusions, and self-deceptions through ‘uncovering therapy.' In this way, individuals can break down walls and reclaim banished knowledge, thereby preventing destructive actions toward self, toward society, and toward future generations. Free from Lies is a clarion call from one of the great psychological minds of our time."

© 2009 Alice Miller - all rights reserved

Source: Alice Miller's website

Children in modern Britain living like 'times of Dickens'

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:04:00 +0000

Poverty levels in parts of Britain mirror "the times of Dickens", leaving schools struggling to cope with increasing numbers of children lacking the most basic personal skills, according to a teachers’ leader.

Some pupils from the poorest areas arrive at school unable to dress themselves or use a knife and fork, with some even unable to use a toilet properly, she said.

Lesley Ward, president of the 160,000-strong Association of Teachers and Lecturers, warned that many children were also being relied upon to raise younger brothers and sisters and lacked stable father figures in the home.

In a speech last night, Mrs Ward, a primary school teacher from Doncaster, said Labour had “tried hard on this issue” but had failed to fill the vacuum left by the death of the mining and manufacturing industries in many working-class communities.

She said it meant a “small, significant and growing minority” of children were being raised in families with low expectations and a level of poverty “mirroring the times of Dickens”.

It was “next to impossible”, she added, for schools to counter the effect of serious deprivation, family breakdown and a lack of parenting skills in many communities.

Her comments follow the publication of figures showing nearly three million children still live below the poverty line in Britain. Ministers have admitted there is little chance of hitting their target to half child poverty by 2011.

It also comes amid fears that children’s education chances are still too strongly linked to family background.

Private schools extended their lead over the state sector in GCSE and A-levels this summer. And figures published this week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development showed the UK had more teenagers out of work and without a college place than almost any other developed nation.

In her speech, Mrs Ward said: “I am talking about perfectly healthy children who enter school not yet toilet-trained.

“Children who cannot dress themselves, children who only know how to eat with a spoon and fingers, and have never sat around a table to enjoy a home-cooked family meal. Children who think that the word ‘no’ means if you throw a wobbly it will miraculously turn into yes.

“Children who get themselves, and sometimes their younger siblings, up in the morning. Children who bring themselves to school at very young ages. Children who sometimes don’t know who will be at home when they get home – if anyone. Children who don’t know exactly who the father figure is in the home from month to month.”

She added: “I know of a pupil who actually saw, from the classroom window during a lesson, his house door being kicked in and his dad being led out of the door in handcuffs – this was during Sats week. He did not achieve the level he should have. Are we surprised?”

Doncaster has already been at the centre of a series of child protection controversies. The local council was criticised in a damning report recently following the deaths of five children known to the authority. And last week police and social services came under fire for failing to stop two brothers in the nearby former pit village of Edlington terrorising the local community, culminating in a savage attack on two boys.

Mrs Ward, who has just been appointed president of the ATL, the third biggest teaching union, said low expectations had been created among parents following the decline of heavy industry. Typically male-dominated jobs have been replaced in many areas by part-time, low-paid service jobs filled by women, she said.

Speaking in central London on Wednesday, she said: “Teachers all over the country are working in areas like this. Areas where often more than half the children receive free school meals, where one in ten of the school population is on the at risk register, where 10 per cent, or more, of the children in each class have some form of special need.

“These children come from some of our poorest communities, starting school with the huge weight of deprivation on their shoulders, and it can be next to impossible to counteract the effects of such deprivation. I would like to stress I am not talking about the whole of our school population, but a small, significant and growing minority.”

The comments come as a survey published today found more than a third of parents believed Labour had failed to live up to its election pledges on education.

Almost nine in 10 said all political parties hyped up their promises to secure votes, according to the study by the charity Edge, although most parents did not believe the Conservatives would fulfil their pledges to make schooling a priority.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “There has been an enormous programme of social reform over the past 10 years that has lifted 500,000 children out of poverty and in June the Government enshrined in legislation it's commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020.

"Most three and four year-olds now access free childcare, thanks to £3 billion of annual funding by Government, which helps many parents get back to work. We have also committed to spending around £2 billion more by 2010 on public services aimed at breaking cycles of deprivation - key to meeting our 2020 target. These focus on childcare, raising attainment, improving schools, reducing health inequalities and improving school transport.”

Nick Gibb, the Tory shadow schools minister, said: “It’s impossible for teachers to get on with the job of teaching if children in the class have not mastered some of the basic life skills.

"There are pockets of the country that have been written off over the past few years with a culture of low expectations, low levels of educational achievement and high numbers of people not working. We’re determined to address these problems and not leave any sections of society behind, so that all children have the opportunity to succeed.”

Source: Telegraph

'Many girls' abused by boyfriends

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:30:00 +0000

A third of teenage girls suffer sexual abuse in a relationship and a quarter experience violence at the hands of their boyfriends, a survey suggests.

Nearly 90% of 1,400 girls aged 13 to 17 had been in intimate relationships, the NSPCC and University of Bristol found.

Of these, one in six said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse and one in 16 said they had been raped.

The government is developing guidance for schools on gender bullying but says it is "vital" parents advise children.

A quarter of the girls interviewed for the survey had suffered physical violence including being slapped, punched or beaten, while others had been pressured or forced to kiss or sexually touch.

Only one in 17 boys reported having been pressured or forced into sexual activity but almost one in five had suffered physical violence in a relationship.

Professor David Berridge, from the University of Bristol, described the findings as "appalling".

"It was shocking to find that exploitation and violence in relationships starts so young," he said.

"This is a serious issue that must be given higher priority by policymakers and professionals."

Diane Sutton, head of NSPCC policy and public affairs, said: "Boys and girls are under immense peer pressure to behave in certain ways and this can lead to disrespectful and violent relationships, with girls often bearing the brunt.

"Parents and schools can perform a vital role in teaching them about loving and safe relationships, and what to do if they are suffering from violence or abuse."

The report recommends child protection professionals consider the cases of girls who are in relationships with older boyfriends, with three-quarters in this category saying they had been victims of abuse.

'Feeling scared'

Many girls said they put up with abuse because they felt scared, guilty or feared they would lose their boyfriend.

One told researchers: "I only went out with him for a week. And then, because I didn't want to have sex, he just started picking on me and hitting me."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said personal, social, health and economic studies - including relationship education - would become statutory for children of all ages by September 2011.

"Parents have a vital role to play in providing information and advice on sex and relationships," he said.

"They should lead on instilling values in their children, but schools have a clear role in giving young people accurate information and developing the skills they need to make safe and responsible choices."

Source: BBC

NSPCC

Emotional Boundaries in Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:13:00 +0000

A successful relationship is composed of two individuals each with a clearly defined sense of her or his own identity. Without our own understanding of self, of who we are and what makes us unique, it is difficult to engage in the process of an ongoing relationship in a way that is functional and though not always smooth is a safe environment that generally enhances each of the partners. We need a clear sense of self in order to clearly and unambiguously communicate our needs and desires to our partner. When we have a strong conception of our own identity, we do not feel threatened by the intimacy of the relationship and can appreciate and love those qualities in our partner that make him or her a unique person. When two people come together, each with a clear definition of her or his own individuality, the potential for intimacy and commitment can be astounding. The similarities between two people may bring them together, but in an ideal partnership, sometimes called interdependent, their differences are respected and contribute to the growth of their relationship which aids in the growth of the individuals in that relationship.

One feature of a healthy sense of self is the way we understand and work with our emotional boundaries. Personal boundaries are the limits we set in relationships that allow us to protect our selves from being manipulated by, or enmeshed with, emotionally needy others. Such boundaries come from having a good sense of our own self-worth. They make it possible for us to separate our own thoughts and feelings from those of others and to take responsibility for what we think, feel and do. Boundaries are part of the biological imperative of maturation as we individuate and become adult people in our own right. We are, all of us unique, and boundaries allow us to rejoice in our own uniqueness. Healthy intact boundaries are flexible, they allow us to get close to others when it is appropriate and to maintain our distance when we might be harmed by getting too close. Good boundaries protect us from becoming engulfed in abusive relationships and pave the way to achieving true intimacy the flipside of independence, as we grow to interdependence the relationship of two mature individuals. They help us take care of ourselves and if we can receive it, to respect the selves of others.

