REVOLUTION OF LOVE: UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

DEAR FRIENDS -- From my point of view, the world's current lack of awareness about the "everyday" emotional and physical abuse of children is similar to how slavery was viewed hundreds of years ago. That was an unimaginable evil, directly in front of people's eyes, yet because it was socially acceptable the vast majority of people hardened their hearts to its complete wrongness. Most of the world, for thousands of years, was emotionally blind and numb to the horror of human slavery. I believe that we are in a perfectly analogous situation, here in the 21st Century, regarding our inabilty to see what we (unknowingly) do to our children. Because people generally block out the pain of their own upbringing, they can't see that they are treating their own kids in the ways that had once hurt themselves. And so the cycle of pain passes from generation to generation. Because a critical number of people will have to look within, break through the denial of their own suffering as children, and then see how they are passing that pain on, we will need a worldwide movement akin to the spread of Christianity or Buddhism. It will take hundreds of years, but it has to begin somewhere. Let it begin here, and in the heart of every person brave enough to feel their own pain -- and therefore become capable of seeing the pain of the children.
We need to awaken the awareness that will revolutionize our practice of child-rearing. The words below were written by Alice Miller (who originated the concept of the "Inner Child", and who died a week ago) and myself. Putting these revolutionary concepts into the fabric of our relationships with our children will shift the entire future of the human race. Indeed, it is the only thing that has the capability of doing so! ALL MY LOVE -- BRYAN

THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN
-Children are born to discover and fulfill themselves, and not to adapt to their parent's expectations and needs. Parental recognition of this truth -- and the happy embracing of it -- is the key to the child's emotional flourishing.
Every child has the right to be respected and protected by adults who take their needs and feelings seriously, love them, and help them see reality and respond to their world creatively.
- Every child has the right to an empathetic and constructive attitude, from it's parents, to his/her physical instincts and authentic feelings. These basic instincts and emotions include a child's: need for intimacy, touch and affection; need to be breast fed; expressions of anger and frustration; willfulness and self-​assertion;​ sadness; sexuality; joy and excitement; anxiety and need for reassurance; and love.
- To the degree to which these basic self-​expressions are met by fear, anger, shaming, misunderstandin​g,​ and physical violence such as spanking and slapping, the child's self-respect and belief in his/her own worth will be permanently impaired.
-When children are, deliberately or inadvertantly/​unconsciously manipulated, neglected, or abused without the intervention of any compassionate witness, then their self-esteem and trust in life will be seriously injured.
-The normal reactions to such injury are anger, hurt and deep sorrow. Since children in this hurtful kind of environment are forbidden to express their anger and pain, and since it would be unbearable to experience their pain all alone, they are compelled to suppress their feelings, repress all memory of the trauma, and idealize those guilty of the abuse. Later they will have little or no memory of what was done to them.
-Disassociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger, helplessness, despair, longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression in destructive acts against others or against themselves. This includes chronic guilt, shame, self-​criticism,​ anxiety and depression as well as self-​destructive behaviors of all kinds up to and including drug addiction and suicide.
-If these people become parents, they will be unconsciously driven to treat their own children in the same hurtful ways that they were once treated. Many parents unconsciously direct acts of revenge for their mistreatment in childhood against their own children, whom they use as scapegoats. These acts include slapping, spanking, humiliating and shaming the child.
- Child abuse is still sanctioned-​​-​​indeed,​​ held in high regard--in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat, criticize or humiliate their children in order to escape the emotions stemming from how they were treated by their own parents.
-If mistreated children are not to become criminals, mentally ill, or be doomed to a life of chronic unhappiness, it is essential that at least once in their life they come in contact with a person who knows without any doubt that it was the environment, not the innocent child, that was at fault. In this regard, knowledge or ignorance on the part of society can be instrumental in either saving or destroying a life. Here lies the great opportunity for relatives, social workers, therapists, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, officials, and nurses to support the child and to believe her or him.
- It is still the common practice of cultures around the world to protect the adult and blame the child. This radical failure to protect children is still supported by childrearing principles that sanction the slapping/​spanking/​beating of children, and their humiliation, to teach them lessons "for their own good." In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.​​
-The degree of kindness and compassion that the human race has to heal its problems -- war, violence, poverty, injustice -- is in direct proportion to the degree of tolerance, kindness and understanding given to the average child by the average parent. Children respond to and learn both tenderness and cruelty from the very beginning.
-Our becoming aware of the cruelty with which children are treated -- both on the level of physical/​sexual abuse, and in the realm of emotional abuse and humiliation -- will as a matter of course bring to an end the perpetuation of violence from generation to generation.
-People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be--both in their youth and in adulthood-​​-​​intelligent,​​ responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience, and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning.