childhood

Bullying and Childhood Cruelty Compels Violent Behavior

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

Bullying begins before cognitive language skills are developed-- in the home and Kindergarten.

Vinca Lafleur reviews in The Washington Post:

‘Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy’ by Emily Bazelon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sticks-and-stones-defeating-the-culture-of-bullying-and-rediscovering-the-power-of-character-and-empathy-by-emily-bazelon/2013/03/15/66bfe65e-82ab-11e2-a350-49866afab584_print.html

By VINCA LAFLEUR, Published: March 15

In researching her book “Sticks and Stones,” Emily Bazelon was struck by how many of the adults she interviewed “could access, with riveting clarity, a memory of childhood bullying.” Whether they had been victims, bullies or bystanders didn’t seem to matter. “These early experiences of cruelty were transformative,” she writes, “no matter which role you played in the memory reel.”

Bullying isn’t new. But our attempts to respond to it are, as Bazelon explains in her richly detailed, thought-provoking book. Scholarship on bullying has its roots in the 1970s, when Swedish psychologist Dan Olweus developed what became the gold standard for prevention programs in schools. Yet it wasn’t until 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire on their Columbine classmates, that the United States began tackling the issue in a serious way.

Responding to Bullying will not stop Bullying. Only PREVETION can stop Bullying This writer has proposed that the failure of affectional bonding in human relationships and in the maternal-infant/child relationship, in particular, are the real source of violence and bullying:

This writer wrote in

How Culture Shapes the Developing Brain and the Future of Humanity
And what we can do to change it.

TWO AMERICAS: TWO MORALITIES: TWO HUMANITIES: TWO CULTURAL BRAINS

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

This writer has previously proposed that Two Americas exist because our Two Humanities with our Two Moralities have been generated by our Two Cultural Brains that have been formed by the two evolutionary life experiences of Pain and Pleasure, which encodes our evolutionary and developing brain for Peace or Violence. This worldview can be seen at the following sites:
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Our_Two_Cultural_Brains.pdf
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1949/20 in The Second Sex noted the two moralities that divide Man and Woman—our Humanity—that propels Humanity toward Peace or Violence:

The mother would enjoy the same lasting prestige as the father if she assumed equal material and moral responsibility for the couple; the child would feel an androgynous world around her and not a masculine world; were she more affectively attracted to her father—which is not even certain—her love for him would be nuanced by a will to emulate him and not a feeling of weakness: she would not turn to passivity “ (p.761).

Does Beauvoir imply that the daughter is responsible for her Father’s affection? The responsibility for affection resides with the parent not the child. If the parent fails in this most important behavior, who is responsible? Their parents who did not receive the love from their parents as a child or is culture ultimately responsible for the values and behaviors it creates?

Male and female roles in pre-agricultural societies were egalitarian. God was nature. Assumed male superiority with its implicit violence against women and children emerged with monotheism, the old-testament, a single male-dominate King laying down the law. Can you believe we still believe this fairy tale?

Down through the ages children were livestock, bred as a buffer for survival. Abuses of all kinds were harsh and systemic. Women nurtured when they could and men disciplined. The extended family was communal. Children more or less belonged to the tribe. Personal identity was not individual rather communal. One was a Cooper, a barrel maker or a Smith, blacksmith. Allegiance and values were set by family, village or community and these were controlled by the iron fists of magician-priests.

Children have always lost their fathers to wars and there have always been wars. With the industrial revolution we disposable males were herded into factories, with a corresponding loss of influence in the lives of our children. A century later, in the mid 20th century, the 50’s and 60’s to be more precise, children lost their mothers to women’s liberation and the work place, by design. Women’s Liberation meant the Rockefellers and other old-money social engineers would ‘profit’ from the missing 50% of the labor pool and children would be forced into government certified conditioning factories with nice doublespeak names like ‘day care,’ earlier and earlier.

The point is maintaining relationship – not connecting something that is broken.

The terms bonding and attachment imply separation, to bond, connect, glue together separate parts. Life is relationship. We are never separate, except in our minds.

We are the light, the air, the water, the nutrients, the heat, the vibration, gravity, ever-changing movement and much more. The human body and brain is defined by the environment. Each mirrors the other. But we forget. The deeper reality and challenge is to prevent this ongoing, dynamic and reciprocal connection from being broken.

Joseph Chilton Pearce and I were exploring the root cause of our social and political calamity. Joe lamented that nature’s agenda during pregnancy, birth and the sensitive postnatal period – doesn’t happen. What could be fails to unfold. ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ See: http://ttfuture.org/files/2/members/esa_jcp_biology_culture.pdf

A friend sent a link to a New York Times article about technology in the classroom – NOT.

The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix...   More

Related articals:

The Weaver Becomes the Web

Just Say NO to Baby Einstein

A list of interesting essays

Appropriate Use of Technology in Education

The overarching insight in neuroscience the past decade is:

‘Brain and environment are one, interdependent, reciprocal dynamic process. Change the environment and you change the brain.'

The human brain created Technology that changed the environment that is now changing the brain. In the mid 1800’s Emerson, cautious of the industrial revolution, noted; the weaver becomes the web.

Yes, technology is here to stay, and like guns and sugar can be very useful in moderation. The typical young child, teen and adult however, invest five or more hours each day relating to flat, two dimensional screens. Relating to a flat screen with eyes and fingers is sensory deprivation compared to swinging on a rope and dropping in a rushing stream.

Screen based technologies are all ‘virtual’. To have an appropriate relationship with a virtual reality one must first have a well-developed physical, emotional, cognitive foundation in what used to be the only reality – natural experience and relationship based and perception.

