About perfectionism once again, Downs Syndrome - and Nanny programs…

Martina Schaub and Tom Alandh.

[Updated November 23 and 24 with a link to the article "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny" (in Swedish) below, and referrals to some articles from The Pedagogical Magazine here on a new grade system in Sweden and demands on more order in schools from our current minister of education].

A Swedish moviemaker Tom Alandh has made a series of documentaries about Martina Schaub with Downs Syndrome. Tomorrow the last part “Martina and I” is going to be sent in the Swedish Television.

Alandh met Martina 25 years ago when Martina was 5 years old and has followed her through the years. Now she turns 40 and the last part has been made, but Martina continues to be a friend of Alandhs. Martina works halftime as cleaner.

When Martina was born (1968) her mother was told by the doctors:

“Leave her and forget her! An idiot!”

But her mother refused and instead she dedicated her life to struggling for Martina's right to education and development.

Alandh about his series:

“I would want to say like this: of course it is about Martina with Downs Syndrome. But mostly it is about being a human being. One has to allow flaws and handicaps. A good life can look differently.”

But, no, these things are probably not easy…

Yes, this with perfectionism… Even the ones with a lot of talents don’t necessarily feel especially worthy…

Martina has stricken the surrounding with amazement, she can read and write so well that she has published collection(s?) of poems; she has a gymnasium (senior high school) education.

PS. I also read an article this morning in the newspaper "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny" where the Swedish journalist Ulf Lundén writes that:

”Now old ideas about child-raising have come back on a wide front. The Nanny acute [or Nanny ‘emergency center’] or the Super-Nanny has got politicians in the Alliance to swallow the bite about old authoritarian methods./…/

The government has deposited approximately 70 million Swedish Crowns to extend courses for parents practicing punishments as a raising method.

Which in practice is about creating as much bad conscience as possible in the child [!!!!]. The parents shall freeze the child out, refuse answering when spoken to, pretend the child is not in the room [but this is the Wall of Silence!] or to put the child in the corner. *"

Horrible!!! this is actually nothing else than CHILD ABUSE!! If this is true (IS IT????) then OUR CURRENT GOVERNMENT IS ORDERING NOTHING ELSE THAN CHILD ABUSE!!!

How do they spend the money actually?? They should spend it on what child abuse causes instead! And what child abuse actually is! But they don't know what child abuse is!!?? Because they haven't acknowledged it themselves in their own personal lives?? Which is sad (alternatively tragic) for them, and I don't say I have come to terms with things to a large degree. But what do they cause in this power position? How much more damage than other people having much less power cause!

Addition: During the shower I thought further... About intellect and the brain. About control, controlling emotions, reacting spontaneously... I have been auscultator to a colleague in music-classes with children with Downs Syndrome some years ago (maybe ten years ago now).

One thing that has engraved itself in my memory, made an indelible impression on me, is the spontaneous reactions and - maybe not least achievements in those kids! And I couldn't help comparing it to people with a lot more IQ! How we with more IQ can be censoring ourselves and so controlling so we actually don't manage things, as for instance rhythmic things. And most of us don't dance as freely as those kids.

How many of us aren't too controlled? And what can this control cause (depression and/or explosions)? Yes, that about keeping things in check and control...

Addition November 23: see the former posting "The health and the school, Downs Syndrome and politics and young people and genuine respect..."

On the home site for the Swedish TV I read (in my amateur-translation):

“Raising children with rewards and punishments got a broad upswing with the TV-program Super Nanny. The program has inspired politicians and moulders of public opinion in many countries for projects of different kinds to learn parents posing boundaries (setting limits) for their children [see Miller on limit setting]. /…/

The child psychologist and author Penelope Leach says that adults over the whole Western World changed their view on children and upbringing. Many has stopped caring about why children behave as they do. Instead obeying ideals have come into fashion again [and that's really true: WHY are children behaving as they do? That's not interesting!!?? But maybe it ought to be. Yes, I think it ought to be interesting!].

‘Courses for parents and counseling columns are giving advises on how you make the children ‘behaving better then they do.’ In the main it’s about that the children shall not stand in the way for the adult-life, Penelope Leach says.

The journalist Erik Sandberg, dad to three small boys, explores why so many suddenly have become so anxious to making the children obey.”

You can find the last two last newspaper-articles here too.

