First step Daniel, and which not written, is clarifying the fundamental nature of any child. I think a close description is "totally trusting their parents and giving total unconditional love and total attention and totally dependent on them"... hence their vulnerability.

I think we all know or have experienced childhood where we were harmed at some point that lasted on in fear of that... The effects of it start showing up after 18 and on, struggle on, and by 36 when the 'adventure of adult life' starts weaning then we start decompensating...

So lets use us as the bench mark for our children. For any society that encourages each adult to act in their own interest first is doomed for catastrophe, and a society of adults that keeps all children as their priority and achieves this sets itself up for a happy future with capable happy adults...

So what do we have to do?... first what are the children going through now... and dont ask the parents for the answer will be a self serving one... I think every child, particularly in the first 6 years of life, be assessed every 6 months for markers of stress and dysfunction by closely monitored and reviewed staff of professional bodies(all on video record) set up by the government with effective remedies. Sounds radical... well its worth it if we make sure it works to achieve a happy content and thriving child...

Will it happen, well the first problem is women as a group whom do not want any interference in her care of their child... overcome this with all its deceit and hidden facts as a society and yes...

Sam

Daniel's right in that public policy about children usally addresses issues for the smaller population facing significant risks and problems rather than for the larger population that is more secure. This is probably necessary. Few would aregu that vulnerable children should be protected. It is also a fact that children's policy (childcare, education) is frequently based on the needs of parents or the wider economic needs of the society - human capital formation, workforce issues etc.

The truh is that children are innocent and they are vulnerable. That's why advertisers like to target them. It is important to listen to children and assist them to solve their own problems but it is also important to nurture a critical understanding of the world in them rather than leave them to figure it out for themselves - it needs to be intentional. Young children, even young adolescents, lack life experience so are often not well placed to understand or advocate for their own best interests. That is the job of parents backed by sensitive public policy.

Most parents want their children to grow up to be nobody's fool. Listening and responding to children's preferences is an important part of this but the security fostered by the establishment and maintenance of clear structures in their lives is critical if not always popular.

Daniel still insists on using ambiguous and potentially populist phrases. And his ideas are potentially dangerous:

"the average child is capable of supporting its own development and dealing with certain amounts of stress, especially with adequate supports. If children couldn’t do this, we’d be seeing far greater numbers of dysfunctional adults than we already do."

I don't know about you but I know PLENTY of dysfunctional adults. Just because they get up in the morning and get themselves to work and back again doesn't imply that they are "functional". Kids are also very good at making themselves seem normal when the exact opposite is the case - trust me, I WORK with them ALL THE TIME (rather than live an idyllic rural existence growing tomatoes and quoting other people's work).

Daniel will really need to change his line at some point because sooner rather than later his arguments will be gradually taken apart and he will be shot down rather humiliatingly.

Let go of this "idolising childhood" meme and start to recognise that people want to protect children for very VERY good reasons! (even if some of the time it doesn't work right)

Another advertisement disguised as a lightweight OLO article. Wasn't a spot on Life Matters enough? If readers rush they can listen to the podcast and assess the merits of this author and his love for kids climbing trees. I'm sure the book will also be a jolly good and simple read.

I dont think that it isn't that parents dont trust themselves to raise their own children, I think that the problem is that parents dont respect each other enough to consider that more often than not the childs parents know what is best for our own children. Children are all different they are not and never will be the same.

Petal, Children are remarkably resilient creatures, if given the proper support when things go wrong. Most of the time, parents and extended family can provide that support. One of the problems facing society at the moment is that we are fractured from our extended families and therefore lack a lot of the support that has been there in the past. This can be recreated with a network of friends, but the worst offender is the lack of time we now spend at home with our kids. What do you do if your child falls over and skins their knee? Rush out with kisses, bandaids and lolly-pops? Teach them to wail at the smallest misfortune that affronts them? Try dusting them off, giving a hug and telling them what a silly duffer they are. Teach them that setbacks happen, and that they should take them in their stride. Sure, if they fall out of a tree and break their arm, thats a different kettle of fish, but it still doesnt warrant over-fussing. Children (and adults for that matter) need to learn how to take both physical and emotional setbacks, deal with them, and then move on with their lives. And yes, we need to trust ourselves as parents to teach them this.

Country Gal wrote "Children (and adults for that matter) need to learn how to take both physical and emotional setbacks, deal with them, and then move on with their lives"... No they cant.

I was wondering where in the range, 'naive but damaging' to 'willfully damaging for oppressive control' you may be, because I interpret the above as 'I know I have acted to harm but I dont want responsibility for it, and if they act to help themselves then cant blame me..."

Ok... how much do you want to know. Perhaps the first research showing stress(particularly childhood social stress) causes permanent brain damage in rats/primates and now known in humans...http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/5/1705

Or perhaps the discovery of 'pain' and 'pleasure' centers in our brain and how they interrelate (the best discovery for food/alcoho/tobacco commercial enterprises whom have been manipulating this for addiction and so we keep buying...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleus_accumbens ... good place to start then go on to http://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/ for some 'in you face' information...