Unhealthy boundaries are generally as a result of being raised in dysfunctional families where maturation and the individuation process was not properly understood nor the child respected as an individual. In these types of families the unmet needs of parents or other adults are sometimes so overwhelming that the task of raising children is demoted to a secondary role, and dysfunction is the likely result. Consider the role of the father or mother who screams at his/her children or becomes physically, verbally or emotionally abusive with them as a self-centred way of dealing with his/her own stored up anger/grief from their own traumatic childhood. The emotional fallout of these unmet developmental needs, which, depending on the severity of the original pain, is often close to the surface and can be triggered by totally unrelated present circumstances. The pain of their own childhood experiences repressed for so long is felt again, insisting that these experiences be dealt with, relegating the present needs of the children for safety, security, respect and comfort to second place at best. But sometimes because of what they represent and the negative self worth of the parent the child can be perceived as the 'enemy' and so dysfunction is passed on from one generation to the next. This is not to say that the childhood experiences of the parent were necessarily horribly abusive, it is just that what may have been acceptable parenting practices in their family of origin for generations were abusive. More often than not these practices and their underlying attitudes were based on false or abusive religio-cultural premises. What the children are likely to learn in this situation is that boundaries don't matter, that indeed they, as individual human beings, don't matter except where they are useful for the emotional needs of others. As they grow up in their families of origin, they lack the support they need from parents or caregivers to form a healthy sense of their own identities. their own individuality. In fact, they may learn that to get their needs met they must get their way with others. To do this they need to intrude on the emotional boundaries of other people just as their father or mother may have done. They would in all likelihood grow up with fluid boundaries, that cause them to swing between feelings of engulfment on the one hand and abandonment on the other inevitably leading to dysfunctional relationships later on in life. They would have at best, a hazy sense of their own personal boundaries, not able to properly define where they end and the other begins. Conversely, they may learn that rigid and inflexible boundaries might be the way to handle their relationships with other people. They wall themselves off in their relationships as a way of protecting their emotional selves, and, as a consequence, will, in all likelihood find it difficult to form lasting close interpersonal bonds with others in adulthood as they are still trying to individuate from their parents. The exception in this is of relationships predicated on the same rigid rule based structure as their family of origin where nothing came into the family or out from it, but in this case the bond is likely to be enmeshment.

The following are some ways in which unhealthy boundaries may show themselves in our relationships, along with some remedies:

Lack of a Sense of Identity

When we lack a sense of our own identity and the boundaries of the self that protect and define us as individuals, we tend to draw our identities, our sense of self worth from our partner or significant other as we did in the earliest stage of our biological growth in our family of origin, drawing our sense of worth from their perceptions of us. The structure of the relationship in this case is not that of equals in a partnership but that of parent and child. Leading in some cases to that most unequal of relationships, master and slave. It is quite possible that children developing in a family where the important relationship of the parents is an unequal one will be forced to take on roles as either surrogate spouse and/or adopt roles that it is hoped will restore dignity to the family and balance to the system. If we can't imagine who we would be without our relationship, chances are we come from a dysfunctional family of origin and have learned co-dependent behaviour patterns. Unable to find fulfilment within ourselves we look for such fulfilment in others and are willing to do anything it takes to make the relationship work, just as we may have done in our enmeshed family of origin, even if this means giving up our emotional security, friends, integrity, sense of self-respect or worth, independence, or employment. We may even endure objectification, (an attitude in which we are no longer perceived as feeling human-being but just an object, a part of the family system), in the form of physical, emotional or sexual abuse just to save the relationship.

The more rational alternative is to find out who we are and what makes us unique, and we will rejoice in the freedom of this discovery. We will come to realise that our value and worth as a person is not necessarily dependent on having a significant other in our life, that we can function well as an independent person in our own right. When we move into accepting ourselves for who we really are warts and all, we will be able to accept others for who they are; our relationships and ourselves will actually have a chance to grow into emotionally mature adults able to give freely out of choice and flourish in our new found freedom. This journey of self-discovery can be challenging and painful but highly rewarding. Working with a trained therapist or as part of a support group or a combination of both can provide the structure and support we need to take on this task. But whatever way we may choose the first step is to acknowledge to ourselves, God and possibly another person that our lives as we have tried to control and manage them have become unmanageable. The second is to give ourselves over to the cleansing and renewal processes.

Settling for Second Best

We may cling to the irrational belief that things are good enough as they are, we feel a measure of security in the relationship, that change is a difficult and fearful prospect, or that we don't deserve any better, our life has always been a sacrifice of the self, and that this is as good as it's likely to get. In the process, however, we give up the chance to be the person we were meant to be and to explore our sense of personal fulfilment in life. We give up not only our own life dreams but our sense of worth in order to maintain the security of a relationship.

A healthy relationship is one in which boundaries are not only strong, but flexible enough, to allow us to flourish with our own uniqueness, but are also known to and respected by each other. There is a sense of respect on the part of both partners that allows each to live as full a life as possible and to explore their own personal potential. We don't have to give up ourselves for a relationship but can become interdependent. Healthy boundaries allow trust and security to develop in a relationship because they offer an honest and reliable framework by which we can know each other. But if we don't know where our self ends and the other begins it is impossible.

Over-Responsibility and Guilt

One characteristic of growing up in a dysfunctional household is that we may learn to feel guilty if we fail to ensure the success and happiness of other members of the household. We may feel responsible or be made to feel responsible for the failure or unhappiness of others. Thus, in adulthood, we may come to feel or be made to feel responsible for our partner's failures. The guilt we feel when our partner fails may drive us to keep tearing down our personal boundaries so that we are always available to the other person. When we feel the pain, the guilt, the anger of being overly responsible for another person's behaviour or life experiences, we may seek alleviate this feeling by rescuing them from the consequences of their behaviour as we learned in our family of origin. Thereby depriving them of one of the most important features of an independent, healthy and mature life, the ability to make our own life choices, accepting the responsibility for and the consequences of our/their decisions. Or we may bear the burden of their unacceptable behaviour for many years.

A healthier response is to show our partners respect by allowing them to succeed or fail on their own terms. You, of course, may choose to support your partner's fulfilment of life goals but it is unhealthy to rescue them from all of life's consequences. When you do agree to help ask yourself two questions is it something they can do for themselves? and, do I resent the giving of my own resources (self, time, money, etc.)? This may be a difficult choice if we have confused love with rescue. You can be there to comfort or encourage your partner when times become difficult, and you can rejoice with them when success is the outcome. When boundaries are healthy, you are able to say, I trust and respect you to make your own life choices. As my equal partner, I will not try to control you by taking away your choices in life.

The Difference Between Love and Rescue

People who grow up in a dysfunctional family may fail to learn the difference between love and sympathy. Children growing up in these conditions may learn to have sympathy for the emotional crippling in their parents lives and feel that the only time they get attention is when they show compassion for the parent. They feel that when they forgive, they are showing love. Actually, they are rescuing the parent and enabling abusive behaviour to continue. They learn to give up their own protective boundaries in order to take care of the dysfunctioning parent, becoming a surrogate co-dependent spouse. In adulthood, they carry these learned behaviours into their own relationships. If they can rescue their partner from the consequences of their behaviour, they feel that they are showing love. They get a warm, caring, sharing feeling from helping their partner, a feeling they call love. But this may actually encourage their partner to become needy and helpless enabling the negative behaviour to continue. An imbalance can then occur in the relationship in which one partner becomes the rescuer or enabler and the other plays the role of the helpless victim. In this case, healthy boundaries which allow both partners to live complete lives are absent. Mature love requires the presence of healthy, flexible boundaries.

Sympathy and compassion are worthy qualities, but they can be confused with love, especially when boundaries have become distorted or are virtually non existent. Healthy boundaries lead to respect for the other and equality in a relationship, an appreciation for the aliveness and strength of the other person, and a mutual flow of feelings between the two partners, all features of mature love. When one partner is in control and the other is needy and helpless, there is no room for the give-and-take of a healthy relationship.

Fantasy vs. Reality

Children from highly dysfunctional households often feel that things will get better someday, that a 'normal' life may lie in the future. Indeed, some days things are fairly 'normal', but then the bad times return again. It's the normal days that encourage the fantasy that all problems in the family might someday be solved. This is a common cycle in highly dysfunctional families. When they grow up, these adults carry the same types of fantasy into their relationships. They may portray to others the myth that they have the perfect relationship and they may believe, to themselves, that someday all of their relationship problems will somehow be solved. They ignore the abuse, manipulation, imbalance and control in the relationship. By ignoring the problems, they are unable to confront them and the fantasy of a happier future never comes to pass.

Unhealthy boundaries, where we collude with our partner in believing the myth that everything is fine, make it difficult to come to terms with the troubles of the relationship.

Healthy boundaries allow us to test reality rather than rely on fantasy. When problems are present, good boundaries allow us to define the problems and to communicate with our partner in finding solutions. They encourage a healthy self-image, trust, consistency, stability and productive communication.

By John Stibbs

Source: Hidden Hurt

India's generation of children crippled by uranium waste

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Gurpreet Sigh, 7, who has cerebral palsy and microcephaly,
and is from Sirsar, 50km from the Punjabi town of Bathinda.
He is being treated at the Baba Farid centre for Special Children
in Bathinda Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain

Observer investigation uncovers link between dramatic rise in birth defects in Punjab and pollution from coal-fired power stations.

Their heads are too large or too small, their limbs too short or too bent. For some, their brains never grew, speech never came and their lives are likely to be cut short: these are the children it appears that India would rather the world did not see, the victims of a scandal with potential implications far beyond the country's borders.

Some sit mutely, staring into space, lost in a world of their own; others cry out, rocking backwards and forwards. Few have any real control over their own bodies. Their anxious parents fret over them, murmuring soft words of encouragement, hoping for some sort of miracle that will free them from a nightmare.

