A physician’s conscience – more on the Nanny-pedagogy and demands on harder grips…

"In TV-programmes like 'The Supernanny' children are taught to do as the parents say – without understanding why. This sort of 'poisonous pedagogy' goes against an upbringing characterized by humanism."

[Slightly updated August 18]. Threats and punishments are not the recipe to get more order in the school and in the homes the physician Lars H. Gustafsson means. He is critical to the ”neoauthoritarian movement.” And says that he sees a trend where it is said that children shall learn to obey and follow the grown ups’ order.

He is worried for a return to old times where children and adolescents were taught to obey for to get away from punishment(s) (something they didn’t get away from how much they even tried I think).

This kind of treatment (with punishments) can lead to that we get “obedient soldiers” without personal responsibility to lean back on in difficult situations Gustafsson says. Blind obedience (and what has such obedience led to?).

My addition: and probably also people with a need for revenge and for to punish other, weaker, people!! And today the society approves of this too!!! Why do so many approve of this? And see what the American neurologist Jonathan H. Pincus writes in the chapter “Hitler and Hatred” in his book “Base Instinct – What Makes Killers Kill.”

Gustafsson (who has been working as child and school physician) says that it has become more and more common with being put in the corner. But today this is called something else: put on “timeout benches” or “rowdyism mats.” Benches and mats where kids have to sit for a couple of minutes (or more) if they have done something “wrong.” Nobody really asks (or dares to??) ask seriously why children are behaving as they are!! And call punishments as the right method in question!! If this maybe isn’t more of the same.

And in the British TV-programme ”Supernanny”, which is sent in Sweden too, the parents are taught to use a “naughty chair” where the kids are placed if they aren’t doing as the parents say.

People supporting methods like these are probably defending methods that once (severely) harmed themselves, but this is too painful to admit to. They had to believe this was done for their own good and thus they are probably the strongest advocates for methods like these, and this is really horrible and very tragic. And even more horrible when they get power positions, the higher the worse (as becoming ministers in governments, or leaders for schools etc.).

And why do they get those positions? Why don't more people oppose to this? Is it because so many have been badly treated as children in turn? And not only by grown ups around them, but not least at home? I think that IF we grew up under ideal circumstances we would be more immune (or even totally immune) to later bad treatment, or recover quicker from later bad treatment. But such ideal circumstances don't exist? But this is no excuse for not trying to improve our treatment of kids. With that ideal circumstances don't exist. And for anyone (therapist, psychologist even less) to say that "Each generation has to recapture its own." Because the recovery is so hard, so we should try to avoid as much as possible from the first beginning. Even though recovery is possible to that degree so you can live a decent life. But in too man cases with A LOT OF hard work! A work that COULD have been unneccesary. And should be unneccesary.

Instead of passing this forward those people should get help to call their own experiences in question by a society that started to talk much more openly than is the case about those things. And we ought to be a much more enlightened society today really. But it seems to be a backlash in the whole society (all over the world) not only in this respect, but when it comes to human rights and respect for each other in all.

Of course programmes of this kind influences the debate in Sweden and how grownups are behaving towards kids Gustafsson means (but why were they accepted from the first beginning I wonder???). The last years many licensed programs for education of parents with the roots in the same philosophy have become introduced in Sweden. They are building on the same thoughts on tighter reins and a firm discipline.

He refers to older times when corporal punishment strengthened the verbal imposing of shame. Children were also confined in the own room, in a basement storage space or a dark wardrobe to think over its sins!!! What ”sins” I wonder??

The child advocate Andrew Vachss thinks that

“...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.”

"Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection."

To avoid the pain of such bad treatment we tend to use defense strategies, for instance by blaming ourselves, and thinking it’s something wrong with us, instead of calling the received treatment in question. And by this we tend to reenact the same thing with those with less power than we have later, and think we are doing this “for their own good”!!

Gustafsson says further that the darkness in the wardrobe should remind us of how dark we were in our souls. And even in homes that were more humane there existed “whining-wardrobes.”

Gustafsson says that he becomes sad when he hears all the demands on more order in school and home, all the talk about rougher treatment and punishments as the solution to (all) problems. But this is something that permeates the whole society is my addition!!! To moralize and put yourself on high horses.

We are on our way to return hundred years back in time he thinks. I agree.

A personal conscience isn’t created through demands on order and discipline, through orders to feel more empathy and understanding for other people. Such things can only grow from inside! Yes, I agree, through genuinely respectful treatment of children from the first beginning of their lives. But you CAN recover later, if you meet people that are able to confirm you and show you what true, genuine respect and love is. And we CAN become more respectful in our way of meeting young people, but it’s probably a very painful work.

The examples on how bad things can turn with peoples’ consciences through an upbringing built on threats and punishments are in fact many. But we don’t really discuss them or talk about them!!!?? We still believe that some people are born evil (or at least with bad genes).

Right to the WWII the German school (and the treatment at home) was characterized by blind discipline (see about blind obedience and its consequences), where threats and punishments were pedagogical tools for creating obedient students. Those young people later defended their support and cooperation in the Holocaust with that they only obeyed order.

And their suppressed anger (from the early treatment) got an outlet in the annihilation of Jews etc.

The personal conscience can never become formed via threats and punishments. And therefore the blend of new and old views on the bringing up of children that is growing stronger and stronger in Sweden is unfortunate he thinks. I would say it’s horrible. What sort of human beings are created by this way of treating young people – and very small children??

We should instead settle account with our own individual and personal history to the degree that is possible, but yes, this work is a tough work for many, many because of the pain that such treatment caused in our early childhood. To recover from such treatment is a hard work in many cases. And isn't this a reason as good as any to treat kids better?

And that people became harmed has nothing to do with a special vulnerability, i.e. the roots don’t lie in some genes that makes us more sensitive than other people (and by the way; is sensitivity bad).

And what sort of problems, and to what degree we get problems later in life from those early experiences, has with how badly treated we were and if we had the luck or not to encounter one or more person that could help us realize on some level that we were bad and unfairly treated by people who in fact didn’t show love, and not with genes I think (but it's eaier to blame genes than our parents or their substitutes). But we had to believe that they (our early caregivers) loved us and did what they did for our own good.

And it’s awful when people act this out - in politics for instance, as I think happens today, with our current government and (too many of) its supporters...

Addition after lunch: see about Corporal Punishment in the United States of America; Number of Students Receiving Corporal Punishment, by State School Year: 2006-2007, and Number of Students Receiving Corporal Punishment, by State School Year: 2006-2007 (students with an without disabilities).

Addition August 18: And how is it with emotional punishment (and manipulation)? Why is manipulation needed?

See what Alice Miller writes about conscious and unconscious manipulation in therapy for instance.

And also see the interview "Violence Kills Love: Spanking, the Fourth Commandmentand the Suppression of Authentic Emotions."

Only students that are thriving and feeling well are learning anything of value...

Quickly: Two books in one of my book clubs looked interesting, both written by the Swedish child and school physician Lars H. Gustafsson.

About the first “Student health starts in the classroom” you can read (in my amateur translation from Swedish):

“Only students that are thriving and feeling well are learning anything of value.”

Gustafsson writes about the school’s ability to meet students in a warm, emphatic and at the same time well-informed way.

One chapter is about the conception “normality” – what’s actually “normal” concerning children?

Do children with needs for special support get the support they need and are entitled to he also wonders. And are those at the same time allowed to stay in the community?

He also wonders how the school can shape or mold what a good community governed by law is in practice and about the importance of close and confiding cooperation between students, parents and the school’s staff.

In the other book “Guiding children” he is discussing different forms of bringing up of children; the more authoritarian shouting for more rules and order and a more democratic building on mutual respect and where the adult acting as a guide for the child.

My addition: I don’t think the child (any child) is born evil or with destructive or self destructive drives. If it acts in that way it has reasons. The environment ought to be prepared to hear about those things and deal with them. But if there are no or few such people in the child’s environment I hope the net can confirm those kids and tell them that what was done was wrong!!!

