sleeping baby, and not sleeping in a parent's arms..."There are no exceptions. When they feel pain, are frightened, confused etc. it is important to listen to them, let them fully express their feelings, and then, see if a solution can be found together, if the child so desires. Be sure to allow enough time so that the feeling can be fully experienced by the child and not stopped before it has run its natural course. Never try to make children stop crying! It's the crying in the presence of an empathic adult that has a healing effect on children."And then it stands about crying:
"Crying is the only way a newborn or small baby has to communicate its distress and it should be taken very seriously. It is as terrible for he baby as it sounds. Often young parents will say: 'Well we pick her up when she cries, but not immediately. We let her cry for 15 minutes or so. Sometimes a little longer. We can't react to her every whim.'I came to think of the small baby, the sixth, to a mother that was near 40... The mother had had five children earlier, was "experienced", and felt she needed her sleep?? So the baby was put in another room, though next to the parent's (but not with doors between the two rooms). At bedtime the small baby started to cry. Now she was going to be left alone? The house had become silent. No noise of people - no signs of any kind of living human beings near!? Alone in the world? So the baby started to cry.
Harvard researchers Commons and Miller show how devastating this treatment can be to the young child. Alvin Powell write about this research: 'Instead of letting infants cry, American parents should keep their babies close, console them when they cry, and bring them to bed with them, where they'll feel safe, according to Michael Simmons and Patrice Miller, researchers at the Medical School's Department of Psychiatry.
The pair examined child-rearing practices here and in other cultures and say that the widespread American practice of putting babies in separate beds - even separate rooms - and not responding to their cries may lead to more incidents of post-traumatic stress and panic disorders among American adults.
The early stress due to separation causes changes in infant brains that make future adults more susceptible to stress in their lives. Parents should recognize that having babies cry unnecessarily harms the baby permanently (italics by author). It changes the nervous system so they're sensitive to future trauma."
The mom picked her up and sat in a rocking-chair in the hall outside the two bedrooms. The other two bedrooms (for the four oldest) lay one stair up together with a TV-room in a hall between the bedrooms.
The fifth child in line slept in her own bed in the parents' bedroom.
The mom put on some music on the recorder, a special song which was popular that time, and sat there with the baby which calmed down and stopped crying.
The other children got calm too?? Because it was distressing for them too to hear the small baby cry?? And it disturbed their sleep too?? And they should get up early and go to school too... And the baby was put back in her bed in her own room. And fell asleep of pure tiredness?
This went on for the baby's first three months I think...
Later this child grew up to an adult with high demands, fairly easily stressed, yes, with anxiety and perfectionist problems... Problems with her stomach, often ache in it...
I know her... And met her yesterday, newly operated... What help has she got to process this, or even to decipher this?? With the reservation I may be wrong in my thoughts, that I am rewriting a history? But am I? I was there. I was 12, 5 years then...Thus not so small... I get so angry, because this woman has been in therapy a lot for her self-awareness sake (gestalt-therapy). And, yes, a period she got panic-attacks...
What did the older children experience in this way?? Yes, they were all separated from the mother directly after birth, taken away to be bathed. The second in line cried so much after his birth that the mother still remembers it. And the fist child was blue at birth... And when she was bathed she was thrown down to her mom with the words:
"I have never seen such a blue baby!!"This baby had an enormous fontanel. Was it something wrong with her?? Was she hurt, damaged? Did she have"water in the brain" (Hydrocephalus)?? It showed she wasn't. She was not unintelligent, maybe the opposite... The next child, a boy also had, as the fourth, also a boy. But b then the mom (very anxious mom) this was nothing to be afraid of.
In the second text it stands for instance:
"The pair say that American childrearing practices are influenced by fears that children will grow up dependent. But they say that parents are on the wrong track: physical contact and reassurance will make children more secure and better able to form adult relationships when they finally head out on their own.
'We've stressed independence so much that it's having some very negative side effects,' Miller said."
And in the second (my italics below):
The way we are brought up colors our entire society, Commons and Miller say. Americans in general don't like to be touched and pride themselves on independence to the point of isolation, even when undergoing a difficult or stressful time. /…/
‘There are ways to grow up and be independent without putting babies through this trauma,’ Commons said. ‘My advice is to keep the kids secure so they can grow up and take some risks.’