Health workers in the Punjabi cities of Bathinda and Faridkot knew something was terribly wrong when they saw a sharp increase in the number of birth defects, physical and mental abnormalities, and cancers. They suspected that children were being slowly poisoned.

But it was only when a visiting scientist arranged for tests to be carried out at a German laboratory that the true nature of their plight became clear. The results were unequivocal. The children had massive levels of uranium in their bodies, in one case more than 60 times the maximum safe limit.

The results were both momentous and mysterious. Uranium occurs naturally throughout the world, but is normally only present in low background levels which pose no threat to human health. There was no obvious source in the Punjab that could account for such high levels of contamination.

And if a few hundred children – spread over a large area – were contaminated, how many thousands more might also be affected? Those are questions the Indian authorities appear determined not to answer. Staff at the clinics say they were visited and threatened with closure if they spoke out. The South African scientist whose curiosity exposed the scandal says she has been warned by the authorities that she may not be allowed back into the country.

But an Observer investigation has now uncovered disturbing evidence to suggest a link between the contamination and the region's coal-fired power stations. It is already known that the fine fly ash produced when coal is burned contains concentrated levels of uranium and a new report published by Russia's leading nuclear research institution warns of an increased radiation hazard to people living near coal-fired thermal power stations.

The test results for children born and living in areas around the state's power stations show high levels of uranium in their bodies. Tests on ground water show that levels of uranium around the plants are up to 15 times the World Health Organisation's maximum safe limits. Tests also show that it extends across large parts of the state, which is home to 24 million people.

The findings have implications not only for the rest of India – Punjab produces two-thirds of the wheat in the country's central reserves and 40% of its rice – but for many other countries planning to build new power plants, including China, Russia, India, Germany and the US. In Britain, there are plans for a coal-fired station at the Kingsnorth facility in Kent.

The victims are being treated at the Baba Farid centres for special children in Bathinda – where there are two coal-fired thermal plants – and in nearby Faridkot. It was staff at those clinics who first voiced concerns about the increasing numbers of admissions involving severely handicapped children. They were being born with hydrocephaly, microcephaly, cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome and other complications. Several have already died.

Dr Pritpal Singh, who runs the Faridkot clinic, said the numbers of children affected by the pollution had risen dramatically in the past six or seven years. But he added that the Indian authorities appeared determined to bury the scandal. "They can't just detoxify these kids, they have to detoxify the whole Punjab. That is the reason for their reluctance," he said. "They threatened us and said if we didn't stop commenting on what's happening, they would close our clinic.

"But I decided that if I kept silent it would go on for years and no one would do anything about it. If I keep silent then the next day it will be my child. The children are dying in front of me."

Dr Carin Smit, the South African clinical metal toxicologist who arranged for the tests to be carried out in Germany, said that the situation could no longer be ignored. "There is evidence of harm for these children in my care and... it is an imperative that their bodies be cleaned up and their metabolisms be supported to deal with such a devastating presence of radioactive material," she said.

"If the contamination is as widespread as it would appear to be – as far west as Muktsar on the Pakistani border, and as far east as the foothills of Himachal Pradesh – then millions are at high risk and every new baby born to a contaminated mother is at risk."

In the Faridkot centre last week, Harmanbir Kaur, 15, was rocking gently backwards and forwards. When her test results came back, they showed she had 10 times the safe limit of uranium in her body. Her brother, Naunihal Singh, six, has double the safe level.

Harmanbir was born in Muktsar, 25 miles from Faridkot. Her mother, Kulbir Kaur, 37, watched her slowly degenerate from a healthy baby into the girl she is today, dribbling constantly, unable to feed herself, lost in a world of her own. "God knows what sin I have committed. When we go to our village people say there is a curse of God on you, but I don't believe so," she said. "Every part of this area is affected. We never imagined that there would be uranium in our kids."

A few miles down the road in Bathinda, Sukhminder Singh, 48, a farmer, watched his son Kulwinder, 13, staring into space while curling his hands up under his chin. Tests showed Kulwinder has 19 times the maximum safe level of uranium in his body. He has cerebral palsy and has already had seven operations to unbend his arms and legs.

"The government should investigate it because if our child is affected it will also affect future generations," he said. "What are they waiting for? How many children do they want to be affected? Another generation? I can leave the house for work, but my wife is always with him. Sometimes she cries and asks why God is playing with our luck. Every morning he sends a new trouble."

Doni Choudhary, aged 15 months, is waiting to be tested, though staff say he shows similar symptoms to those who have tested positive and are treating him for suspected uranium poisoning. His mother, Neelum, 22, from the state capital, Chandigarh, says he was born with hydrocephaly. His legs are useless.

"He is dependent on others. After me, who can care for him?" Neelum asks. "He tries to speak but he can't express himself and my heart cries. When will he understand that his legs don't work? What will he feel?"

India's reluctance to acknowledge the problem is hardly unexpected: the country is heavily committed to an expansion of thermal plants in Punjab and other states. Neither was it any surprise when a team of scientists from the Department of Atomic Energy visited the area and concluded that while the concentration of uranium in drinking water was "slightly high", there was "nothing to worry" about. Yet some tests recorded levels of uranium in the ground water as high as 224mcg/l (micrograms per litre) – 15 times higher than the safe level of 15mcg/l recommended by the WHO. (The US Environmental Protection Agency sets a maximum safe level of 20mcg/l.)

Some scientists have proposed that the ground water may have been contaminated by contact with granite rocks that rise above the ground about 150 miles away to the south in the Tosham hills, in Haryana state. A continuation of these rocks is believed to run deep below the thick alluvial deposits that form the plains of Punjab.

Increasing demands for water, in particular to irrigate the rice crop, have led to greater dependence on tube wells. That in turn is depleting the water table in the state at an alarming rate – by at least 30cm a year, according to one study – with the result that water is being drawn from ever deeper levels. However, this theory seems to be in conflict with evidence from parents of many of the children, who say they use the mains supply, which comes from other sources.

There have also been claims that the contamination may have been exacerbated by depleted uranium carried on the wind from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At a seminar in Amritsar in April, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, a former chief of the naval staff, suggested that areas within a 1,000-mile radius of Kabul – including Punjab – may be affected by depleted uranium. Although the prevailing monsoon winds blow either from the north-east or the south-west, there are times when a depression originating in the Mediterranean can result in rainfall in Punjab.

Meanwhile, smoke continues to pour from the power station chimneys and lorries shuttle backwards and forwards, taking away the fly ash to be mixed into cement at the neighbouring Ambuja factory. Inside the plant last week, there was ash everywhere, forming drifts, clinging to the skin, getting into the throat.

Ravindra Singh, the plant's security officer, said that most of the ash went to the cement works, while the rest was dumped in ash ponds. It would be more efficient to burn better quality coal that left less ash, he said. Every day the plant burned 6,000 tons of coal. He had no idea how much ash that generated, but the stream of lorries to take it away was continuous.

The first coal-fired power station in Punjab was commissioned in Bathinda in 1974, followed by another in nearby Lehra Mohabat in 1998. There is a third to the east, at Rupnagar.

Tests on ground water in villages in Bathinda district found the highest average concentration of uranium – 56.95mcg/l – in the town of Bucho Mandi, a short distance from the Lehra Mohabat ash pond. Such a concentration of uranium means the lifetime cancer risk in the village was more than 153 times higher than in the normal population. Tests on ground water in the village of Jai Singh Wala, close to the Bathinda ash pond, showed an average level of 52.79mcg/l. People living there said they used the ash to spread on the roads and even on the floors of their homes.

Scientists in Punjab who have studied the presence of uranium in the state have dismissed the government denials as a whitewash. "If the government says there is a high level of uranium in an area that would create havoc – they don't want to openly say something like that," said Dr Chander Parkash, a wetland ecologist working at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

Both he and Dr Surinder Singh, who works at the same university and has also carried out tests on the state's ground water, said it was clear that uranium was present in large quantities and should be investigated further.

Another scientist, Dr GS Dhillon, a former chief engineer with the irrigation department, is convinced that the uranium has come from the power stations and accuses the authorities of failing to control the ash ponds, which he believes have contaminated the ground water.

Their concerns are bolstered by a report from the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Russia's leading state organisation for nuclear research, published last month in the Russian Academy of Sciences' Thermal Engineering journal. The report's author, DA Krylov, raised serious doubts about the safety of coal-fired thermal power stations (TPSs), concluding that radiation from ash residues and from chimney emissions built up around coal-fired power plants and posed an additional risk to those living and working in the area.

"Natural radionuclides contained in coals concentrate in ash-and-slag wastes and gas-aerosol emissions as these coals are fired at TPSs, with the result that an elevated man-made radiation background builds up around TPSs," the report stated. The situation became worse, the report said, if ash was used as a construction material or as a filling material for roads.

A previous report in the magazine Scientific American, citing various sources, claimed that fly ash emitted by power plants "carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy", adding: "When coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels."