And here is Lars H. Gustafsson’s blog! And see this article about the Nanny-pedagogy and poisonous pedagogy (in Swedish).

Corporal punishment of children and other forms of abuse are prohibited by law...

picture from Stockholm.

The Swedish ban on corporal punishment celebrated its thirty year existence yesterday.

The Swedish Children's ombudsman writes on his blog about the ban and its anniversary:

A politician said in the debate preceding the ban:

”In a democracy as ours we use words as arguments, not blows. We talk to people and don't beat them. If we can't convince our children with words we can never convince them with violence.”

Thirty years ago, just before the ban, almost 50 percent of the children in Sweden were beaten by their parents. Today one of ten children are beaten. This is a revolutionary change. More and more countries follow in Sweden's footsteps and introduce prohibition against corporal punishment.

At the same time we can't be satisfied until ALL parents have insight, understanding and knowledge to avoid violating and abusing children. Still many thousands of children experience violence in the family, directly or indirectly.

Therefore the best way to celebrate these thirty years, with the law against corporal punishment, is to remind ourselves and others about why the law is there and that it is of an enormous interest today too, ie., it's very important today too. And will always be important.

Parents in exposed situations have to get support and methods to manage their parental responsibility. Children have to get knowledge about their rights. And we have to remind that the law is prohibiting physical violence, but ALSO that other forms of abusive treatment, as imposing shame on the child or isolating the child on its room, methods that sometimes are maintained in 'Nanny-program'' also are prohibited.

See the facebook-cause "To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Swedish ban on corporal punishment."

Old authoritarian raising methods are coming back…

Torment written by Ingmar Bergman.

[Updated and a little edited during the whole day]. From an article "Björklund more and more resembles a politician's Caligula" in which you can read that, with some right you can say that, Sweden’s leading school pedagogues are raging against the government’s school politics, or the lack of such politics:

The one and only solution are Nanny-ideals; more discipline, more grades, more tests. Something sounding like “the good old school, from the good old time”: the teacher standing in the teacher’s desk, pointers, chalk and detentions quite ironically.

On Wednesday Sweden’s current school minister Jan Björklund debated these things with the pedagogy professor Mats Ekholm in a morning sofa on TV (you can watch this debate here till March 18 2009 only).

Ekholm namely delivered a petition on the rigths of children to the school minister earlier this week, a petition that was sharply expressed.

All sorts of people (pedagogues, psychologists, grandparents, people in all sorts of occupations - and from abroad) have signed it protesting against the current government’s school politics. A reaction from the initiative takers of the petition leaning on decades of school studies, all showing the same thing, namely that demands only and slavish discipline doesn’t lead anywhere. My addition: probably causes problems instead, problems that can come much later too.

My comment: And it wasn’t much better earlier either according to a book about a study from the fifties on the discipline problems in the school then! Maybe these problems were of another kind then though, but discipline problems in the school are definitely not new!

It was long since one saw such a totally uninterested and arrogant politician in TV the author of the article wrote. Björklund openly derided the critics, cited deliberately the petition wrongly, ascribed Ekholm opinions he hasn’t expressed. Björklund lied casually for the viewers.

Ekholm and his colleagues are worried about the current societal climate and the climate of debate about children. Opinions, ideas and behaviors from people in power that has become more and more strict and a talk about the school and kids without nuances, about politicians in our current government talking about more punishments, new forms of being put in the corner for instance even though they are called something else (in a hope that this would cover what it's about up?).

According to the author of the article Björklund didn’t want any talk; he just wanted to pass his simple populist message to anxious parents forward; children need a steady hand, now we will get order. He knows that such messages go home in people. “Fuck pedagogy!”

And what was worse was that he didn’t seem to understand what use an intellectual talk about those things has. He didn’t even understand the problem formulation according to the article.

The author of the article thinks Björklund’s patronizing, superior politician style will become his flop sooner or later (my addition: it was authoritarian and arrogant!). Yes, I certainly hope so. To listen isn’t what he is best at.

