Spanking children and being happy...

[In the evening: have reread parts, and made some changes in the text: was quite upset when I wrote this, this morning. But I think I feel more concentrated later, more than I have been? As if I can be more here, in the present, with my students? I hope it is so! Articulating things means quite a lot?]. In the sofa in the TV-news this morning they spoke about a case in the south of this country, Ystad, where a father had been freed concerning spanking his 5-year old daughter "mildly"... A woman from "Children's right in Society" (Bris in Swedish) and an alderman (?? rådman in Swedish) gave their views on this. The question was if this maybe wasn't entirely wrong... A deep, deep sigh.

On the site it stands:

"7.48 Är det okej att slå sitt barn? En pappa i Skåne frikänns, trots att han erkänt att han slagit sin femåriga dotter. EWA WALTRÉ från BRIS och HJALMAR FORSBERG, Södertörns tingsrätt."

The woman said that we can never appreciate the pain (of what we do, not appreciate the pain in the child). She meant that spanking a child, no matter how hard or "mild" is always a violation!! Yes, I think it is.

At Children's Right in Society they have experienced that children have problems with telling what they have experienced despite all anonymity.

So we as society should rather try to avoid discouraging them even more from telling. And this would protect many adults from doing many things too!!?? So this would be beneficial for all?? And not least for our mutual relations!?

The program-leader wondered, rhetorically, about the pedagogical effect of freeing this father... If parents by the outcome of this case tend to believe it is ok with "mild" spanking! And that boundaries get stretched (my interpretation), that while freeing this father would be to legitimize "mild" spanking!? And I wonder: what punishment are we talking about for the father? Being put in prison?? Or something milder? Like, I don't know, fine assessed on the basis of the defendant's daily income? Just to mark with no doubt that this is wrong!?

My mom reacts against "Fråga doktorn" another Swedish TV-program ("Ask the Doctor") where they reward happy old persons who writes to the program asking questions, with a reflex-vest (or reflex-waistcoat) if I understood this right. An 85-year old woman had written to the program and the program-leader commented her letter, cheerfully smiling, with something in the style:

"We like that sort of 85-year old persons!!"

How many 85-year old people need reflex-vests? For the first! And how do all others that don't feel well neither physically nor psychologically feel or reacts on this?? The prescription of antidepressants to old people are quite high!? One of five gets antidepressants I think I have read somewhere. Talk about sweeping things under the rug?? And isn't this quite moralistic too (rewarding the clever once again as in so many other circumstances and places in society)!??

The thinking-positive- phenomenon!? I don't mean we shall be pessimists all of us though!

When I came home from work yesterday I watched TV for a while, relaxed there (?) with my "supper"... When I turned on the TV the program-leader interviewed a doctor about how to handle/cope with stress... This doctor has been (and still is) General Practitioner (earlier in Luleå now more south in the country?)... He spoke about "mindfulness" being in the here and now... And about meditation, which helps integrate the brain-halves and makes us function better and be more creative... Mom had seen this too and she mentioned it. She thought it sounded great...

"Yes, I knew about it already!"

I replied to her. I have their material: a book, a CD etc. and I gave my youngest sister this material too for Christmas some years ago... But has this helped my sister? She is still tired to death when she comes from work... A job as "kurator" in school... A tougher job than ever??

And I read an article that they are worried about the increasing diabetes among children. Phew!!! There are links between diabetes and stress?? And to come back to the woman from Bris above; what they have met in their help-telephone is that many parents are extremely stressed today (more than ever), with all what that mean... But hasn't Miller written that no matter how stressed a parent is, this doesn't mean automatically that parents takes this out on their children. She means that IF they do, it has with something else to do: their own early experiences (which they haven't processed). And this fact can it be misused too (by the ones in power): it doesn't matter how the circumstances are (if you are poor, the work-place conditions are horrible etc.) all don't take this out on their children or family...Again: the clever ones fixes this!!! Look!! They are rewarded! Our current government have introduced "the years best worker" (or what they call it??). The "reward" is a lunch with one of our ministers... Who are the stupid ones here??

I get so upset over things so I don't find the words... I really have to search for them!!

But those for whom this (with training mindfulness etc. and trying therapies of all kind with no success) doesn't function to come back to that?? How do they feel? What do they do? They are prescribed pills? Calming, antidepressants? They are hopeless cases? Or where does the fault lie?

Miller writes about this. How does she writes? They are to congratulate for whom the effects lasts!? And once again see what she writes about forcing oneself to have feelings one doesn't genuinely have, the effects of that (I could write a long story about this I think, with examples from near me!? With all "clever children" around me, where I am one I think, with a sigh. But insight isn't enough to change this behavior or these feelings!! How much all helpers even moralize over this inability to change how one feels, reacts etc.!! Quite angrily from my part!!)!

I wonder if Jenson and Bosch don't write about this too, but in another manner?? See for instance Bosch and Freyd on Daniel Goleman and his EQ-concept...

