More on discipline…

[Edited March 19]. Some loud thoughts around the following concepts: Conformity and discipline are killers for creativity. Compassion.

The kind of discipline the current minister of education in Sweden is “recommending” is a kind that kills. Killing not only creativity, but other things, as maybe for instance compassion. And it is also lack of compassion and love it expresses, even if the ones exercising it probably claim the opposite (I think the Nanny-programmes are recommending highly manipulative things too).

This is what poisonous pedagogy is about?

Grown up fury and rage in a grown up is something else than the child’s fury and rage in a grown up?

And leveling fury and rage at scapegoats only gives temporary relief. You have to direct the anger and fury at the true, real, original source to truly and really heal and to really recover.

But there are different sorts of “discipline”: a self chosen and one that is forced upon you. You can work hard for something you really, truly and genuinely want and feel for, in that way discipline you (is discipline an adequate word in this case though?).

The health and the school, politics, young people, genuine respect…

[Updated November 18, 19, 20 and 23].

The former director-general for “The Swedish National Institute for Public Health”, Gunnar Ågren, in the interview “Children’s health says more than the grades” in one of my teacher’s papers. In an interview where he says that a school that produces healthy kids also gives (or creates) good learning results.

I have blogged about this in Swedish, here my amateur translation to English.

A short background to the school in Sweden today: Our school-minister (or minister of education) wants to reintroduce grades (or marks) from the first class in school here. And he wants more discipline in school... He says the school is so noisy and that Swedish kids can't compete with students in many other parts of the world. Something that isn't true. We CAN compete.

However, he is proved to be wrong in many of the things he has been claiming to make his changes authorized.

And I want to add that I dislike his politics from deep, deep in my heart. The strange thing is that he is the leader for the Liberal party here in Sweden! Aren't liberals for freedom? Do young people have to earn freedom??

Here my free translation of this interview and my earlier posting in Swedish:

Ågren says that the teacher’s profession has turned from a health-profession to a risk-profession. The cuts (in economy) during the former decade in school (and the rest of the society), termed the steel-bath, worsened the teachers’ health considerably. Today the teachers are still a roughly pressured group he judges.

Many see the school as an instance that has to solve a row of societal problems/questions (with fewer and fewer resources). Does this create a too great pressure on the teachers the interviewer wonders?

The teacher’s work is no enviable work today Ågren replies.

There are an enormous amount of people having opinions about the school. Unfortunately there is a tendency to tackle problems with separate projects – like against mobbing, drugs an so on.

We ought to see the totality and synergy effects instead he thinks. Yes, I agree!!

In a school where the students get on well and thrive, and have influence on things (the same things grown up need on their workplaces!), a good learning follows - and there a drug preventive milieu is created too, Ågren adds (he has worked with drug questions/problems).

Addition November 18: The point with health promoting work is that it walks hand in hand with a good pedagogical work. A teacher who is a good pedagogue in a subject is the healthiest teacher for the students Ågren says.

But how does one define a “good” teacher? What is a good teacher?

“…it’s good for the health to have a say in things, to have influence over ones daily work situation – how one arrange ones job. At the same time it is important with clear and unambiguous, unequivocal structures. It’s much about good living habits. More and more data point to that physical activity influences the psychic health.”

And this is true both when it comes to children as when it comes to adult people, having a say in things, having influence over ones situation and possibilities to exert influence on ones situation.

What about actual visions for what sort of society, school, yes, workplaces on the whole we want to create? See an article below by Hanna Hallin about politics and to attract young people.

Did the chicken or the egg come first when it comes to the question if one devotes oneself to physical activity? The more secure/safe and more socially well-established you are the more energy and strength you have for psychical activity?

A leader writer here actually wrote about this the other day, that this ultimately is a question of class. The one with more power over his/her life has bigger chances and possibilities to for instance escape overweight.

However, the sole responsibility is put on the individual (by the society, that is “all other people”), and of course each one of us has responsibility for ourselves, but the leader writer thinks this is even more a political problem; how the society, work as well as leisure time shall become organized, so we and our bodies feel well, psychically and physically.

My addition: all "shall" and "must" causes stress! Hm, I myself is very much well organized? Efficient? And very spontaneous and impatient! But I can see the potential stress...