Addition November 24:

About the demands on order (from our current minister of education)… And even more on neoauthoritarianism and neoconservatism:

In the pedagogical paper “The Pedagogical Magazine” number 4/2008 there was an article about “A New Grade School” where a school researcher wrote about “Order in the grade-question.”

He writes that the new inquiry (investigation) “A New Grade-School” has been the one that has been best received among all inquiries on the question of grades (and evaluations of school activities) in modern time. But this is remarkable he thinks, because it’s the poorest founded of all investigations of grades ever made!!

The suggestion from this investigation (made only during one year, compared to earlier, which took between two and four years) has been very well received by the general public and people in school!!!

However, in this investigation there are no evidences that the new scale of grades (six grades) promotes learning, there is no connection to a view on knowledge in the curriculum, and an analysis on society, including a relevant analysis of consequences of a new grade system, is lacking.

The suggestion from the investigation is unhistorical he writes and it has no future-horizon (view on the future).

He continues with describing the history behind the grade system we have today, how the discussions have been during the last four decades and the decisions that have been made according to those discussions.

Yes, some people have looked for more order in the ones in power who are making decisions for us all today (in our current government, but people are also critical to the former government) as a quite ironic reply to the demands on more order in school from our current minister of education.

There was another article in this magazine too with the heading “Modern solutions are needed,” where you can read about that the liberal school policy (politics) has developed to an absurd antagonism between a “fuzzy-muzzy”-school and a swot-school. But Sweden needs a modern education-politics grounded on research and well-tried experiences, not based on personal memories from the own time in school.

However, another article writes about “What do the researchers have to do in classrooms?” There you can read that the evidence based research is at risk of simplifying the practice it wants to study. The reality is reshaped and adjusted to prevailing ideas. A critical perspective is looked for.

Thus the decisions that are made are based on lack of knowledge!!! Actually quite fuzzy-muzzy, something the school here in Sweden has been accused for by not least our current minister of education, and has been applauded by many others too, needing to avenging their own early experiences I can't help wondering quite ironically and angrily) and on top not based on understanding OR capacities to compassion, empathy or real, genuine interest in young people (my addition)!

* Struck me when I was making lunch: how would adults react being frozen out, met with refusals to answer when spoken to, that the environment pretends he or she isn’t in the room, to being put in the corner? How do we see such a treatment on grown ups?

But treating a child in this way is nothing to react at?

Sidetrack about the wall of silence again: Hmmmm, and that again being surrounded by silence on lists and forums… Being silenced (met with a wall of silence) by moderators for instance. What has that caused in people exposed to this? What can it have been causing?

Maybe 'only' "doubts on themselves", becoming "blocked in expressing things and writing freely"? Have these persons "gotten any opportunity to speaking up for themselves", to the moderator, on the list (forum), to "free themselves from the destructive impact of this treatment and to reclaim their voices and their truths"?

Yes, that with revictimization again…

A raising method...

from the movie "Torment."

I happened to come across this text on shame and it triggered the following thoughts and reflections, loudly expressed...

A raising method is infusing guilt and shame feelings in a child to make it obedient, i.e. do as you want, or make it not behave as it does...

Just with a glance or if it is needed with tougher means, as surrounding the child with silence or even leave it and go out. Something Alice Miller was exposed to by her mom and has written about. Something that was extremely painful to recall as grown up Miller writes, and thus you need an enlightened witness to confront those memories or even to get in touch with them in the first place. Miller had forgotten how she was treated I think, but reclaimed it during therapy high up in age.

You can manipulate children and latter adults (who has unprocessed experiences of these things from childhood) by infusing shame and guilt in them. With subtle and less subtle means, openly or hidden/secretly. And this is emotional abuse. A child can't escape this, something an adult can - unless she/he isn't paralyzed by fear and shame etc. The less harmed a human being became early in life the less vulnerable to manipulation and brainwashing. So by abusing your child (physically, sexually - and emotionally/verbally) you play latter perpetrators in hand! You can really destroy your child's future by abusing it.

The writer to the linked chapter from the online book “Psychological Self-Help” (I am not sure I recommend this book as a way of healing though) writes about accepting who you really are. But the problem is to know who you actually are. And I think it isn’t enough accepting who you are. You have to understand to a certain extent why and how you became this way, not only with your head but also with your emotions. Question it and rebel against it.