See more about this petition in the earlier posting "Nanny-methods nothing for a democratic school...",

Addition just before lunch: And also see ”The obedience culture or ‘well intentioned’ violence…”; violence can be of other natures too, not only obvious, visible violence in form of spanking, but also in form of emotional abuse - and disrespect. See Andrew Vachss on this theme:

“...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.”

"Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection."

And also see what Alice Miller’s for instance say, in the posting “Child abuse and politics…”

Now I have seen the talk on TV. Here are my notes: Björklund spoke about what’s “best for the children”! I was just taken aback with astonishment. Yes, he believes he is doing those things “for their own good”! And too many people think he is right, sounds reliable.

He also used the words or notions "order, peace and calmness" in school. And I don’t know if it was the programme leader or I who wondered

“But why ISN’T there calmness and peace? (And are, a little, noisy classrooms ALWAYS bad???)”

Then Ekholm tried to point out that a Markus Samuelsson has made a dissertation showing that it IS peaceful and calm in the schools and/or that many teachers CAN deal with things (with some exceptions. In the bottom of the linked site you find an abstract about his dissertation in English, and here is more information on this dissertation and its findings).

The topic or discussion why there isn’t peace and calm, when it in fact isn't, never comes up! And not either if it can be something good with children daring to talk, doing this frankly and openly! Or if we can (ought) to handle it (IF it is disturbing) without “stick and carrot” but in other ways! By the way, teachers over the world are reacting at the neoliberal winds in the school and what those mean for the school and all those working there (children and grown ups)!!

What outlook on children does Björklund have? Björklund has been talking about the importance of children getting “knowledge” in school. But he himself demonstrates the opposite; that he doesn’t respect findings from researchers and “people who knows”! And that he isn’t even familiar with what he is talking about (that he isn't familiar with school research for instance, i.e. the knowledge that in fact IS there!).

Ekholm tried to say that it’s important that we on a system-level have proper knowledge about how children are functioning (in different situations and respects, and that we want to learn more about this, MY addition).

Ekholm also tried to raise the topic what sort of public talk we ought to pursue in our/the society (a much more nuanced!!??), but with very little result or feedback from the school minister.

A retired university teacher, Pia Hellerz said something about frightening and alarming tendencies in our society, mirored in the school and the school politics, how we see children and the school and it's purpose. To use methods like disciplining, early grades and other control measures is to simplify for oneself she meant. So true!

And on top, Björklund said quite frankly that how the parents are raising their kids at home isn’t the politicians’ duty! They have nothing with this to do! With this he said, in my feeling and interpretation, that nobody (not we private people either belonging to the society too) except the parents have anything to do with how they are raising their kids.

What he is saying (as I see it) is that CHILDREN ARE PARENTS' PROPERTIES! But all adults, be it politicians or other people in the society, have the duty to speak up on behalf of other peoples' children when and if a child is badly treated, whether it's his/her own or another person's child, and certainly if a parent is treating his/her child badly (if we recognize this at all!!?? And not all do. We rather tend to minimize and belittle abuse, probably a lot of emotional, and both subtle and obvious abuse)!

But how parents are raising their kids are certainly their kids' business however!!??

Ekholm tried to squeeze in that he wishes we raise the demands even more on showing more consideration to children! Not the opposite! He didn’t get any response on this either from the school minister.

Yes, we ought to, IF we can! And why can’t we?

Albert Einstein:

"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world."

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us the 'universe',
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings,
as something separate from the rest -
a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

We need to treat children with respect from the first beginning. But how should we actually handle a child showing disrespect? Who probably shows what he/she has been exposed to? Because how a child behaves is no mystery!? With treating it with more of the same? Is that the solution?

See Andrew Vachss in “You Carry the Cure In Your Own Heart. Emotional abuse of children can lead, in adulthood, to addiction, rage, a severely damaged sense of self and an inability to truly bond with others. But—if it happened to you—there is a way out.”