Source: The Observer

Babies More Intelligent Than Many Imagine

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:14:00 +0000

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2009) - A new study from Northwestern University shows what many mothers already know: their babies are a lot smarter than others may realize.

Though only five months old, the study's cuties indicated through their curious stares that they could differentiate water in a glass from solid blue material that looked very much like water in a similar glass.

The finding that infants can distinguish between solids and liquids at such an early age builds upon a growing body of research that strongly suggests that babies are not blank slates who primarily depend on others for acquiring knowledge. That's a common assumption of researchers in the not too distant past.

"Rather, our research shows that babies are amazing little experimenters with innate knowledge," Susan Hespos said. "They're collecting data all the time."

Hespos, an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern, is lead author of the study, which will appear in the May 2009 issue of Psychological Science.

In a test with one group of infants in the study, a researcher tilted a glass filled with blue water back and forth to emphasize the physical characteristics of the substance inside. Another group of babies looked at a glass filled with a blue solid resembling water, which also was moved back and forth to demonstrate its physical properties.

Next all the infants were presented with test trials that alternated between the liquid or solid being transferred between two glasses.

According to the well-established looking-time test, babies, like adults, look significantly longer at something that is new, unexpected or unpredictable.

The infants who in their first trials observed the blue water in the glass looked significantly longer at the blue solid, compared to the liquid test trials. The longer stares indicated the babies were having an "Aha!" moment, noticing the solid substance's difference from the liquid. The infants who in their first trials observed the blue solid in the glass showed the opposite pattern. They looked longer at the liquid, compared to the solid test trials.

"As capricious as it may sound, how long a baby looks at something is a strong indicator of what they know," Hespos said. "They are looking longer because they detect a change and want to know what is going on."

The five-month-old infants were able to discriminate a solid from a similar-looking liquid based on movement cues, or on how the substances poured or tumbled out of upended glasses.

In a second experiment, the babies also first saw either liquid or a similar-looking solid in a glass that was tipped back and forth. This time, both groups of infants next witnessed test trials in which a cylindrical pipe was lowered into either the liquid-filled glass or the solid-containing glass.

The outcomes were similar to those of the previous experiment. Infants who first observed the glass with the liquid looked longer in the subsequent test when the pipe was lowered onto the solid. Likewise, the infants who looked at the solid in their first trials stared longer when later the pipe was lowered into the liquid.

The motion cues led to distinct expectations about whether an object would pass through or remain on top of the liquid or solid, the Northwestern researchers noted.

"Together these experiments provide the earliest evidence that infants have expectations about the physical properties of liquids," the researchers concluded in the Psychological Science study.

Hespos primarily is interested in how the brain works, and, to that end, her research on babies' brand new, relatively uncomplicated brains provides invaluable insights. She also is doing optical imaging of babies' brains, in which the biological measures confirm behavioral findings.

"Our research on babies strongly suggests that right from the beginning babies are active learners," Hespos said. "It shows that we perceive the world in pretty much the same way from infancy throughout life, making fine adjustments along the way."

In addition to Hespos, the co-investigators of the Psychological Science study are Alissa Ferry, a graduate student, and Lance Rips, professor of psychology, at Northwestern.

Journal reference:

Hespos et al. Five-Month-Old Infants Have Different Expectations for Solids and Liquids. Psychological Science, 2009; 20 (5): 603 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02331.x

Adapted from materials provided by Northwestern University.

Source: Natural Child Project

"Good" Children - at What Price? The Secret Cost of Shame

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:00:00 +0000

A five-month-old baby is lying in his mother's arms. He is close to sleep, then wakes and begins to cry. His mother tells him that he should stop being a naughty boy, and that she will be cross with him if he doesn't sleep.

An 18-month-old child is taken to a restaurant with her father and uncle. Her father goes to the bar, leaving the child with the uncle at the table. The child gets down from the table to follow her father. She is grabbed by her uncle and told that she is a bad child, and to stay in her chair. She looks around worriedly for her father.

At an adult's birthday party, a six-year-old is awake long past his bedtime. He is running around the hall with the helium-filled balloons. His father yells at him to leave the balloons alone, and tells him to stop being a trouble-maker.

What did these children learn from these experiences? Many would say that the adults' responses were necessary to teach the child the difference between right and wrong: between "good" and "bad" behavior. Verbal punishment is common in almost every home and school. It relies on shame as the deterrent, in the same way that corporal punishment relies on pain. Shaming is one of the most common methods used to regulate children's behavior. But what if shaming our children is harming our children? Could it be that repeated verbal punishment leaves children with an enduring sense of themselves as inherently "bad"? If so, what can we do differently?

What is Shame?

Shame is designed to cause children to curtail behavior through negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. It involves a comment - direct or indirect - about what the child is. Shaming operates by giving children a negative image about their selves - rather than about the impact of their behavior.

What Does Shaming Look and Sound Like?

Shaming makes the child wrong for feeling, wanting or needing something. It can take many forms; here are some everyday examples: The put-down: "You naughty boy!", "You're acting like a spoiled child!", "You selfish brat!", "You cry-baby!". Moralizing: "Good little boys don't act that way", "You've been a bad little girl". The age-based expectation: "Grow up!", "Stop acting like a baby!", "Big boys don't cry", The gender-based expectation: "Toughen-up!", "Don't be a sissy!", The competency-based expectation: "You're hopeless!". The comparison: "Why can't you be more like so-and-so?", "None of the other children are acting like you are".

How Common is Shaming?

Shaming is very common, and is considered by many to be acceptable. Shaming is not restricted to "abusive" families; in fact, it occurs in the "nicest" of family and school environments. A recent study of Canadian schoolchildren, for instance, found that only 4% had not been the targets of their parents' shaming; including "rejecting, demeaning, terrorizing, criticizing (destructively), or insulting statements" (Solomon & Serres, 1999).

As parents we tend to resort to shaming when we feel overwhelmed, irritated or frustrated, and we feel the need to control our children. Until very recently little consideration has been given to its harmful effects.

Shame: A New Frontier of Psychological Study

The use of corporal punishment against children has been hotly debated, and under increasing negative scrutiny in recent years. More and more nations legislate against it, schools ban it, international organizations devoted to its elimination are proliferating, and research psychologists have amassed mountains of evidence of its long-term damaging effects. In the meantime, the issue of "shaming" as punishment has been largely overlooked. Only recently have psychologists begun to discover that shaming has serious repercussions.

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, says that we are now discovering the role that shame plays in relationship difficulties and violent behavior. There is a new effort by psychologists to study shame, how it is acquired, and how it affects a person's relationships and functioning in society. The study of this previously "ignored emotion" is such a new frontier because it is the most difficult emotion to detect in others. Dr Paul Eckman, from the University of California, says that shame is the most private of emotions, and that humans have yet to evolve a facial expression that clearly communicates it. Is this why we might not see when our children are suffering from this secret emotion?

How Shame is Acquired

No-one is born ashamed. It is a learned, self-conscious emotion, which starts at roughly two years of age with the advent of language and self-image. Although humans are born with a capacity for shame, the propensity to become ashamed in specific situations is learned.

This means that wherever there is shame, there has been a shamer. We learn to be ashamed of ourselves because someone of significance in our lives put us to shame. Shaming messages are more powerful when they come from those we are closest to, from people we love, admire or look up to. That is why parents' use of shaming can have the deepest effects on children. However, shaming messages from teachers, older siblings and peers can also injure a child's self-image. Since children are more vulnerable and impressionable than adults, shaming messages received in childhood are significantly more difficult to erase.

Messages of shame are mostly verbal, but there can be great shaming power in a look of disdain, contempt, or disgust.

Why Is Shaming So Common?

Shaming acts as a pressure valve to relieve parental frustration. Shaming is an anger-release for the parent; it makes the shamer feel better - if only momentarily.

When made to feel unworthy, children often work extra hard to please their parents. This makes the parent think that the shaming has "worked". But has it?

The Damaging Effects of Shame

To understand the damage wrought by shame, we need to look deeper than the goal of "good" behavior. If we think that verbal punishment has "worked" because it changed what the child is doing, then we have dangerously limited our view of the child to the behaviors that we can see. It is all too easy to overlook the inner world of children: the emotions that underlie their behavior, and the suffering caused by shame. It is also easy to miss what the child does once out of range of the shamer.

Even well-meaning adults can sometimes underestimate children's sensitivity to shaming language. There is mounting evidence that some of the words used to scold children - household words previously thought "harmless" - have the power to puncture children's self-esteem for years to come. A child's self-identity is shaped around the things they hear about themselves. A ten-year-old girl, for example, was overcome with anxiety after spilling a drink. She exclaimed over and over: "I'm so stupid! I'm so stupid!". These were the exact words her mother had used against her. She lived in fear of her parents' judgement, and learned to shame herself in the same way that she had been shamed.

If children's emotional needs are dismissed, if their experiences are trivialized, they grow up feeling unimportant. If they are told that they are "bad" and "naughty", they absorb this message and take this belief into adulthood.