If you succeed with this to a certain extent (unfortunately not easy) you won’t be at risk of forwarding it to other people whom are in your power or under you, or at people standing near you.

And the fact that this work is so difficult should be an incitement to try avoiding causing this sort of harm to small children in the first place.

And it is important to put the blame where it ought to be... Back to the first source... If you don't you will still be trapped in destructive and self destructive behavior. Who did the soul murdering in the first place?

Former postings under the label "soul murdering": "The political Consequences of Child Abuse" and "Soul murdering" (about raising children with the Schreber-concept and the different results of this upbringing).

Altruism...

Harald Welzer.

[Tillägg 4 februari i slutet]. ]I ett läsarbrev på Millers webb finns ett brev från Olivier Maurel till socialpsykologen Harald Welzer (site in German only) som har skrivit boken "Gärningsmän - Hur helt vanliga människor blir massmördare" (vilken kommit ut på svenska och finns på förlag Daidalos). Lars Linder på DN har skrivit en recension eller artikel över boken (link to article in one of Sweden's biggest newspaper with review on Welzer's book, in Swedish).

Jag översätter större delen av brevet, snabbt och litet fritt (mina kursiveringar):

"Med stort intresse har jag läst er bok 'Gärningsmän - Hur helt vanliga människor blir massmördare' [på förlag Daidalos på svenska] på franska och har hittat många intressanta analyser, som har rättat till och korrigerat det jag redan visste från Browning och Goldhagen. Men på en avgörande punkt delar jag inte er syn. Jag är faktiskt förvånad att - som läsare av Alicer Millers 'För ditt eget bästa' [Har inte hunnit kolla titeln på svenska!], som också är nämnd i en fotnot - så refererar ni inte alls till vad hon har skrivit eller bevisat.

Hon skriver faktiskt i sin bok hur Tyskland [tyskarna] i början av 1900-talet vanligtvis levde under oket av ett auktoritärt, utvecklingshämmande sätt att uppfostra [!!! Som vi inte fick ifrågasätta och fortfarande inte får ifrågasätta!]. Det var kutym att slå barn nästan överallt i Europa och över hela världen, men Alice Miller visar på att grymhet och disciplin hade en särskild plats i det tyska sättet att uppfostra. Det är därför det är så förvånande att ni har lämnat detta utan övervägande.

Ni använder ofta termen 'normal' och 'de flesta normala människorna' - och redan detta i undertiteln till er bok - och ni strävar efter att demonstrera att dessa människor kan bli massmördare om omständigheterna så tillåter.

Men kan man karaktärisera människor som 'normala' vilka som barn måste uthärda grymheter från sina föräldrar och som inte fick ifrågasätta dem? De är förstås normala i så måtto att de anpassade sig till normerna för uppfostran som rådde då, men är de 'normala' om man jämför dem med barn som blev mötta och behandlade med respekt? Skulle ni anse djur normala - till exempel hundar eller hästar - om det hade blivit mirakulöst möjligt att deras föräldrar skulle ha behandlat dem med samma sorts våld som nästan alla tyska barn upplevde före nazi-tiden? Och detta under hela deras barndom och ungdom och ibland också efter sedan de kommit upp i åren? Skulle ni då inte säga att dessa djur hade blivit sjukgjorda och att de betedde sig onormalt? Idag är återverkningarna av uppfostrande våld bättre kända. Vi vet deras mångfaldigande likaväl som att slag, som föräldrar utdelar under slutförandet av hjärnan[s utveckling], blir inpäglat i dess djupaste skikt och påverkar det medfödda/naturliga beteendet hos barnet. /.../

Denna uppfostran ökar barnets potential för våld genom att tidigt ge det beteendemönster märkta av kallt och vredgat våld. Eftersom de är tvingade att aceptera slagen utan någon reaktion, ackumuleras raseri i dem vilket kommer att tagas ut på alla syndabockar som råkar vara tillgängliga [inklusive egna barn senare!!!]. Det har visats dem att våld mycket väl kan utdelas mot andra 'för deras eget bästa'. Med andra ord, gjorde det uppenbart för dem att detta är normalt och lämpligt - i någon slags abstrakt idé om 'godhet' - att tillfoga våld mot försvarslösa varelser [som inte kan försvara sig varken fysiskt eller med ord, och som också är kanske helt och totalt beroende].