So now you will know that a teenage delinquent behaviour is actually 'reactive rage' from childhood state of prolonged 'fear without relief'... ie rage/fear are spectrum of same condition to psychological trauma expressed as extrovert/interovertion... and who caused this 'fear without relief' and why... hmmm

and you will know that when one goes beyond the usual range of balance between pain/pleasure brain stimulation, then one centre suppresses the other, so pain means pleasure center suppressed by pain centre, so person can take the easy way out with food and drugs that stimulate the pleasure center to find temporary relief; and how many of us are guilty of this[ he asked as he sips the beer while smoke pours out of his nose while maintaining his artificial poise...]...

I hope you are getting the picture...

Sam
Ps~protect childhood from stress and insecurity/premeditated psychological damage, then they will experience fear/stress in adulthood by which time they have a good 'defense mechanism developed' to cope healthily 3http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2004/08/psychiatry-101-defense-mechanisms.html and this is essential if we are going to survive as a successful society

Country Gal, that's certainly not the point I was making ... and in fact, no one really knows exactly WHAT point Daniel is making. And I think that's the idea.

He has found the Pauline Hanson technique of generalising to the point where people can hear what they THINK he is saying, and therefore many rush to agree with him.

And we all know what happened to HER. I think we'll be seeing a repeat of this with Daniel Donahoo.

Many are indeed rushing to agree with him because they want to shed the guilt that they feel about not taking care of their kids enough or not spending enough time with them, in spite of many of his arguments having so many holes in them you could drive a truck through them.

Incidentally, Daniel, why don't we see you on any of the forums for your OWN articles? Aren't you into feedback?

Sam said, I dont disagree that where there is trauma without adequate support, there can be long-lasting impacts. But please, explain to me why some people can face these same trauma's, acknowledge that they can truly be horrible events, but learn to not let that weigh them down for the rest of their lives. The people that I know that cant move on, have mostly had a victim mentality espoused to them, they have been taught that its ok to feel sorry for yourself indefinately. Kids need to be taught how to put things into perspective. Some of that can be found in reaching out to the support group around you. But remember that parents need to teach their children - none of us are born knowing anything, we only know what we learn, mostly by example. So yes, parents need to explain their motivations to their kids, why they are going to help a friend, or a stranger or whatever. And help kids distinguish between a bruised knee and a broken arm, mentally. Parents need to have more confidence in themselves as PEOPLE/HUMANS rather than workers or business-people, and impart their knowledge to their kids.

Country gal wrote "But please, explain to me why..."

Firstly, I am not sure the features you use to determine coping/noncoping...

The useful approach is "does the person/child have real time dynamically responsive feelings in usual range" or is it "blunted/compensated with artificial responses"...

Yep, the first group perhaps what you call coping in that they 'know' how they feel to their circumstances and issues, also called grounded, and so can come to decision on what they want to achieve/maintain state of happiness and set up a realistic plan...

The second group 'not sure'/dont have their own identity of themselves, also called disconnected, they have an persistent emptiness from 'non-responsive feelings' to life around them. So they compensate in many different ways, usual is become part of group then mirror others in the group, at least feel secure...eg cultivate multiple personality to different social settings eg home/work/social etc

Which person as a child most likely unable to cope with stress/fear/insecurity... generally the highest risk child is the intelligent, strongly loving and people bonded... also hurt the most and progress into catastrophic psychological decompensation if stressed/traumatized.

The saddest thing is that these children are also become the most capable/productive of us if carefully cared psychological development into adulthood as a society. The majority of children follow same pattern. Schools/kinda are harming children by providing the wrong environment(unplanned/planned for ease of management)...

On the otherside, lower intelligence/less loving/lessdepended are more resilient to stress/trauma and prefer less than challenging adult lives.

There is a vicious cycle, some traumatized children become parents and traumatize/disconnect/suppress their children for benefit of total possessive control with its security...others just enjoy it...some say stressed/traumatized population are better consumers by 'quick-hit pleasure' seeking behaviour to ease some pain...

Now go look on the streets...how many people can you say are connected/capable/balanced/happy adults...we need to do something now as our future is going to become more challenging to survive...

Sam

one more thing; and this is something I personally keep as a quiet secondary sense of to myself as a predictor to the future of outcome and to my surprise not let me down... and for those who dont comprehend the following... dont ask 'please explain', for the others who do understand(and it seems many from discussions with including my mother who says she does), well we have spiritual awareness and found ourselves on the road of spiritual development...

"keeping the 'spiritual eye open' to see nature of souls. Those with evil souls will tend to be destructive to those around them, and those with good souls will be unifying to the good souls around them"... now apply the various permutations and combinations this raises to society/parent/child relationships...

Sam

Daniel's new blog is up and running but he seems to be a little shy of posting critical comments - unless, of course, he hasn't got around to posting mine.

http://idolisingchildren.com

The pure and simple fact is that governments have removed the legal right of parents to raise their children by the use of employing male hating social workers who have more powers than the police and, by forcing parents to work hours that has taken them away from interacting with their children.

Governments refuse to take care of children. They are destroying education, future employment, financial rewards, social security(not welfare), turning a blind eye to rampant drugs, etc.

