For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violen

[Kire]

For Your Own Good

Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

by Alice Miller

Excerpt:

In the mid-nineteenth century a man named Schreber, the father of a paranoid patient described by Freud, wrote a series of books on child-rearing. They were so popular in Germany that some of them went through forty printings and were translated into several languages. In these works it is stressed again and again that children should start being trained as soon as possible, even as early as their fifth month of life, "if the soil is to be kept free of harmful weeds." I have encountered similar views in parents' letters and diaries, which provide the outsider with a clear indication of the underlying causes of the serious illnesses that developed in their children, who were later to become my patients. But initially, these patients of mine were unable to derive much benefit from these diaries and had to undergo long and deep analysis before they could begin to see the truth in them. First they had to become detached from their parents and develop their own individuality.

The conviction that parents are always right and that every act of cruelty, whether conscious or unconscious, is an expression of their love is so deeply rooted in human beings because it is based on the process of internalization that takes place during the first months of life—in other words, during the period preceding separation from the primary care giver.

Two passages from Dr. Schreber's advice to parents. writ-ten in 1858 will illustrate the method of raising children prevalent at the time:

"The little ones' displays of temper as indicated by screaming or crying without cause should be regarded as the first test of your spiritual and pedagogical principles . . . Once you have estab-lished that nothing is really wrong, that the child is not ill, distressed, or in pain, then you can rest assured that the screaming is nothing more than an outburst of temper, a whim, the first appearance of willfulness. Now you should no longer simply wait for it to pass as you did in the beginning but should proceed in a somewhat more positive way: by quickly diverting its attention, by stern words, threatening gestures, rapping on the bed or if none of this helps. by appropriately mild corporal admonitions repeated persistently at brief intervals until the child quiets down or falls asleep."

"This procedure will be necessary only once or at most, twice, and then you will be master of the child forever. From now on, a glance, a word, a single threatening gesture will be sufficient to control the child. Remember that this will be of the greatest benefit to your child since it will spare him many hours of agitation inimical to his successful growth, freeing him from all those inner torments that can, moreover, very easily lead to a proliferation of pernicious character traits that will become increasingly difficult to conquer. IQuoted in Morton Schatznian, Soul Murder]

Dr. Schreber doesn't realize that what he is in fact attempting to curb in children are his own impulses, and there is no doubt in his mind that he is recommending the exercise of power purely for the child's own good: If parents are consistent in this, they will soon be rewarded by the emergence of that desirable situation in which the child will be controlled almost entirely by a parental glance alone. Children raised in this way frequently do not notice, even at an advanced age, when someone is taking advantage of them as long as the person uses a "friendly" tone of voice.

More: http://www.thinkingpeace.com/Lib/lib089.html

[Droopy]

1. Disturbing

It sounds like we've come a long way in the field of child psychology. I'm glad I wasn't born in mid-nineteenth century Germany.

[Kire]

2. some of us have come a long way

don't sit on your laurels now

[TrogL]

3. Can I start screaming now?

I didn't make it past the 2nd paragraph :scared:

[Kire]

4. you're allowed

you are allowed to do whatever you need to feel safe

[Kire]

5. Not sure if this is related, but...

...I sent the excerpt in the OP to some friends by email, one of them was my 'Brada' Dr. Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese, who writes some poetry every friday on his Yahoo! group. This was today's post:

Dear folks,

greetings on this faithful Friday afternoon. There is a hierarchy of emotional states. A person deprived of his or her freedom and/or self-determinism, will descend progressively from enthusiasm, to conservatism, to boredom, to antagonism, to anger, to fear to grief and then to apathy. Any person who's dealt with children has observed that children restrained against their will, deprived of their favorite toy or activity or denied a request quickly devolve from their usual cheery selves into tantrum-throwing, fearful, then grief-stricken and eventually complacent, apathetic beings. In fact, you can even observe this downshift in a child's overall growth over years as he/she moves through an educational system and/or a society that seeks to restrict individuality, freedom and self-determinism at every turn. The shift from one state to another may be indiscernible, but there's no mistaking that there are phases in how people respond to life's never-ending stream of bumps, pains and freedom-depriving dictates.

The good news is that this hierarchy of emotional states represents a natural scale for anyone who seeks to understand human behavior and lift themselves or others out of one state into another and eventually back to their original childlike state of enthusiasm. The thing to know, however, is that it is virtually impossible to lift someone from one emotional state to another state two or more rungs up the ladder. A person who is fearful, for example, must be communicated with on that level, and can be moved only by appeals to the next level on the scale.

For example, the way to motivate a fearful person is to speak to that fear and then give them something to be angry (anger is one level above fear) about. This may come in handy, say, if you're the leader of a country whose citizens are in a state of fear. You can get elected or re-elected by giving them a scapegoat or some enemy to focus their anger towards. Hard to believe, but it's been done!

On a personal level, an understanding of your partner's or your own emotional state relative to this scale can help you see whether you're improving or worsening. Your emotional state is directly related to the level of freedom of movement and self-determinism you have in your life. That's why it is important for you to do the things and seek the lifestyle that empowers and frees you. You will be emotionally healthy and successful to the exact degree that the life you lead allows you the freedom to live your passion!

The Ascendancy of Hope
(Meet Me on The Tone Scale)

The listless man in apathy
indifferent, cold and numb
Must find his hope in grief
or else is doomed soon to succumb

The man who's lost in sadness
seeking sympathy through tears
Will gain a sense of purpose
with a focus for his fears

The fearful man knows anger
is his best hope to recharge
So focuses his venom
on an enemy at large

The angry man once foeless
becomes to all who seem a threat:
An all-around antagonist
in search of all bad debt

The habit-bound combatant
in this war he soon will tire
And will ascend to boredom
once he's rid of all his ire

The bored man needs an interest
that will steer his new-found life
Contented he'll become
But still conservative to strife

The careful man, conservative
needs passion to be free
For this alone reclaims
the charmed and childlike way to be!



Warm regards,
Padmore Agbemabiese

More of Padmore's work:
http://www.poemhunter.com/dr-padmore-enyonam-agbemabiese/biography/poet-60921/