I tillägg till detta så skadar detta förmågan till medkänsla [istället för motsatsen!!], vilket är ett av de bästa sätten att sätta stopp för våld. För att inte lida alltför mycket och även för att kunna överleva, måste slagna barn stänga av sig själva från sina känslor. Men genom att förhärda sig mot sina egna känslor. förhärdar de sig också mot känslor från andra; sålunda kan det inte förvåna att de senare är kapabla till kallblodigt mördande. Våldet under vilket de led, har också förstört den mest universella etiska principen, den gyllene regeln i dem att 'Allt vad ni vill att människorna skall göra för er, det skall ni också göra för dem. Det är vad lagen och profeterna säger' [Matt. 7:12, Bibel 2000. In English] därför att deras våldsamma föräldrar har lärt dem motsatsen. Detta våld har raderat ut den ursprungliga instinkten att skydda de unga, sin avkomma, därför att de måste uthärda sina föräldrars aggression från tidigt i livet. Är det då förvånande om de är kapabla att mörda barn kallblodigt och under krigsomständigheter och under stöd av en stöttande ideologi? [se den amerikanske neurobiologen Jonathan Pincus om samhälleligt bifall!!!].

Till slut har Alice Miller också bevisat att exakt samma känslor för vad som är etiskt rätt lika väl som för logiskt tänkande blir skadat/förstört [!!!Ja, även det logiska tänkandet blir skadat!!] hos slagna barn, som blev slagna för 'sitt eget bästa', därför att de associerar våld som någonting gott och accepterar denna motsägelse. Barn vars moralkategorier/moraluppfattning och intelligens har blivit skadad i sådan utsträckning kan då lyssna på de mest galna och skymfliga tal liknande dem Hitler och hans efterföljare höll, utan att protestera och till och med lyssna på dem med upprymdhet och segerglädje. Dessutom, vanan att lyda våldsamma bud, inlärda sedan tidig barndom, förbereder uppenbarligen människor för att underordna sig militär disciplin lika väl som våldsamma politiker som lockar fram minnet av faderlig disciplin och personlighet.

Av dessa anledningar tror jag inte att man kan hävda att massmördare var 'normala' mänskliga varelser, eller endast göra så mellan många citationstecken! Uppfostran i forna Jugoslavien, i Ruanda och Kambodja var också märkt av stort våld.

Att ni inte tog hänsyn till Alice Millers insikter/förståelse har förvånat mig inte mindre eftersom ni påstår - när ni för frågan om oberoende på tal - att 'förmågan till autonomi förutsätter upplevelsen av tillgivna band och av lycka'!

Känner ni till Samuel och Pearl Oliners studie om uppväxten hos mer än 400 'i nationen rättskaffens [människor]' vilka demonstrerade den mycket anmärkningsvärda förmågan att tänka och agera självständig [tror han syftar på 'Righteous People in the Holocaust.' by Samuel and Pearl M. Oliner, edited by Israel Charney, som kom 1989]? I deras svar framkommer följande punkter klart: de hade älskande föräldrar som lärde dem altruism (troligen mer genom att vara rollmodeller än genom sina tillrättavisningar), föräldrar vilka litade på dem och vilka gav dem en ickeauktoritär och ickeförtryckande uppfostran.

Enligt er är massmördare 'normala' människor, medan de 'rättskaffens' snarare är ovanliga personligheter /.../ Borde man inte fortsätta antagandet att dessa var ordinära, normala barn som blev verkligt normala vuxna därför att de växt upp på ett sätt som tog hänsyn till deras personlighet?

Men det som gör det så svårt att ta konsekvenserna av en våldsam uppfostran i beräkningen är faktumet att vi alla mer eller mindre har måst uthärda dylik uppfostran och att det är en av de första slutsatser man drar att den är den normala och fördelaktiga [för att skydda sig själv mot smärtan av insikten om hur det verkligen var!??]."

Jag tyckte det var ganska intressant att läsa att Maurel anser att älskande förädrar, som inte använder en auktoritär eller förtyckande metod att uppfostra sina barn lär sina barn altruism!! Vilket också innebär att egoism också är något som man lär av sina föräldrar?? Och jag tänker också på fenomen vi ser i samhället idag, som man öppet går ut med (nyliberaler som är anhängare av Ayn Rand inte minst. Jag sökte på inlägg om Ayn Rand och fick upp bland annat detta, detta och detta inlägg).

Se också bland annat Jonathan Pincus forskning om seriemördare (här alla inlägg under kategorin J.H. Pincus, 27 stycken!!).

Harald Welzer jobbar här. Se också Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research.

Mexikanskan María Pía Lara har också kommit med boken "Narrating Evil. A postmetaphysical theory of ­reflective judgment" (Columbia University Press), vilken Linder också nämner i sin artikel.

Olivier Maurel har bland annat skrivit boken "La Fessée" (La Plague, 2005) och han har skrivit denna som rapport till FN:s studie över våld mot barn??

Publikationer av Samuel och Pearl Oliner här. Se “Do Unto Others: Extraodinary Acts of Ordinary People” av Samuel Oliner (Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2003), om denna bok står det:

“This book explores what gives an individual a sense of responsibility, what leads to the development of care and compassion, and what it means to put the welfare of others ahead of one's own. Having been saved from the Nazis at age 12 as the result of one non-Jewish family's altruism, Oliner has made a lifelong study of the nature of altruism. Weaving together moving personal testimony and years of observation, Oliner makes sense of the factors that elicit altruistic behavior-exceptional acts by ordinary people in ordinary times.”

Video med Samuel Oliner se nedan. Se mer om de personer som nämnts i texten ovan här nedan (på engelska).

Jag skulle vilja skriva nästa inlägg om vad Pia Melody betraktar som kränkningar... För att kanske ytterligare öka insikten och förståelsen för hur barn upplever saker och för vad vi upplevde som kränkningar när vi var barn. För att vi på sikt ska förstå mer och mer om varför vi har de problem vi har...

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I translated almost the whole letter from Oliver Maurel to Harald Welzer above. You can read it in its origin at Miller's web, here.

I thought it was very interesting that Maurel wrote that he thinks altruism is something a child learns from his/her parents... And I think egoism must be taught too... Thought of all neoliberals having Ayn Rand as guru... I have only read about Rand at the net, bt what Ihave read so far and the ideas her followers hasn't appealed to me at all...

But first and foremost it means a lot to read about people questioning (and thus also condemning and viewing as wrong)and pinting out things, such as:

"an authoritarian, repressive educational manner /.../

...the repercussions of educational violence /.../

...the implementation of the brain, become impressed into its deepest layers and impact the innate behaviors of the child./.../

...this education impairs the ability for compassion, which is one of the most effective means to put a brake on violence. In order not to suffer too much or even in order to survive, beaten children must cut themselves off from their feelings. But by hardening themselves against their own emotions, they also harden themselves against the emotions of others; thus it cannot astonish that they later are capable of a cold-blooded murder. The violence, under which they suffered, has also destroyed within them for example the most profound and universal ethical principal, the golden rule: «Do not do unto others what you do not wish to be done to you» because their violent parents have taught them the opposite. This violence has erased within them the primal instinct to protect their young, their offspring, because they had to suffer their parents’ aggressions from their early childhood on./.../

Finally, Alice Miller has also proven that exactly the senses for what is ethically right as well as for logical thinking are damaged in beaten children who are beaten «for their own good» because they associate violence as something good and accept this contradiction. Children whose moral categories and intelligence have been damaged to such an extent can then listen, without protest or even with elation, to the most insane and outrageous speeches, like those of Hitler and his following. Furthermore, the habit to obey violent commands, learned since childhood, evidently prepares people to submit to military discipline as well as to violent politicians that call forth the memory of paternal discipline and personality./.../

...demonstrated the very remarkable ability to think and act for themselves? In their answers, the following points emerge clearly: they had loving parents who taught them altruism (probably more by being role-models than through their admonitions), who trusted them and who granted them a non-authoritarian and non-repressive education./.../

demonstrated the very remarkable ability to think and act for themselves? In their answers, the following points emerge clearly: they had loving parents who taught them altruism (probably more by being role-models than through their admonitions), who trusted them and who granted them a non-authoritarian and non-repressive education."

But I react at something in this text, as to Barbar Rogers introduction to this letter, as if what Welzer has written is some kind of abuse against Alice Miller personally, as if it is SHE that is hurt... Of course she can be on behalf of all of us who have been hurt, but there is a but... As the mother that became hurt!!?? Or how shall I express this? Alice Miller has done a lot, and mayb meant enormlously for this topic (mental health and illhealth) but isn' the main question child-abuse, and not Alice Miller and her feelings???