When our youth grow sour and rebel, some behaving criminally, governments accuse parents of not parenting and threaten to punish parents for this. Yet, it was the governments whose interference which created this problem in the first place.

Politicians, male hating feminists, communists, socialists and others are nothing but criminals. It is up to us, the people, the parents to stand up together and put them back into their little box.

Well said Spider. Couldnt have put it better.

Sam said, I dont necessarily think that you are 100% wrong. Its probably worse in the cities than where I live. What you seem to be advocating though is constant supervision of parents and their parenting skills. Even this wont give you the result you seek though as by undermining a parent by interfereing in their relationship with their child, you are furthering any disconnection to society that the child is already experiencing. I dont disagree that where there is obvious damaging abuse, then there needs to be intervention, but why have we as a society got to the stage where we need social workers to do this? Where is the extended group of family and friends?

Country gal wrote "to be advocating though is constant supervision of parents and their parenting skills" yes to children under 6years. They are too precious/fragile to stress/fear particularly from dependent parent. DSMiv(the psychiatrist bible) says 4weeks of such is enough to cause long-term psychiatric illness in these children...yep 4 weeks.

What stress/fear you ask...its the little-big things. eg force separate a dependent parent like father in dv/family court does is enough. Estimated more than 96% women sought this orders in family court. The court ordered most when government should have know better.(Yes,if vast numbers of fathers and children bring class action against manager of government, damages estimated in trillions in Australia. and same in England will bankrupt crown) With current shared parenting law this will become less of an issue...

6 to 12, need the proper matching of school teacher to child primarily and monitored for happy/learning child. 12 to 18 our teenage boys need help. Can a teenage boy compete with a girl at skill of monitoring feelings, assessing person and working out 'real intentions' during conversation...look around you. Girls are confident and charging life, while boys diffident and unsure, by the time they realize to assess with care they are in 30s and learnt from 'a harmful woman' usually with children by then...

Everything is controlled around us, traffic, work, social conduct. But when one can become a parent. No training, testing, monitoring to the most precious ones of society. Even drug addicts/psychopaths/psychological abuser have no government/legal consequences. Spider is right in that so far the focus was to protect the woman by government/legal bodies.(http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/fhs/index.htm child protection wants more housing for women so they can be given the child, recommendation to the committee...)

This must change to child...

Sam
Ps~to 'little' things that stress/fear in small child. Fathers...talk with a constant harsher tone of voice, and a constant feeling of dislike to your child and see how long they take to become fearfull/stressed(even with a false big smile)...remember to plan the comforting too before you try and then protect them from this...and tell other men about it...

Sam said, do you also suggest that Big Brother comes and supervises how you brush your teeth at night, to make sure you dont get cavities? Puhlease! As a society, we cant pre-empt every thing that someone might do wrong. For the same reason we dont have a tracking device on every person just because they MIGHT commit a crime - we try to set up an environment that discourages crime, and we set penalties for doing so, but that's all we can do. We should do our best to give parents the tools that they need to help their children develop healthy attitudes to life and family, we should have penalties for those who abuse their children and we should seek to provide children with good social networks and outlets. BUt no WAY should we adopt a big brother approach of spying on people's private lives.

Sam, you appear to have the zeal of someone with a chip on their shoulder. Were you abused as a child? Feel neglected because daddy smacked your bottom once and made you go to your room? Did you get punished for something that you didnt do? I suspect that you need more help than MOST children aged 0-6.

Careful now country girl, your mask is slipping and your fangs are beginning to show...

Since you asked, yes I was smacked as child but not lived in fear of it, so no psychological effect of it in adulthood...

To a chip on my shoulder, I am a medical doctor, so it is my job training to follow facts with logical reasoning to come to conclusion...

To big brother/sisterhood...as evidence is piling in, one pictures emerging is essentially 'mothers have been destroying children to control society'... if this is the biggest reason or not...but certainly the factor with the longest time to mature, number of young children are being harmed within the walls of your quiet suburban homes while father is at work and currently there is no safeguard for them as the children will behave as instructed by their dependent parent in public/home to avoid detection by public/father radar due to their dependency and unconditional love...the psychological harm is easier to detect and quantify, problem is there is no government established system of preventing further harm and monitoring including education/support of the father to ensure a recovering happy child by scientific markers...

To date when such harmed children became news due to severity of suffering, trend was 'support the woman'...the result is woman= harm of children+father+extended family+society was fine...I am saying swap woman for child.

Even highly specialized units like anna freud center www.annafreudcentre.org have struggled to help children because this form of psychological abuse by mother of child abuse reporting/study has been taboo(not sure of the mechanisms of enfocement but working on it)... eg live feed Michelle Leslie reason for decision in Bali, one reason judges gave for her pain was mothers abuse in childhood, seeking relief by drugs...I did not see not one corporate media reported this duri8ng the media circus...what I am saying is that lets go and find out the real facts of what is happening to our children... not the image currently being given that they are fine and so ignore them...while the numbers suggest that majority of children are being psychologically harmed...

Sam