The interviewer asked Gunnar Ågren about the biggest challenge for teachers today. Ågren replies that he thinks it is the increasing psychic ill health among students and the pressure tremendously many children feel.

The problem comes when the students finish the school he thinks.

Today it isn’t enough that the students work enormously hard, they feel an insecurity nevertheless for the future. This creates a too big competition in the school.

“I am convinced this is the most important cause to the increasing ill health among children and adolescents.”

he says. Do they feel that they are good enough from the beginning? That they are loved just as they are?

The interviewer asks what Ågren thinks about grade-liking opinions from the first year in school (we haven’t had grades in school from the first year for over 40 years I think, and I think we have achieved quite well despite this, when it comes to education and educated people managing quite okay and capable of competing with people from other parts of the world, if it shall be about competing, but that’s another discussion and topic!!).

“I am very hesitant,”

Ågren replies.

“There is no real evidence they should make the school better. On the contrary I can see a row of potentially negative effects. They probably contribute to demoralising certain students on a much earlier stage, so that they don’t experience the school as meaningful.”

How well said. I agree with him! No, what does our current government know what they are doing???

We ought to discuss entirely different solutions to problems in the school!! And above all become united in visions for what sort of society we want to create (if that’s possible or desirable maybe?) or at least what sort of school and maybe also what sort of other institutions for all our best, i.e., create belief in the future among all our young people – and among ALL people! Again see the article I am going to refer to below by a Hanna Hallin!

Addition November 19: Ågren was asked about the so called ANT-education (education about the effects and dangers with drugs) in the school, if it reduces the risk for addiction and how the school maybe could work instead.

He says that they have seen that solely spreading knowledge doesn’t influence the students drinking. Objective information can in the worst case lead to that the students want to try instead of the opposite. However, this shouldn’t be taken as an argument to give up information – it’s important as a base he thinks.

But he adds that it has been shown that if the school is well structured, if it intervenes against truancy, if it has an accepted system of rules, a well thought-out policy concerning alcohol and a close cooperation with the parents – then the risk that the students drink alcohol and use drugs reduces too. They feel less tempted to break rules if they get on well in the milieu they are in.

This is valid for all people, children as adults!?

But why do people resort to drugs in the first place? Are there things we ought to inform about much more strikes me when I am writing this? About what child abuse of different kinds causes. Including informing parents about all this. Informing them already before they get children and during the pregnancy.

Ågren also spoke about something called “The School provide guard against” emphasizing the method “social and emotional learning.” This is about practical psychology; seeing other people’s reactions and learning to express emotions in a more nuanced way.

But why don’t we see other people's reactions in the first place? And why do we need to learn how to express emotions in a more nuanced way in the first place? Were we born this way? I don't think we were. Should we have done something so we didn’t need this education rather? And how do the so called experts deal with already harmed individuals actually? Only (trying to) relearning the harmed? How successful is this method? Do the experts want to hear the truth(s)? Quite ironically.

So fewer people needed this education? So we functioned better together in all sorts of situations and relations. In a more genuine way.

Yes, Alice Miller writes about traditional moral…

Addition November 20: Gunnar Ågren about the most important they have done in the area the school is during his time on The Institute for Public Health:

“We have done a great achievement concerning support to parents. A revolution has almost been done concerning programs directed at parents. The parents are the most important force for adolescents’ health, even if some [parents] are capitulating and say that comrades and teachers are more important.”

Can this be used as an alibi by parents I came to wonder. Quite ironically in fact. Something I have heard among colleagues with children above all. A way of resigning from ones responsibility. It feels good hearing the parents are the most important force.

But this doesn’t mean that the school and other instances don’t have a responsibility too for young people. Here it’s not about an either/or!?

Ågren further on this topic:

“You can’t have different norm-systems in the home and at school. If the parents have a false idea they shall soften the children’s’ alcohol habits by offering them alcohol, it doesn’t matter if the school says that the students shall wait till they are 18 years. The school and the parents have to have the same policy.”

Addition November 23: Evin Rubar (who made the film "Scapegoats, see below) has also made a film about the alcohol habits in Sweden, "Don't touch (take) my dram."

She came to Sweden as a 8 year old child and reacted with discomfort at her friends parents alcohol use. It looks as she wasn't used to these habits from where she came (Kurdistan?).