Yes, Bosch writes at page 82 in her book "Rediscovering the True Self":

“The reader should be aware that many of the ideas on emotional development put forward in Mr. Golemans book are contrary to PRI [Past Reality Integration therapy] ideas. In PRI it is not considered as desirable for young children to control their ‘socially undesired’ emotions or feelings such as fear and anger. When this sort of behaviour is desired by adults of children PRI regards it as poisonous pedagogy /…/ Also, many of the behaviors that are considered by Mr. Goleman to be essential elements of ‘emotional intelligence’, are considered by PRI to be defenses (False Hope and False Power Denial of Needs) employed in order to avoid feeling pain. The general profile of Golemans ‘emotionally intelligent’ person fits the PRI idea of someone who is quite defensive, albeit in a socially desirable way. This might therefore lead to social success, while simultaneously sacrificing contact with the True Self and inner autonomy.”

And Jennifer Freyd also comments Daniel Goleman (and coping-concepts in general!?):

“For a child dependent on abusive caregivers, lack of internal connection can help maintain some sort of external connection to necessary others. But I disagree with those such as Daniel Goleman (1985), who suggest that while truth is generally a good thing, some times even privileged members of our society are best served by living with ‘vital lies’ in which the truth is best kept from oneself and one’s intimate partners.”

What about dealing with the underlying causes? But that is absolutely forbidden? Entirely out of question?

We shall adapt/accommodate like good children?? The ones that does are rewarded in different ways!? And see the former blogpost in the end, about that

“I suggest that psychiatrists play another guardian role. They play this role without being explicitly or consciously aware of it and certainly without admitting it. Psychiatrists serve as Guardians of the Establishment./.../

This is about psychiatry, and control, and how psychiatry is concerned with RELIEF. It is about psychiatrists' strong and ever-increasing role as Guardians of The Establishment. Psychiatrists are eager to play this role, eager to protect The Establishment from the unwashed persons whose thoughts, feelings and/or behaviors are bothersome. They are eager because playing this role, serving as a buffer between rich and not so rich, gives them money and power and status."

Yes, so it is!??? Their clients/patients shall adapt/accommodate to the conditions, learn to cope, control their emotions and feelings, repress all opposition and all against-reactions, not question the state of affairs, maybe any state of affairs?? What about listening to those who are reacting!!??

And whose leading-strings are they walking in actually I wonder quite ironically? The clever children all their lives, serving the power?? (actually serving their parents so they at last will get a love that didn't really exists? A fact they don't want to face? how are we ordinary people supposed to confront these things if the ones that should have done this haven't done it?).

The ones that does, gets a reflex-vest (quie ironically)...

And it stood about medicating hyperactive children, about the Ritalin-explosion in Norway, in a Norwegian newspaper. A General Practitioner in Norway is forced to prescribe Ritalin to children and young people against his will – by the psychiatry!!!

Yes, it is as it stands in an article about "The Myth of the Hyperactive Child":

"They turn attention from social and political considerations to individual medical questions and therefore conceal the most fundamental issue. /.../

The question of dependency on such a drug quickly turns from a medical into a political question whose very definition involves not merely the psychological state of the patient but also the social and political impositions of the society and its institutions. The belief in "my magic pills that make me into a good boy" is, after all, a political as well as a personal statement in which institutional benevolence and the need for personal accommodation are taken for granted.In such a situation the search for medical evidence of dependency may be quite futile; in some sense, indeed, "dependency" may afflict even those who have never taken a drug but who are nonetheless forced to accommodate to standards which become legitimate and normative through drug management of those who challenge or threaten them. A few years ago, a writer named Charles Witter asked, rhetorically, "Are we putting the Dachau inside the pill and the pill inside the kid?" But as in all such questions of liberty, this one has implications for every member of the population, not merely those who are chemically incarcerated. The subtlety of the process in itself helps create the necessary effect: e.g., "I do not need magic pills to make me a good boy." It is the ideology of drugging, the idea that people can and should be chemically managed, that represents the most pervasive imposition on personal liberty and the most dangerous extension of authority. The seductive counterargument that a certain drug isn't hurting a certain child—that, indeed, it has made him "happier" and more successful—and that one should not sacrifice his well-being to some political abstraction, is itself a disguised political argument in defense of the standards that determine his "happiness" and success. The argument seems to prove that while the child may not become dependent on the drug, those who recommend and defend it already are."

The most happy, clever, successful people are rewarded? What about the less happy, successful, clever? Or what about those who fails?? I don't mean it shall be the opposite either. I have informed “Fråga doktorn” (“Ask the doctor) about the ACE-study at least a couple of times and also about Anna Luise Kirkengen, they ignores this?? Instead they seem to want to encourage positive thinking and positive thinkers? Holding these up??

Had got an email when I came home with a material (for piano-education) I am going to test (together with more people here), so now I have to log in to my other computer which is connected to my printer so I can print it out! Interesting to see what it is! There was Christmas-music in it...

Kolla vad Ali Esbati säger om "fusk och bävrar"!!!