Shame makes people feel diminished. It is a fear of being exposed, and leads to withdrawal from relationships. Shaming creates a feeling of powerlessness to act, and to express oneself: we want to dance, but we're stopped by memories of being told not to be "so childish". We seek pleasure, but we're inhibited by inner voices telling us we are "self-indulgent" or "lazy". We strive to excel, or to speak out, but we're held back by a suspicion that we are not good enough. Shame takes the shape of the inner voices and images that mimic those who told us "Don't be stupid," or "Don't be silly!"

Shame restrains a child's self-expression: having felt the sting of an adult's negative judgement, the shamed child censors herself in order to escape being branded as "naughty" or "bad". Shame crushes children's natural exuberance, their curiosity, and their desire to do things by themselves.

Thomas Scheff, a University of California sociologist, has said that shame inhibits the expression of all emotions - with the occasional exception of anger. People who feel shamed tend toward two polarities of expression: emotional muteness and paralysis, or bouts of hostility and rage. Some swing from one to the other.

Like crying for sadness, and shouting for anger, most emotions have a physical expression which allows them to dissipate. Shame doesn't. This is why the effects of shame last well into the long term.

Recent research tells us that shame motivates people to withdraw from relationships, and to become isolated. Moreover, the shamed tend to feel humiliated and disapproved of by others, which can lead to hostility, even fury. Numerous studies link shame with a desire to punish others. When angry, shamed individuals are more likely to be malevolent, indirectly aggressive or self-destructive. Psychiatrist Peter Loader states that people cover up or compensate for deep feelings of shame with attitudes of contempt, superiority, domineering or bullying, self-deprecation, or obsessive perfectionism.

Severe Shame and Mental Illness

When shaming has been severe or extreme, it can contribute to the development of mental illness. This link has been underestimated until now. Researchers are increasingly finding connections between early childhood shaming and conditions such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. In his book, The Psychology of Shame, Gershen Kaufman goes further to assert a link between shaming and addictive disorders, eating disorders, phobias and sexual dysfunction.

Shame Doesn't Teach about Relationship or Empathy

While shaming has the power to control behavior, it does not have the power to teach empathy. When we repeatedly label a child "naughty" or otherwise, we condition them to focus inwardly, and they become pre-occupied with themselves and their failure to please. Thus children learn to label themselves, but learn nothing about relating, or about considering and comprehending the feelings of others. For empathy to develop, children need to be shown how others feel. In calling children "naughty", for example, we have told the child nothing about how we feel in response to their behavior. Children cannot learn about caring for others' feelings, nor about how their behavior impacts on others, while they are thinking: "There is something wrong with me." In fact, psychotherapists and researchers are finding that individuals who are more prone to shame, are less capable of empathy toward others, and more self-preoccupied.

The only true basis for morality is a deeply felt empathy toward the feelings of others. Empathy is not necessarily what drives the "well-behaved" "good boy" or "good girl".

The Myth of Morality

We are naive to confuse shame-based compliance with morally motivated behavior. At best, repeated shaming leads to a shallow conformism, based on escaping disapproval and seeking rewards. The child learns to avoid punishment by becoming submissive and compliant. The charade of "good manners" is not necessarily grounded in true interpersonal respect.

What Should We Consider Shameful?

Shame varies among cultures and families: what is considered shameful in one place may be permissible, unremarkable, even desirable in another. What is called "naughty behavior" is usually arbitrary and subjective: it varies significantly from family to family.

In one family, nudity is acceptable, in another unthinkable. Being noisy and boisterous is welcome in one family, frowned upon in another. While one family might enjoy speaking all at once around the dinner table, another family might find this rude. Such examples help us to realize that our way is not the only way: that our own way of deciding what is shameful behavior can be arbitrary and variable.

The History of Shaming

Children have been shamed for many hundreds of years. Historically, they have been thought to be inherently antisocial, and their behavior was seen through this lens. One seventeenth century author, Richard Allestree, wrote: "The newborn babe is full of the stains and pollution of sin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins"1. In the Middle Ages, the ritual of Baptism actually included the exorcism of the devil from the child. Children who were felt to be too demanding were thought to be possessed by demons. Some early church fathers declared that if a baby cried more than a little, she was committing a sin. It has been an age-old pattern to blame the child for the numerous challenges and difficulties encountered by parents.

This way of thinking about children has persisted into modern times, although in less extreme ways. For example, a child having a tantrum is often seen as "spoiled", and deliberately trying to antagonize his parents. A crying child risks being described as a "little terror" or "whiner" who is "just trying to get attention".

There is no question that parenting can be frustrating sometimes. But it is groundless to automatically assume that the child is out to upset us, or to attribute some kind of nasty intention to the child. This imagined malevolence is usually what underlies the impulse to shame children.

A Shift in Attitude: Respecting the Child

It is entirely possible to set strong boundaries with children without shaming. However, this requires a fundamental attitude shift, beginning with re-evaluating what we think is motivating our child's behavior.

Children have a natural desire to develop a social conscience. When treated with the same respect as adults, and exposed to adults who respect each other; children will naturally develop a capacity for empathic, caring and respectful behavior.

"Misbehavior"? Or Developmental Stage?

Sometimes what we condemn as "misbehavior" is simply the child's attempt to have some need met in the best way they know, or to master a new skill. The more parents can accept this, the less they are tempted to shame children into growing up faster. For instance, it is normal for toddlers to be selfish, possessive, exuberant and curious. It is not unusual for two-year-olds to be unable to wait for something they want, as they don't understand time the way adults do. It is quite ordinary for three-year-olds to be sometimes defiant or hostile. If we shame instead of educate, we interrupt a valuable and stage-appropriate learning process, and our own opportunity to learn about the child's needs is lost.

A three-year-old who defies her mother by refusing to pack up her toys - after being told to do so repeatedly - may be attempting to forge a separate and distinct self-identity. This includes learning to exercise her assertiveness, and learning to navigate open conflict. Toddlers can be exasperating. But does this mean they're "misbehaving"?

Sensible limits are essential, but if children are shamed for their fledgling and awkward attempts at autonomy, they are prevented from taking a vital step to maturity and confidence. In the period glibly called the "terrible twos", and for the next couple of years, toddlers are discovering how to set their own boundaries. They are learning to assert their distinct individuality, their sense of will. This is critical if they are to learn how to stand up for themselves, to feel strong enough to assert themselves, and to resist powerful peer pressures later in life. If we persist in crushing their defiance, and shaming children into submission, we teach them that setting boundaries for themselves is not okay.

Even babies are thought to misbehave, such as when they don't sleep when they are told to. How could a five-month-old baby, for example, possibly be "naughty" for failing to go to sleep? Though it can be difficult for parents when babies experience disturbed sleep, it is nonsensical to see a non-sleeping baby as "disobeying" the parent, and to blame the baby for this.

Consider the example of an eight-month-old who crawls over to something that has flashing lights and interesting sounds. He pulls himself up to it and begins to explore. He does not know that it is his father's prized stereo. He finds himself being tapped on his hand by his mother, who tells him to stop being naughty. He cries. At eight months, a baby is unable to tell the difference between a toy and another's valuable property, and would be incapable of self-restraint if he could. Children's ceaseless curiosity - a frequent target for shaming - is what drives them to learn about the world. When a child's exploration is encouraged in a safe way, rather than castigated, their self-confidence grows. Unfortunately, we frequently call a behavior which may be entirely stage-appropriate "naughty", simply because it threatens our need for order, or creates a burden for us.

A flustered mother and her distraught four-year-old daughter emerge from a local store. The girl is sobbing as she is forcefully strapped into her stroller. "Stop it, you whiner!" screams the mother, as she shakes her finger in the little girl's face. Children are often berated for simply crying. Many people believe that a crying baby or child is misbehaving. Strong expressions of emotion - such as anger and sadness - are the child's natural way of regulating their nervous system, while communicating their needs. Children cry when they are hurting, and they have a right to express this hurt! Even though it is often hard to listen to, it must be remembered that it is a healthy, normal reaction that deserves attention. It is tragic to see how often children are shamed for crying.

Here is a further example of what happens when we are unaware of developmental norms. Until recently, toddlers were started on potty-training far too early, before they were organically capable of voluntary bowel control. Many found this transition to be a battle, and toddlers were commonly shamed and punished for what was a normal inability. What was once a struggle for both parents and children has been greatly alleviated through more accurate information about childhood development. Shaming often takes place when we try to encourage or force a behavior that is developmentally too early for the child's age.

We have come a long way in our understanding about child development in recent decades, and made many advances in childcare as a result. Easy-to-read child-development books fill the stores, by authors such as Penelope Leach, Katie Allison Granju, Pinky McKay and Jan Hunt, and these can help parents to have reasonable and realistic expectations of their children. Children and parents are both happier when parents have reasonable and age-appropriate expectations of their child's behavior.

Understanding Instead of Shaming

Is it possible to understand what motivates children when they are "behaving badly", instead of shaming them? What might "bad" behavior be a reaction to?

When we don't seek to understand a child's "bad" behaviors, we risk neglecting their needs. For instance, sometimes children repeatedly behave aggressively - over and above what can normally be expected of children their age. This could be due to conflict in the home, bullying at school, or competition with a sibling. Often what we expediently label as "bad" behavior is a vital signal that the child in question might actually be hurting. Research has repeatedly shown that a consistent pattern of antisocial behaviors, for example hostility and bullying, are children's reactions to having felt victimized in some way. Children often "act out" their hurts aggressively, when they have not found a safe way to show that they have been hurt.

Ironically, shame itself can be the underlying cause of difficult behavior. Since shaming is a judgment from someone with more power than the child, this makes the child feel small and powerless. Sometimes, children turn the tables: they reclaim this lost power by finding another person to push around - usually someone smaller or more vulnerable than themselves.

Children are usually highly sensitive to the "vibes" in their environment; they pick up tensions between their parents, or other family members. At times "naughty" behavior may be the child's way of reacting to this tension.

Children are less given to act out when they are receiving enough attention, when their hunger for play, discovery and pleasurable human contact is satisfied. Provocative behavior can indicate boredom, or perhaps the need for another "dose" of happy engagement with someone who is not feeling irritable, someone who has the time and energy to spare.

Finally, children can be grumpy or "difficult" simply from over-tiredness. In this case, what is dismissed as "bad" behavior might be a child's way of saying "I'm over the edge, and I can't handle it". Curiously enough, when we as parents react with verbal assaults, we are communicating the same thing. Isn't yelling at children that they are "naughty" or "terrible" (or worse) a kind of adult tantrum, a dysfunctional adult way of coping with frustration?

It is worth remembering that some causes of "misbehavior" are a lot less obvious. For instance, children need to feel our strength - they are uncomfortable with weakness in our personal boundaries. They need exposure to our true feelings, and they sense when we are hiding or pretending. They need their feelings and opinions validated, and are highly sensitive to poor empathy. Frequently, they react to any of these conditions by becoming provocative. Sometimes we blame and shame children for their vexing behavior, because the causes are hard to see.

Cultivating Empathy: Through Remembering

Parents often do to their children as was done to them. It is known that violence can be passed down through generations. Many parents realize that they are perpetuating a cycle in which they are shaming their children, in the same ways that they were once shamed by their own parents. Those that have forgotten the sting and humiliation of being shamed, risk being insensitive to the shame they inflict on their own children. Change requires deepening one's empathy toward the child, and this comes from remembering how it felt to be a child. The understanding that comes from seeing the world through a child's eyes can help adults to influence children without shaming them.

Managing Emotions

As parents, it is not unusual to find ourselves struggling, frazzled, or nearing an emotional boiling-point. When we don't find healthy ways to discharge this frustration, we risk taking it out on our children. Although irritation is a normal part of parenting, this is not because children are "too demanding". Children are children, and the fact that child-rearing can be difficult is not their fault. There are many ways to reroute our excess anger, such as chopping wood, going for a walk, or talking our frustration through with friends.

Everyone's capacity for loving patience is finite; that's human. When parents experience excessive strain this is largely due to our adherence to the myth that it takes just two adults to raise a child. Our society has grossly underestimated the energy required to truly meet children's needs. We can avoid shaming simply by sharing the load - by asking for, and accepting, practical help from trusted friends and community. When we hear ourselves shaming our children, we might take this as a sign that we are needing more assistance.

What Do We Do Now? A New Paradigm for Boundary Setting

Respectful boundary-setting implies a strong statement about you, as opposed to a negative statement about the child. In this way, children gradually develop a good capacity to hear and comprehend the feelings of others. Children benefit from open expression of emotions; from seeing when their parents are angry, or upset. It is OK to be angry with your children, to let them see you are annoyed at something they have done, (as long as you don't shock or terrorize them). Children learn best when they can see the kind of impact their behavior has on the feelings of others. Finally, it helps children to listen to and respect your feelings, if their right to express their feelings is equally respected.

Redirecting the Child's Impulses

From time to time, we are compelled to intervene in our child's activity, when we fear that either a person or a treasured object might get hurt. Shaming can be avoided if, instead of just chastising or stopping the child, we also provide a safer, alternative activity. Occasional aggression is part of normal, balanced healthy development. Children are often shamed and punished for this, when instead they could be shown ways to channel their natural aggression safely. Sometimes it is important to re-evaluate whether we need to chastise at all. A guideline comes from considering whether the behavior in question is actually causing harm to anyone, or creating a concrete risk.

The Role Model

Role-modeling is the most powerful teaching tool. Children don't do what you say, they do as you do. The kind of respect they show others and themselves is a reflection of the kind of respect they have themselves been shown - and the respect they have witnessed displayed between the important people in their lives. Are we role-modeling the kind of behavior that we want our children to display?

Conclusion

Many people are still convinced that smacking or shaming are the only antidotes for preventing antisocial behaviors in children. The suggestion of giving up shaming or smacking is misinterpreted by some as attempts to disempower parents; to turn them into guilt-laden, ineffectual and permissive wimps. Not so. The most effective and healthy boundaries can be set without resorting to violence or shaming. Being strong with children does not mean being harsh, or humiliating.

There are alternatives to shaming that are healthier and more effective. Children who are shown consistent boundaries by parents who are able to express their feelings and needs in a trusting and respectful way, grow up with stronger self-worth and social awareness, free of the toxic effects of shame.

by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor

1 Richard Allestree, The Whole Duty of Man (London, 1766), p.20.

Editor's note: See "The Myth of Original Sin" for a conflicting theory formulated by Arminius in the same century.

References

Bradshaw, J. (1988) Healing The Shame That Binds You

Gilbert P & Gerlsma C (1999) "Recall of Shame and Favouritism in Relation to Psychopathology" The British Journal of Clinical Psychology Vol. 38 p.357-373

Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence - Why it can Matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books

Kaufman, G. (1989) The Psychology of Shame - Theory and Treatment of Shame-based Syndromes. New York: Springer-Verlag

Loader, P. (1998) "Such a Shame - A Consideration of Shame and Shaming Mechanisms in Families" Child Abuse Review, Vol. 7 p.44-57.

Solomon C. R. & Serres, F. (1999) "Effects of Parental Verbal Aggression on Children's Self-Esteem and School Marks", Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. (23)4 p.339-351.

Tangney, J.P. & Fischer, K. W. (1995) The Self-Conscious Emotions - The Psychology of Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride. London: Guilford Press.

Source: Natural Child Project

Stop criminalising children

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:56:00 +0000

Above By Banksy
at Glastonbury

Instead of stopping and searching children under the age of 10, perhaps police should be treating them as victims.

In light of the Jadan Shepherd case – a nine-year-old boy stopped and searched by police in south London – the Children's Rights Alliance for England is calling on the Home Office and the police to develop guidelines for dealing with younger children, especially those under the age of 10.

Let's be clear, it is right and proper that the police have powers to stop and search. Exceptionally, where the circumstances and intelligence would justify it, this may at times include children under 10. However, the issue here is not so much about whether the police should have such powers as how they choose to conduct them. The police themselves have welcomed the opportunity to clarify practice in this particularly sensitive area, in which some quite young children could be exploited or enticed into crime by young people and adults.

The police need to consider whether a more appropriate approach to stopping and searching children under the age of 10 would be to treat them as potential victims of crimes, as opposed to criminals. Last year, 939 children under 10 were stopped and searched by the Metropolitan police, including 58 who were searched using counter-terror powers designed to fight al-Qaida, none of 939 were arrested.

This is because the age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10 and, therefore, it is not actually possible in English law for children below that age to commit a crime. However, young children are very impressionable and it is hard to see why it would be in anyone's interest, including the police themselves, for the police to deal with children of this age in a way that is unlikely to gain their lasting trust and confidence. That is important both for fostering good future citizenship and for promoting better working relations between themselves and the police.

Last year, the Metropolitan police stopped and searched 157,290 people, but only had cause to arrest 1,200 of them. The Home Office is right in saying that stop and search is "a powerful tool in helping to prevent and disrupt crime". However, on the basis of its own statistics it would also appear to be a rather discriminatory and largely ineffective tool.

Whatever the merits of stopping and searching young children, it is surely not unreasonable to expect that, unless it would pervert the course of justice, safeguarding or security to do otherwise, there should be a presumption of good practice that the police would make reasonable attempts to contact a parent, guardian or "appropriate adult" immediately or as soon as is practicably possible.

We want our children to grow up respecting the forces of law and order, not to be traumatised by their experience of unfair treatment by the police at a very young and impressionable age.

Source: The Guaridan

Sensing the Needs of Others (No Matter How They Express Themselves)

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:25:00 +0000

The approach to conflict resolution that I am describing requires not only that we learn to express our needs, but also that we assist others in clarifying their needs. We can train ourselves to hear needs being expressed through the messages of others, regardless of how others are expressing themselves.