I have linked earlier postings and new sites... Many (most of them??) are in English.

I would like to write about what Pia Melody view as violations... Which can increase the understanding and insight for and about how children experience things, and for things it maybe had to suppress to survive...

See more about Samuel Oliner here and here (??).

photos on Samuel Oliner.

See excerpt from "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. And more about this book here. Goldhagen in his own words. His homesite and about him at Wikipedia.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.

About Christopher Browning at Wikipedia. The controversy between Goldhagen and Browning here and here for instance.

Addition February 4: see Alice Miller on the political consequences of child-abuse here.

Alice Miller wrote:

"But working toward a better, more aware future cannot be done in isolation from the ongoing attempt to understand our history in all its facets, for us as individuals and as society. The work started by Lloyd deMause and continued by him and other psychohistorians is to my knowledge the first systematic research in this direction.

The history of child-rearing might be more illuminating than many others in illustrating the dangers for society at large attendant on willful ignorance about child development. The ongoing research on babies from birth to three might be helpful for eventually overcoming this ignorance. It may enable some historians to raise more frequently the question raised for the first time by Lloyd deMause: what does it feel like to be an abused infant, without any enlightened witnesses?

Unfortunately, the early childhood of people who recently mercilessly killed in Rwanda has not yet become an issue for psychological or sociological investigation.

But should empathic psychohistorians once become interested in finding out and describing the atmosphere of the first years of the killer's life, they could probably be able to explain some of the events that still seem inexplicable."

Crying...

sleeping baby, and not sleeping in a parent's arms...

[Updated in the end January 28]. I thought further on the former topic when I did other things and wondered if Ingeborg Bosh hadn't written anything about perfectionism. I didn't find anything on that though (skimmed the book very swiftly), but I found something else, instead; about crying (at page 132 in her book "Rediscovering The True Self"). And about honoring all feelings and letting our children express their feelings. She writes that:

"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.'

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."

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.

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.

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About Michael Commons' and Patrice Miller's (I am not 100 % sure I ave linked the right persons) findings see the article "Cry it out". And "Children Need Touch and Attention" here and here. The same text though an all these sites??

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?

The Swedish ban on corporal punishment...

On the Children's ombudsman's site you can read about the Corporal Punishment Ban. There it stands:

"Corporal punishment was first banned in the Swedish grammar schools in 1927.

Similar legislation was passed for elementary schools in 1958 and banned totally in 1962 in the Education Act. By 1966, parents and those responsible for children were forbidden from hitting their children.

A corporal ban Ten years later, a decision in a court case concerning a father assaulting his three-year-old daughter was widely discussed. The case initiated a number of private member´s bills in the Swedish parliament concerning the need for an explicit prohibition of chastisement, but it wasn’t until 1979 that the Swedish Parliament adopted a bill, with 256 MPs voting for and 6 MPs voting against. The arguments against were that the proposal was unnecessary and even dangerous.

By removing the rights for parents to chastise the child, many well-meaning parents would be stamped as criminals and many children would never learn to behave. But one of the MPs said; 'In a free democracy like our own, we use words as arguments, not blows. We talk to people and do not beat them. If we can´t convince our children with words, we shall never convince them with violence'.

This has become a rather famous statement in Sweden and one, of which it is not very easy to oppose. The ban is now an act within Chapter 6 in the Parenthood and Guardianship Code, which expressively forbids physical punishment and degrading treatment. 'Children are entitled to care, security and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and may not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment.'

The Criminal Code The Code of Parenthood and Guardianship in which one finds the law against chastising children is a civil law as opposed to the Criminal code. This means that the prohibition to use corporal punishment is not in itself sanctioned. It´s the Criminal Code that decides whether or not an offence has been committed, but also that it is judged under the same rules which apply when adults commits acts of physical violence to adults or other people´s children.

The Criminal Code states that anyone who causes another person physical injury, illness or pain or other harmful condition is to be convicted to a fine or prison up to two years. (Up to ten years if the crime is to be considered as severe, for example if the victim is a child).

When comparing figures from other countries, including the Nordic countries, we find that corporal punishment towards children is lower in Sweden. This seems above all to concern less serious and average forms of corporal punishment whilst more serious forms, such as blows with a blunt object may still be as common as in other Nordic countries.

