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Time To End the Adult War On Children

By Robert J. Burrowes

08 March, 2013
Countercurrents.org

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict
violence on a child, it learns to inflict violence on others. The
terrorist suffered violence as a child. The political leader who wages war
suffered violence as a child. The man who inflicts violence on women
suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working
class people or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America
suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in
the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child.

If we want to end violence, war and exploitation then we must finally end
our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here's an
incentive: if we don't tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our
combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must
ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of
all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that
behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not
put such effort into education and other efforts to socialize children to
fit into society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that
exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and
behaviours in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it
is not just the 'visible' violence (such as hitting, screaming at and
sexually abusing) that we normally label 'violence' that causes the main
damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of
damage arises from the 'invisible' and 'utterly invisible' violence that
we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of
the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home
and at school. See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence

So what is 'invisible' violence? It is the 'little things' we do every
day, partly because we are just 'too busy'. For example, when we do not
allow time to listen to, and value, a child's thoughts and feelings, the
child learns to not listen to itSelf thus destroying its internal
communication system. When we do not let a child say what it wants (or
ignore it when it does), the child develops communication and behavioral
dysfunctionalities as it keeps trying to meet its own needs (which, as a
basic survival strategy, it is genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt,
goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or
judge a child, we both undermine its sense of Self-worth and teach it to
blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad,
guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout its childhood by
this 'invisible' violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by
feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However,
parents and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of
these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated
by them and it is this 'utterly invisible' violence that explains why the
dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when it expresses its feelings, by
comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when it expresses its
feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing its feelings, by terrorizing a
child into not expressing its feelings (e.g. by screaming at it when it
cries or gets angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is
generated by its feelings (e.g. by hitting it, restraining it or locking
it into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress its
awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing its awareness
of its feelings (rather than being allowed to have its feelings and to act
on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed its awareness of the
reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are
disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the
individual will now easily suppress its awareness of the feelings that
would tell it how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and
it will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional
behaviors, including some that are violent towards itself, others and/or
the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should
never be used. 'Punishment', of course, is one of the words we use to
obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence,
even when we label it 'punishment', scares children and adults alike and
cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. If someone behaves
dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can
start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always
include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in
the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings
(including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in
the direction of functionality be possible.

'But these adult behaviors you have described don't seem that bad. Can the
outcome be as disastrous as you claim?' you might ask. The problem is that
there are hundreds of these 'ordinary', everyday behaviors that destroy
the Selfhood of the child. It is 'death by a thousand cuts' and most
children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do
this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of 'the perfect
citizen': that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant
employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen.

Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on
effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain
information about itself, other people or the state of the world, the
child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information,
especially if this information is contradictory to what it has been
terrorised into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously
dismiss new information out of hand. In short, the child has been
terrorised in such a way that it is no longer capable of learning (or its
learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information
that is not a simple extension of what it already 'knows'). If you imagine
any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly
terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected
in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new
information. This is one explanation why some people are 'climate
deniers'.

So if we want to end human violence, we must tackle all of its symptoms
simultaneously but, as part of our strategy, we must also tackle the
cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all
of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then
let them do it (or to have the feelings they naturally have if they are
prevented from doing so). In the short term, this will have some
dysfunctional outcomes. But it will lead to an infinitely better overall
outcome than the system of emotional suppression, control and punishment
which has generated the incredibly violent world in which we now find
ourselves.

This all sounds pretty unpalatable doesn’t it? So each of us has a choice.
We can suppress our awareness of what is unpalatable, as we have been
terrorised into doing as a child, or we can feel the various feelings that
we have in response to this information and then ponder ways forward. If
feelings are felt and expressed then our responses can be shaped by the
conscious and integrated functioning of thoughts and feelings, as
evolution intended, and we can plan intelligently. The alternative is to
have our unconscious fear controlling our thinking and deluding us that we
are acting rationally.

It is time to end the adult war on children so that all of the other
violence that emerges from this cause can end too.

'This isn’t going to happen', you might say. And you are probably right.
Nevertheless, some of us are committed to working on this most critical of
issues. You are welcome to join us. If you like, you can sign online 'The
People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending
human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to
understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist
since 1981. He is the author of 'The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A
Gandhian Approach', State University of New York Press, 1996. His email
address is [email protected] and his personal website is at
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

 

 




 

 


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