I've taught myself to do this because I believe that every message, whatever its form or content, is an expression of a need. If we accept this assumption, we can train ourselves to sense what needs might be at the root of any particular message. Thus, if I ask someone a question about what they have just said, and they respond. "That's a stupid question," I choose to sense what the other person might need as expressed through that particular judgment of me. For example, I might guess that their need for understanding was not being fulfilled when I asked that particular question.

Or, if I request that someone talk with me about some stress in our relationship and they say, "I don't want to talk about it," I might sense that their need is for protection from what they imagine might happen if we communicate.

This ability to sense what people need is crucial in mediating conflicts. We can help by sensing what both sides need, put it into words, and then we help each side hear the other side's needs. This creates a quality of connection that moves the conflict to successful resolution.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I often work with groups of married couples. In these groups, I identify the couple with the most long-standing conflict, and I make a rather startling prediction to the group. I predict that we will be able to resolve this long-standing conflict within twenty minutes from the point at which both sides can tell me what the other side needs.

Once when I was doing this with a group, we identified a couple married for thirty-nine years. They had a conflict about money. Six months into the marriage the wife had twice overdrawn the checkbook, and the husband had taken control of the checkbook and wouldn't let her write checks from that point on. They had been arguing about this for thirty-nine years.

When the wife heard my prediction she said "Marshall, I can tell you this, that's not going to happen. I mean, we have a good marriage, we communicate quite well, but in this conflict, we just have different needs about money. I don't see how it can possibly be resolved in twenty minutes."

I corrected her by saying that I hadn't predicted we'd resolve it in twenty minutes. "I predicted resolution within twenty minutes after both of you tell me what the other person needs." She said, "But Marshall, we communicate very well, and when you have been talking about something for thirty-nine years, you certainly understand what the other side needs."

I responded, "Well, I've been wrong before, I certainly could be wrong in this situation, but let's explore. Tell me then, if you know what his needs are, what are they?"

She said, "It's very obvious, Marshall, he doesn't want me to spend any money."

The husband immediately reacted by saying, "That's ridiculous."

It was clear that she and I had a different definition of needs. When she said he didn't want her to spend any money, she was identifying what I call a strategy. Even if she was right, she would have been accurate about his desired strategy, not about his need. As I define needs, a need contains no reference to specific actions such as spending money or not spending money.

I told her that all human beings have the same needs, and I was certain that if she could get clear what her husband's needs were, and if he were clear about her needs, we could resolve this. I said. "Can you try again? What do you think his need is?"

And she said. "Well, let me explain, Marshall. You see, he's just like his own father." And then she told me how his father was reluctant to spend money. I stopped her and said: "Hold on now. You're giving me an analysis of why he is the way he is. What I am asking is to simply tell me what need of his is involved in this situation. You're giving me an intellectual analysis of what has gone on in his life."

It was very clear that she didn't know how to identify his need. Even after thirty-nine years of talking, she still didn't have an idea what his needs were. She had diagnoses of him, she had an intellectual awareness of what his reasons might be for not wanting her to have the checkbook, but she didn't really understand his needs in this situation.

So I asked the husband. "Well, since your wife is not in touch with what your needs are, why don't you tell her? What are your needs that are being met by keeping the checkbook yourself?"

He said, "Marshall, she's a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother. But when it comes to money, she's totally irresponsible."

Now again, notice the difference between the question I asked him, "What are your needs in this situation," and his response. Instead of telling me what his needs were, he gave me a diagnosis that she was irresponsible. It's that kind of language that I believe gets in the way of resolving conflicts peacefully. At the point where either party hears themselves criticized, diagnosed, or intellectually interpreted, I predict their energy will turn toward self-defense and counter-accusations rather than toward resolutions that meet everyone's needs.

I pointed out to him that he was not really in touch with what his needs were and I showed that he was giving me a diagnosis of his wife instead. Then I again asked him, "What are your needs in this situation?" He couldn't identify them.

So even after thirty-nine years of discussion, neither person was really aware of the other person's needs. Here was a situation where my ability to sense needs could help them out of conflict. I used Nonviolent Communication skills to guess the needs that the husband and wife were expressing as judgments.

I reminded him that he had said his wife was totally irresponsible about money (a judgment), and then I asked, "Are you feeling scared in this situation because you have a need to protect the family economically?" When I said this, he looked at me and said, "That's exactly what I'm saying," Of course he didn't say exactly that! But when we sense what a person needs, I believe that we're getting closer to the truth, closer to what people are trying to say. I believe that all analysis that implies wrongness is basically a tragic expression of unmet needs. If we can hear what a person needs, it's a great gift to them because it helps them to get connected to life.

Now, I happened to guess right in this situation, but it didn't require that I guess right. If I had been off, at least I was focusing his attention on needs, and that helps people get more in touch with their needs. It takes them out of the analysis and gets them more connected to life.

Checking to See that Needs are Accurately Received

Once he had expressed his need, the next step was to be sure that the other person heard it. This is a crucial skill in conflict resolution. We can't assume that, just because a message is expressed, the other person receives it accurately. Whenever I am mediating a conflict if I am not sure that the person hearing the message has accurately received it, I ask them to repeat it back.

I asked his wife, "Could you tell me back what you heard your husband's needs are in this situation?"

And she said. "Well, just because I overdrew the bank account a couple of times when we got married, that doesn't mean I'm going to continue doing it."

Her response was not atypical in my experience. When people have pain built up over many years, even when the other person says clearly what they need, it doesn't mean the first person can hear it. Often they're so filled with their own pain that it gets in the way of their hearing another.

I asked her if she could possibly repeat back what the husband said, but it was clear that she really hadn't heard it, that she was in too much pain. I said to her. "I would like to tell you what I heard your husband say, and I would like you to repeat it back," and I repeated it for her. I said: "I heard that your husband says he has a need to protect the family. He's scared because he really wants to be sure that the family is protected."

Providing Empathy to Heal the Pain (That Prevents People from Hearing Each Other)

Because she still couldn't hear it, I used another skill that is often necessary in conflict resolution. I shifted. Instead of trying to get her to repeat what he'd said I tried to understand the pain that she felt.

I said, "I sense that you're feeling really hurt, and you need to be trusted that you can learn from past experience," You could tell from her eyes that she really needed that understanding, and she said, "Yes, exactly."

Having received this understanding, I hoped that she would now be able to hear her husband, so once again I repeated what I understood his needs to be. He needed to protect the family. I asked her to repeat back what she heard. She replied, "So he thinks I'm spending too much money."

Well, as you see, she wasn't trained to hear needs any more than she was trained to express them. Instead of hearing his needs, all she heard was a diagnosis of herself. I suggested that she try to just hear the needs, without hearing any criticism of herself in it. After I repeated it two more times, she was finally able to hear her husband's needs.

Then I reversed the process and asked the wife to express her needs. Again, she wasn't able to do it directly; she expressed her need in the form of a judgment and said: "He doesn't trust me. He thinks I'm stupid and that I'm not going to be able to learn. I think that's unfair. I mean, just because I did it a couple of times doesn't mean I'll continue to do it."

Once again I loaned her the skill of my being able to sense her needs behind all of that. I said to her: "It sounds like you really have a need to be trusted. You really want acknowledgment that you can learn from the situation."

Then I asked the husband to tell me what his wife's needs were. And, just as she had judgments that kept her from hearing him at first, he couldn't hear her. He wanted to defend his need to protect the family and began to explain that she was a good wife, a good mother, but that she was just totally irresponsible when it came to money. I had to help him hear through his judgment, to just hear what her needs were, so I said, "Would you please just tell me what her needs are?" He had to have it repealed three times, but finally he heard her need was to be trusted.

Then, as I had predicted, at the point when they both had heard each other's needs, it didn't take twenty minutes to find a way of getting everybody's needs met. It took much less time than that!

The more I have been involved in conflicts over the years, the more I've seen that what leads families to argue - what leads nations to war - the more I believe that most school children could resolve these conflicts. If people just asked: "Here are the needs of both sides, here are the resources. What can be done to meet these needs?" the conflict would be easy to resolve. But tragically, we're not taught to think in terms of the human needs involved, and our thinking does not go to that level. Instead it goes to dehumanizing one another with labels and judgments, and then even the simplest of conflicts become very difficult to solve.

By Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

(Excerpted from We Can Work It Out:
Resolving Conflicts Peacefully and Powerfully)

© 2005 Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Source: Natural Child Project

Tamiflu causes sickness and nightmares in children, study finds

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:28:00 +0000

More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests.

An estimated 150,000 people with flu symptoms were prescribed the drug through a new hotline and website last week, according to figures revealed yesterday.

Studies of children attending three schools in London and one in the South West showed that 51-53 per cent had one or more side-effects from the medication, which is offered to everyone in England with swine flu symptoms.

The research by the Health Protection Agency emerged as Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that swine flu infections “may have reached a plateau”.

Releasing the latest figures, Sir Liam said that an estimated 110,000 new cases of the H1N1 virus were diagnosed by doctors in the week to Sunday. That did not include those using the new National Pandemic Flu Service for England to obtain antiviral drugs without seeing their GP.