Besides fears of dependence, other factors have helped form our childrearing practices, including fears that children would interfere with sex if they shared their parents' room [but if parents bond better and ore with their children they are better protected from harming them in any way?? Including sexually abusing them??] and doctors' concerns that a baby would be injured by a parent rolling on it if it shared their bed, the pair said. The nation's growing wealth has helped the trend toward separation by giving families the means to buy larger homes with separate rooms for children.
The result, Commons and Miller said, is a nation that doesn't like caring for its own children, a violent nation marked by loose, nonphysical relationships.
‘I think there's a real resistance in this culture to caring for children,’ Commons said. ‘Punishment and abandonment has never been a good way to get warm, caring, independent people.’”
But I don’t think only Americans have those childrearing practices. And this way of handling a child is a fear of spoiling the child, and what might then happen!??
Addition January 28:
But see earlier postings about what Bosch writes about respecting physical integrity (and touch) and about emotional needs (and their essential role for survival) from last summer. None of these postings are edited... I have only skimmed them now... I let them stand there as they are, at least for now... As spontaneously written as they were then.
Also see earlier posting on Kirkengen and boundary violations.
"I feel so angry, sad, and disappointed!!"
"But you shouldn't! Look... Maybe it can be so or so..."
Told what to think and feel is abuse according to Pia Melody. And when I hear such things I don't get less angry, but more!! :-) As if it is forbidden to feel, and feel strongly!!?? And forbidden to feel negative, difficult feelings!! I think people view me as grounded in the earth and calm?? But there are a lot of feelings under the surface... Maybe they also see that!??
Before I was somewhere round 33 years I didn't want to be seen, so I dressed fairly "gray" struck me again this morning...
My youngest brother skied MarciaLonga in Italy yesterday, around 70 km on around 4 hours... I haven't spoken with him though. He turns 49 years in June.
Our relative physical "strength" seen to that we are short, small people does it come of an inner fury I have thought sometimes... And what is this fury about?
Some expressions struck me when I took a shower now: "corrective measures", by telling another person what to feel, think, how to react... Strong feelings, emotions and expression are dangerous - and threatening?? Yes, hasn't Miller written about artistic expressions as socially accepted expressions (though with limits they too)? Even highly regarded! People with artistic talents are often enormously admired?? But does anyone want to know what's behind these expressions? If there is something behind them?
Yes, that about socially accepted expressions and behaviors again... And how shamy it is if a person is imperfect sometimes...
Helpers of all kinds, as therapists, psychologists and other sorts of "healers" (and gurus??) also believe and rely on corrective measures (only)??? That people just need to change, be relearned, need better models and that is the solution?? Maybe it is or feels so? But what has actually changed? If they just start behaving functional instead of dysfunctional, then they are cured?? Or?
What are the healer, therapist doing actually??
Yes, I use to train relaxation with programs (on the mp3-player in my cellphone for instance) and such things... But there is a but... This is only about trying to survive the best way possible... Minute by minute... But what and how much does it actually resolve?
And all those corrective measures, as retraining and relearning what message do they pass forward?? Very ironically... That here is something wrong with you!!?? And the healer, helper doesn't want to know more!!?? Does he/she?? There must really be something dangerous here?? Something that is forbidden to mention and touch upon!!?? Things that already are filled with fear... The healer signals (if not consciously so unconsciously) that this is really something dangerous?? What does this mean? For the one seeking help...
Jenson (and maybe also Bosch) writes about what the idea about "safe places" can imply. As if they are needed!!?? What scary things are then below?
In a hurry to work, making food, planning the day, taking a walk... Hmmm, how was it now with stressing??
Can anyone forbid one to feel neither this nor that actually? Less if you are grown up?! And isn't it as Miller says: it's not the feelings and emotions that are dangerous in themselves, but the actions they can lead to?? So feelings can't harm as long as you don't act them out (destructively or self-destructively), as long as you just feel them, which can be difficult enough...
"But you don't have to..."
As if one has to be protected against feelings (and pain)? As if one is so weak, maybe too sensitive for such things!? Even over-sensitive?? ("Yes think if I am???"). Yes, Miller writes about a woman in upper middle-age, who was protected by her husband... She suffered from severe depressions, but he thought she wouldn't survive processing her childhood experiences. But it showed to be different... To his astonishment (what I referred to in the posting about that love isn't the only thing needed for healing, despite this woman was surrounded by a loving family: husband and daughter, this didn't heal or made her less depressed). But love probably contributes in a positive way!! Makes it easier to face eventual truths!? And I don't believe at all in any truth-telling or other brutal ways of bringing people to enlightenment...
And, yes, does a disconsolate crying baby/child make us feel insecure and worried?
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