Shifts in attitude We know that there has been a shift in attitude and opinion in Sweden on corporal punishment and that it started even before the law was effective. The Swedish Institute for Statistics has regularly investigated attitudes in the population towards corporal punishment.

In 1965, 53% were positive towards corporal punishment of children, 1968-42%, 1971-35%, 1981-26% and 1994-11%.

Hence, today in Sweden probably less than 10% are positive to the use of corporal punishment. The younger population is much less in favour of using physical punishment than elder generations. This shows that the ban is widely supported and well known in Sweden even amongst young children.

In 1979, a special brochure was sent out to every household in the country, explaining the anti spanking ban and how to bring up children with other methods than physical punishment. The brochure was translated into several different languages.

Statistics prove that corporal punishment as a way of upbringing has substantially decreased. When comparing figures in interviews with parents between the years 1980 and 2000, the results show, that corporal punishment has decreased significantly, especially in regard to striking a child with ones fist, with a blunt object or giving the child a so called 'good hiding'.

The figures are in accordance with results from two other studies on intermediate-level pupils and twenty year-olds submitted by the Parliamentary Committee against Abuse towards Children. This means, that forceful corporal punishment, which may potentially harm the child, also has decreased significantly.

On the other hand, concerning serious and unusual forms of corporal punishment, such as threats or the use of knives or firearms, the level shows no decrease. One reason could be, that malignant forms of corporal punishment, most often is part of a strong deviant behaviour in the adult as a result of mental illness or a case of abnormality or flaw in the character- personality features which are probably very little affected by general changes of attitude in society.

Uncertainty As more and more people tend to report child abuse, it has become somewhat confusing as to whether child abuse in Sweden in reality has increased during the last decades. We know that much of the violence, which was 'invisible' in the past, now has come out into the open, but thanks to education, information about the anti-spanking law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, awareness has increased in society concerning children’s needs and violence towards children.

Today, institutions like schools and day-care centres including professional groups, which come into contact with children, have a mandatory obligation to report if they consider that a child is at risk and in need of support from the social welfare system. The conclusion therefore, is that the increase of reports of child abuse is an effect of increased awareness, rather than an increase of actual violence towards children.

Complex area This is a complex area that has to be put in its right context. The issue of child abuse and neglect is not only relevant to changes in legislation, but also to the changes in society that have occurred, during more than twenty years of existing legislation.

There are groups of children who are deprived and in vulnerable situations and families where child abuse and neglect is more or less a constant element. These kinds of families will probably occur in any society regardless of corporal punishment bans."

Someone wondered over our history; with the Vikings, the brutal robbers, traveling around the world frightening the life out of people... And now the change to the so seemingly peaceful Swedes...

No, Sweden hasn't been in war the last 200 years as someone else pointed out... But are said to be more suicidal than many other people. I don't know if this is true actually. But if so, why?

Things I think are grounded in child-rearing-practices. Are we more self-blaming? More prone to self-blame, what Ingeborg Bosch calls the Primary defence?

And the truth about the Vikings?? At the Historiska Museum in Stockholm site it stands:

“The Vikings are possibly best known as brutal robbers. Today there are many pictures and stories about the Vikings. They describe how they travelled around the world frightening the life out of people. This is not the true story of the Vikings.

The Vikings were mostly peaceful traders. However, most of the people who lived in the Nordic Countries during this period were not Vikings. They were farmers, hunters and craftsmen. The exhibition does include weapons, but it also includes thousands of objects which give a different picture, telling the story of everyday activities, religious beliefs and family life.”

In this program they talk about

“…a new, less barbarian image of the Norsemen based on recent archaeological investigations.”

“Who Were the Vikings?
For centuries—indeed, ever since Viking raiders savagely attacked England's Lindisfarne monastery in A.D. 793—the Vikings have seemed to many to have been little more than blue-eyed barbarians in horned helmets. But archeological investigations of Viking sites stretching from Russia to Newfoundland have revealed a more human (if not altogether humane) side to the Viking character./…/

William Fitzhugh, curator in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, says the Vikings were far from simply brutish barbarians in horned helmets.”

Two more sites about the Vikings; The Viking Museum in Lofoten, Norway, and “Vikings – the North Atlantic Saga”.