Rubar got the idea of making this film when she sat at a sushi-restaurant in Stockholm. A girl, seven or eight years, was there in company with a man in his forties. She was drinking Fanta (soda) to the food and he drank wine, two glasses. But the girl wanted him to drink soda too and when he ordered a whiskey after the food she asked the waiter to dilute the whiskey. He wasn't drunk at all, but it was the girl's reaction that gave Rubar the idea of making this film, recalling her early reactions too. She wanted to explore this topic and her feeling as a child more.

Recently they have also sent a TV-film here "Enraging kids", about old raising-methods that are on their way back in Sweden - and the world. Yes, it was this with Nanny-programs. I don't manage to watch them even. I dislike them intensely and from deep in my heart. Also see later posting about this.

At last about underestimating young people, and about winning votes on uniting and not dividing and ruling, apropos the American election and that the participation in the election was higher than it uses to, not least among young people if I understood this right: There was an article in a paper here with the heading "Obama's victory - a lesson for Swedish politicians"!

In which a Hanna Hallin, chair-woman for Sweden's youth-organizations (LSU), writes about the importance of being seen as a human being and citizen irrespectively from background, resources or age! Being someone to count on, who can make a difference and who deserves confidence.

A human being who can engage other human beings on their own terms, on their own arenas and with their own ideas, will probably become their new candidate. Yes, by showing real, genuine respect.

This change is possible in Sweden too, and is an exhortation to Swedish politicians.

---

And also see about "The Scapegoats" about problems in the school in our third biggest city Malmö in the south of Sweden and a letter to Alice Miller about this.

Child abuse...

How can one leave this child on its own?? This is child abuse! And nothing to laugh at! Why do people laugh at this? Leaving a child crying and screaming like this is cruel, seen from the child's point of view.

Why is discipline even, or ever, needed, positive or negative, in the first place?? Why does a child react in this way?

See this reader's mail on Alice Miller's website, I just have to quote:

“Dear Alice Miller. Yesterday I watched a Swedish documentary about immigrant children who are a huge problem at school because of their aggressive behaviour and I thought about what you've claimed so many times. The title of the documentary was called ‘The scapegoats’. They were rebels at their school, and teachers were truly afraid of them. Some of the boys even set the school on fire at some point and they were making the place a living hell for the teachers and pupils. This was loudly debated in Sweden some time ago, ‘what to do’...and of course people and politicians would make these worst 20 boys or so the scapegoats. It became so very obvious to me what you've been saying all the time, and the documentary was also angling the problem from a ‘good place’, taking the boys side. They wanted to explore the reasons for the rebellions and destructive behaviour and they found it all right! The boys were all abused at home by their parents, and hit for every mistake or ‘wrong-doing’. The vicious circle was this: They were abused at home and then they took the rage out on teachers and other pupils because in Sweden it is forbidden to use any kind of violence towards a child, and then they knew it was ‘safe’ to act out their rage just as it presented itself to them. The school often ‘had to’ contact their parents and then they would be hit again of course and be more enraged. And this completed the vicious circle. A psychologist/scientist explained very well what he believed himself was the problem. He said that we're not taking it seriously, we're surrendering to that these immigrants have their own culture and that somehow their children are not like the ethnical Swedish ones and we hesitate to interfere because there would be so MANY complaints/so many files...etc.. This was exactly what he himself had been thinking at some point when he was confronted with the social workers' problems of coping. But he said that EVERY child has the right to be protected from their abusive parents not matter ‘culture’. This was also the answer a Muslim family therapist gave. He said that the parents had to learn something new and to understand what they are really doing to their children when they use violence. We always tend to find quick solutions, the laziest ones, so we can protect ourselves from taking responsibility. The children (aged 15-18) were interviewed and asked what they had experienced and their thoughts about it. Almost everybody was totally sure that they would smack their own children because they were convinced that violence is the answer to cope. Only one of the boys was emotional when he spoke of the violence he'd experienced, tears came to his eyes as he spoke and this boy was one of the very few who when asked the question if he would hit his own children said. ‘NEVER’. These boys were used as scapegoats at their homes and then again by the school and society. It was heart-breaking to me, also because I understood my own blindness, my OWN lack of empathy with myself only if it was only in a glimpse. How I've unconsciently done the same thing to myself, never let myself speak up against the violence I experienced. I saw myself in these boys who'd accepted the fact that they had to carry their parents' burden. I could not only see it but feel it, and that is something new to me. Anyway I wanted to share this experience, and also thank you for your great books and your hard work to reveal the truth. I'm too totally convinced that it is possible to change the world if every country would follow Sweden in their striving to never become complacent about children's rights even if some politicians from time to time want to create scapegoats and segregation. It also became clear to me emotionally that fear and suppressed rage is the reason for creating scapegoats. ALWAYS. And how easy it is to fall into delusions over and over again if I do not dare to question my own attitudes. And then I'm left with the question when did that fear enter my own family? It is clear that at some point somebody chose to lie in stead of being compassionate. Then it all comes down to a choice.”