Sir Liam said that the deaths of 27 people in England were confirmed to have been linked to swine flu, compared with 26 last week. As of Wednesday morning 793 people were in hospital in England with the virus, and 81 were in intensive care.

Yesterday Natasha Newman, 16, of Highgate, North London, was seriously ill in hospital in Athens after contracting swine flu while on holiday on the island of Cephalonia. Her parents, Julian Newman and Nikki Boughton, were at her bedside at the Agia Sofia children’s hospital, said a spokeswoman for Mr Newman’s business, J. Newman Textiles. “This is a very distressing and worrying time,” she said.

Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead expert on swine flu, suggested that Tamiflu was being overused and did not need to be offered to everyone with mild symptoms. “The National Pandemic Flu Service has been a great success, and was needed to take the pressure off GPs,” he said. “But the threshold for getting Tamiflu should be quite high.

“For patients who are not in the high-risk groups — such as pregnant women, people with bad asthma or with suppressed immune systems — this virus typically causes mild symptoms and does not require a course of Tamiflu. Patients in the at-risk groups should be referred to their GP, who will use their clinical judgment.”

A total of 103 children took part in the London study, of which 85 were given the drug as a precaution after a classmate received a diagnosis of swine flu. Of those, 45 experienced one or more side-effects. The most common was nausea (29 per cent), followed by stomach pain or cramps (20 per cent) and problems sleeping (12 per cent). Almost one in five had a “neuropsychiatric side-effect”, such as inability to think clearly, nightmares and “behaving strangely”, according to the research, published in Eurosurveillance, a journal of disease.

The study was carried out in April and May when the drug was being issued as a preventive measure. The findings were echoed by a study of children at a school in the South West where a pupil had caught the disease in Mexico.

Health officials in Japan have recommended against prescribing Tamiflu to teenagers over fears it causes a rise in “neuropsychiatric events”. The researchers said that clinical trials had shown that about 20 per cent of adults reported side-effects of either nausea or vomiting after taking Tamiflu.

Both the Department of Health and the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory products Agency said that the drug was safe, and that the benefits of treating early symptoms and avoiding potentially serious complications could outweigh the risks of side-effects.

Sir Liam said that despite a 10 per cent rise in the estimated number of cases in the week to Sunday, the latest figures reinforced “a growing impression we have had a peak”. He said that a surge would still be expected in the winter flu season, but added: “I think we are a little more confident we may be seeing a downturn in this flu.”

Scale of the outbreak

110,000 new swine flu cases in England last week, based on data from GPs
150,000 people obtaining Tamiflu without seeing a GP since last Thursday
51% to 53% proportion of children reporting side-effects from taking Tamiflu
1 in 158 people in England have contacted their GP with flu-like symptoms since outbreaks began. The rate is 1 in 77 for children aged 1 to 4

Source: Department of Health

Source: The Times

Children in frontline as swine flu cases double

noreply@blogger.com (Colette Mengiles) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:14:00 +0000

100,000 new cases heighten concerns over intensive care beds for youngsters

Fears about the capacity of NHS intensive care units to cope with a surge in cases of children struck down with swine flu were raised yesterday as figures showed that the pandemic was gathering pace.

An estimated 100,000 new cases of swine flu were recorded last week, almost double the 55,000 in the previous week, and the under-15s were predominantly affected. All regions of the country are now seeing "exceptional levels of influenza activity", which was "highly unusual" in summer, the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said.

The National Flu Pandemic Service, launched to coincide with the release of the new figures, crashed within minutes of going live yesterday afternoon. The website and telephone helpline, designed to enable the public to diagnose swine flu and collect antiviral drugs, appeared to be running normally later and was experiencing "unprecedented" levels of demand, the Government said.

The website service is backed by a telephone helpline staffed by more than 1,500 call centre staff, capable of answering more than 200,000 calls a day – or more than a million calls a week, officials said. It is intended to take the pressure off GPs and other NHS services which have seen huge peaks in demand in some places.

Doctors warned that at these levels, the impact of flu on the health service in the winter could be much greater.

Douglas Fleming, of the Royal College of GPs monitoring centre in Birmingham which tracks trends in GP consultation rates, said: "There has been an approximate doubling in cases in all areas, except Wales. If this were happening in winter, on top of all the other respiratory infections, the impact would be very much more substantial. The impact would be very high indeed."

Intensive care specialists view the way the virus is infecting and causing serious illness in children with alarm. The number of people admitted to hospital last week increased to 840, up by one-third from the previous week. The proportion of under five-year-olds in hospital rose to five times the rate for other age groups and 12 under-fives were in critical care.

Roddy O'Donnell, secretary of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society, which represents 25 intensive care units for children with 603 beds across the UK, said: "In the last two winters, the units have come under huge pressure from normal seasonal viruses. We have got to the point where very few beds are available. There have been several occasions when our transport service [which arranges transfers] has said there are no beds. It is inevitable that we will come under pressure again this winter.

"I am worried whether we will be able to cope. We don't know how big this pandemic will be for paediatric intensive care. It will be no surprise to me if we can't place children or move them in a timely manner."

Dr O'Donnell, a paediatric intensive care consultant at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, said he had asked for an extra six beds which would nearly double the capacity of the existing eight-bedded unit at the hospital, as well as contingency plans to take over adult beds if the paediatric unit was overwhelmed. "But we have not had the green light yet," he said.

Among the 25 paediatric intensive care units, a number had put in plans to expand capacity but a minority had been successful. "Some have done it but in many it doesn't look like it will happen," he said.

"We have 20 hospitals in our region who call us [when they need to place a child in intensive care]. We have all been worried about flu. I expect this to be a bad winter."

The number of deaths from swine flu remained the same as last week at 26 in England. This followed detailed investigations which led to some deaths originally attributed to swine flu being removed from the total while others were added. There were four deaths in Scotland.

One-third of the deaths were in children under 16 and three-quarters were aged under 45 – the reverse of the pattern with seasonal flu which is most serious in the elderly. Sir Liam said the total of deaths was provisional, because investigations were incomplete. Of those investigated, 16 per cent of the victims were healthy before they got swine flu. The remainder had underlying conditions ranging from mild (high blood pressure) to severe (leukaemia).

Sir Liam said it was "a little bit of possibly good news". In addition, the most recent figures for this week showed signs of a dip in the number of cases of swine flu.

"There will be a 'worried well' effect when the media write about this. The US appears to have peaked and we may be seeing a lull effect but I don't think we have got there yet."

Justin McCracken, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: "There are some early signs for cautious optimism. What we might be seeing is an early slowing in the rate of the increase. We have said all along this is a mild disease in most people. This week's figures are entirely consistent with that. There is absolutely no sign of the disease becoming more virulent or more serious."

The number for the National Pandemic Flu Service for England is 0800 1513 100 and the website address is www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu.

Pandemic notebook: Not even swine flu can get into Gaza

Gaza has enough problems without adding that of swine flu. Which is why the Hamas authorities have begun to screen foreign – or at least British – visitors to ensure that the Strip stays free of the global epidemic, as I discovered on my most recent trip to the besieged territory last week.

At the Hamas-controlled checkpoint 2km in from the Israeli border, my passport was examined and my bags searched as normal. I was then asked by a police officer to step inside an adjacent hut to see a doctor.

The medic, a general practitioner from the northern border town of Beit Hanoun, then politely – in English – asked me about my recent trips to Gaza, when I had last been in the United Kingdom and whether I had suffered from fever or any other symptoms in recent weeks.

Once reassured, and after flipping through my passport, he shook my hand and bade me goodbye. Unlike Israel itself, where the media have reported about 300 cases (and where I was not similarly checked when I last came through Ben Gurion airport in June), and the West Bank, where at least 11 cases have also been reported, Gaza has not so far had a single case. It is perhaps the only benefit of the stringent closure imposed by Israel. And the Hamas de-facto government plans to keep it that way.

By Donald Macintyre

42-mile trek through Dales to get Tamiflu

Relatives of a woman from the Wensleydale area of the Yorkshire Dales diagnosed with swine flu had to make a 42-mile round-trip to lay hands on the antiviral drug Tamiflu, despite the existence of a chemist four miles from her home. Doctors told the retired 64-year-old from West Witton, who did not want to be named, that she would only need Tamiflu if her 82-year-old husband, who suffers from Guillain-Barré syndrome, also showed symptoms.

"The doctors said I couldn't go out so I asked my brother to pick up the prescription for me. He travelled the few miles to the surgery and then to the chemist. But he was told that they were not stocking the drug. He then had to travel to another village, 13 miles away, to get my prescription before coming all the way back. I just don't understand how a chemist can not stock a drug which is in such high demand. The Government keeps saying Tamiflu is readily available. But that's no use if nobody is stocking the drug."

By Kevin Rawlinson

Source: The Independent

Comment: My son now has suspected Swine flu, he is in a high risk group, but is a bit better using Tamiflu.