I blogged about the TV-programme mentioned above in the end of November last year, see "The Scapegoats..."

Contradictions and confusions…

Some thoughts on the bike to work, threw those words down quickly on paper when I came to work, before the first student. I write them down here almost as I wrote them down this morning:

Limit setting for children are hotter than ever again, but letting the market totally free is ok, absolutely nothing wrong with or anything to worry about. Children, on the contrary, need restrictions, restrictions for instance the market doesn’t need. How would it be if children didn't get restrictions? Where would it end? Or it's for "their own good" and the world's good? Those children will grow up to good citizens, capable of handling and managing a free market or something?

Liberals are talking about freedom in one circumstance, but discipline in another.

Integrity – what about?

Respect – what about?

True, genuine respect and capacity to that sort of respect…

Freedom for who? And whose freedom?

Confused (and confusing) liberals here at least can’t really point to proofs or explain where they have got things from. Relying on their feelings?? At the same time as they can be depreciating and belittling other peoples’ feelings! And claiming other peoples’ lack of proofs.

Came to think about integrity violations…

You (the people on the bottom and children) need to earn your freedom?? I wonder if all are entitled or worth freedom in a liberal’s world actually if you scratch on the surface?

The same confusing messages many of us got early??

When I was student at a folk high school here in Sweden after quitting the gymnasium we spoke about let-go (låt-gå in Swedish, or laissez-faire), authoritarian and democratic leadership (in teachers in this case I think). More than thirty years ago we were learned that the democratic leadership was the best.

Have some (many) liberals misunderstood what "freedom" is? Confused it with laissez-faire combined with authoritarianism? I wonder quite ironically.

What parents are actually capable of doing…?

the serial killer Thomas Quick with twin-sister at 2 years.

as grown up.

The fourth part in a series, where you can find the other three here, here and here. It's another extremely warm day here. But now a bike-ride to pick the last lilies-of-the-valley!

Pincus writes at page 212-214:

”For example, one person who had just said he had never been abused told me he was once severely punished or running away to avoid discipline for having broken a window when he was six [did he deliberately break this window? And this boy was ONLY SIX YEARS OLD!! From where came this “urge” to break that window one can wonder too? That need to abreaction?]. His sister and father immobilized him and burned the soles of his feet with a lighted candle to prevent him from running away again. In his opinion, this punishment fit the crime. He considered it to be reasonable and not abusive.

Another telling indicator of abuse is bed-wetting. Many abused children continue to wet their beds at night until adolescence. The physiological reason for this is not clear, but bed-wetting is one manifestation of stress. The response of parents to this behaviour can open a line of very informative discussion about abuse. Some children are beaten daily for wetting the bed [how un-stressing??] or are humiliated by such disciplines as being forced to wear stinking, urine-soaked clothes to school, being tied to a post at home like a dog, or recording bed-wetting on a calendar so the whole family and visitors can see whether the child wet his bed the night before.

Other childhood behaviors are also hallmarks of abuse, like fire-setting and cruelty to animals. When there was a fire in the house, who was thought to have set it? This is important because virtually every child who sets a fire to his bed or that of his parents has been sexually abused [but all sexually abused children don’t set fires to their own or their parents’ beds??]. Victimizing helpless animals is also a way a child can direct his feelings of hatred and his desire to be in control without fear for retaliation./…/ …the association of this behavior with abuse has been empirically proven.

‘Who was the main disciplinarian?’ and ‘What were you beaten with when you were spanked?’ are very useful questions. Even violent inmates who have forgotten severe abuse may remember what they consider to have been good parental practices. Some of these practices are clearly abusive by my definition, like the use of a belt or wooden instrument directed elsewhere than their buttocks, spanking with the buckle of the belt, breaking of the skin, and punches to the face [but ALL spanking is harmful! Both physical, literal, and emotional! And spanking always leaves bigger or smaller damages in the brain recent brain-research has proven!].

Being locked in a closet for an hour or more or in a room for a week can be quite terrifying to a child. Uncovering these extreme punishments raises other questions, like ‘What was the punishment for leaving the closet or the room before you were given permission? What happened if you tried to run away during a beating?”

When I am sitting writing this I come to think of what Ingmar Bergman has written about his childhood. Bed-wetting children had to wear a dress when they had wet their beds. And children were locked into wardrobes, dark wardrobes. Their father (the Lutheran priest) also beat his sons, Dag and Ingmar, so they bled. And their mother washed them afterwards with cotton-wool (she was nurse). That she didn’t intervene? Noone of these children became criminals though. Dag, four years older (and the oldest) became diplomat I think, and Ingmar director. Dag died at 74 I think, in a disease that suffocated him. And Ingmar used his creativity to survive.

Their sister Margaretha (four years younger than Ingmar) married an Englishman and moved to England and got four sons. She suffered from severe depressions. She was held VERY hard by her mother and was her father's good little girl? Her creativity was suffocated. She wanted to write, and also tried with this, but Ingmar dismissed her writing (felt shame – and contempt - over how she wrote), thought it was too superficial, no wonder? Something he regretted later. Thought he should have supported her instead and help her develop her writing, and thus also help her develop personally, and survive better than she did. I think she made a suicide attempt (to free herself? She saw no other way out?).

He later thought he had silenced her and stifled her voice instead of the opposite. And it wasn’t because she revealed horrible things about their family (because it had nothing with that to do is the impression I have gotten), but because of how she wrote, the way she wrote and what she wrote about. See Jenson on the roots for shame-feelings. Even for shame-feelings on behalf of other people!!!! (very, very ironically!).

Pincus writes further:

“I always ask about the worst punishment the person ever received for misbehaving. Some patients have told me very disturbing stories. Some children are forced to kneel on dry rice and salt for an hour; the more the child moves to try to relieve his pain, the more grains dig into his raw, bleeding skin, leaving permanent and verifiable scars. Abusive parents use electric wiring, broom handles, and other cruel ad inappropriate tools to beat their children. Some parents even use lighted cigarettes to burn their children or hold their hands over an open flame as punishment.

The circumstances in which physical scars were sustained provide a window into the world of the violent individual. Linear scars and round scars on the back are usually caused by whips and cigarettes and cannot be self-inflicted. Almost every normal person remembers the incidents that have caused scarring on the portions of the body visible to him and can proudly tell the stories of how the scars were sustained. But frequently, violent people cannot identify the causes of many of their scars which are clearly the result of burns, knife wounds, bullet wounds, and other trauma.

Such memory lapses suggest that the person may be engaging the kind of psychological mechanism for forgetfulness that is used in dissociation and that bespeaks severe abuse. This is particularly telling when the cause of scarring is stated in the medical records.

When I ask about sexual abuse, I try to make it sound as if many people are sexually abused and that it is no big deal. I often start by saying we know from watching television programs like Oprah that a lot of children are asked to d sexual things for grown-ups. Then I ask, ‘Who did that to you?’

Because the anal penetration of children damages the rectum and colon, common symptoms in victims include lower abdominal pains of unknown cause, painful bowel movements, bloody movements, and constipation. Asking if the person has ever had these symptoms is accepted as the ordinary questioning of a family doctor. A similar approach is taken to determine whether sexual abuse of bys was inflicted by putting objects into their penises. As the memory of such experiences maybe repressed, it is often more revealing to ask, ‘Did you ever have blood come out of your penis? Did you ever have bladder infections?’ These questions are interspersed with benign questions about nose-bleeds, earaches, rashes, and so on.

The family may provide [???] convincing details of abuse that the patient has forgotten. For example, one convicted rapist-murderer on death row, who did not remember his crime, denied ever being sexually abused as a child. However, his older sister testified that she had seen him being repeatedly anally penetrated when he was eight by their uncle, in whose home their family was living. She described her brother crying and screaming while he tried to escape from his uncle. Although the rapist-murderer recalled that he did not like his uncle, he did not remember being raped by him.”