Introduce virtual reality too early, when the natural reality is still forming and you displace, push aside, critical experiences in the development and stabilization of that natural reality. Do this, and do it in mass and we weaken the core foundation upon which individual and collective life and all its complexities rest.

Consider the crippling retardation of descriptive language as it has been pushed aside by screen based technologies. We have moved from Tom Sawyer to Spiderman. Every picture displaces the need for a thousand descriptive words. Descriptive language is the only way imagination unfolds, imagination being the brains capacity to create inner images not present to the senses, which Einstein openly and correctly declared is much more important than knowledge. Push aside symbol and metaphor with pictures and we retard the capacity to deal with abstractions such as mathematics and science. Imagination is THE core capacity upon which all higher human potentials depend. Knowledge is content. Knowledge without imagination however, is like fireworks on the fourth of July without a match and that is what we have.

It is capacity not content that ‘real’ learning cultivates. The whole body, feeling, movement and thought, in the moment, interacting with the natural world – not some buzzing, flashing, gadget – this rich ‘organic’ engagement and experience, running, jumping, squishing with fingers, smelling, laughing, changing, bigger, smaller, heavy, light, hot, cold, wet, rough, smooth, symphony of three dimensional sounds, and the quiet, intuitive inner ‘knowing’ and shared meaning of real communion with our ‘god given’ natural universe. That is what learning is.

Reality is brain development dependent. Introducing screen – and that means image based technologies - to young children, before age eleven, is like feeding steak to a baby or sexually explicit material to a seven year old. The developing ‘reality’ is not prepared nor is it stable enough to ‘appropriately’ digest these inappropriate experiences. All the so called ‘learning’ that is taking place, at a precious price in terms of money and more importantly in the child’s attention and true whole development is placed on a malnourished foundation.

Virtual reality is sensory deprivation to the developing brain, similar in many ways to bottled feeding. Not only is bottle feeding ‘junk’ food compared to the infinitely more complex nature of the breast but it displaces the touch, smell, the warmth, the heartbeat, the closeness of mother’s loving smile, not to mention the pleasure that mother and baby, possibly even orgasmic pleasure the shared experience offers. The pleasure inducing hormones released through this simple experience is the glue that bonds human relationships for a life time, not only mother and baby but baby and the natural world. Technology has none of these ‘experiences.’ The developing body and brain weaned on technology is more selfish, less empathic, far less imaginative, less connected to the ‘real’ natural, organic world around him or her.

The known addictive techniques the gaming industry use are exploitive to the young child’s body, emotions and mind. Like pimps the gaming and most of the so called – educational media products –steal all these living, moving, relationship based experiences for a profit and call their dolled up prostitute-products ‘learning.’ I know. I am a documentary film maker and have studied and developed media for 30 years.

Yes, technology is here to stay. So are genetically engineered food, toxic pollution in the environment, radiation in the air, food and water and our bodies, broken families, domestic violence, corruption from sea to shining sea, sexual exploitations and addictions of every kind. All these are here to stay but are they necessary and appropriate? Do we cozy up to, embrace and become these or do we see the dangers they represent to ourselves and to our child’s ‘real’ development and put them in their proper place?

A question the blind leading the blind can’t ask is: ‘Does a population deprived of what was normal and natural (organic) developmental experiences have the capacity to know what they have missed?’ Obviously not.

Those who are color blind experience their monochromatic world as ‘normal.’ If they ruled the world, published the text books, sat on school boards, like Midas, everything they touched would be beautifully black and white. Systemic sensory deprivation alters the perceptual baseline we call reality. Entire colors of the human potential spectrum can disappear in a single generation and won’t ever be missed. In there lies the rub.

Michael Mendizza

See:
Michael Mendizza
Virtual Reality is Sensory Deprivation
http://www.ttfuture.org/blog/2/Virtual-Reality-is-Sensory-Deprivation

Jerry Mander
on media, the mind and democracy
http://ttfuture.org/files/2/members/int_mander.pdf

Ralph Nader
On corporate exploitation of children
http://ttfuture.org/files/2/members/int_nader.pdf

Joseph Chilton Pearce
Play is Learning
video: http://ttfuture.org/store/play-is-learning

Bev Bos
Tour of the Roseville Preschool
video: http://ttfuture.org/authors/bos

James W. Prescott, PhD
The origins of love and violence,
how sensory deprivation impacts the developing brain.
video: http://ttfuture.org/bonding/front

Marian Diamond, PhD
Enriching Heredity, how stimulation grows the brain
http://ttfuture.org/authors/marion_diamond

We have been deeply conditioned to believe that others, the experts know what is best. We assume that the FDA is looking out for ‘our’ wellbeing and best interest. That the foods we gather from the super market are safe. It is our responsibility to be informed and make healthy decision about the quality of life we experience.

Thirty years ago I took a nutrition course from a certified chemist, pharmacist, nutritionist, three disciplines. Referring to the cereals we feed our children, Cheerios, Wheaties, CoCo Puffs, he said eating the box would be more nutritious than its contents; at least one would be getting some fiber. In the United States we pay far more for packaging at the market than what the wrapper contains.

And to this we must be aware (beware) of the pesticide, depleted soils. chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds, polluted oceans so the fish that we eat almost glow in the dark. And then we ask why our children are the least healthy ever.

I encourage you to take the time to look at two video presentations;

Food and Behaviour
The first is by Dr Blaylock on the relationship between food and behavior. A classic.

Food as Medicine
The second is about food as medicine. Only online for one week. so don't miss it.

Together they provide a super reminder that we are what we eat. What we eat determines to a great extent our moods, behaviors and even the quality of thoughts we think. Food is indeed the best preventive medicine when packaged with lots of pure water and joy filled movement.

As the toxic ring in the tub goes up, we need to be even more mindful every day.

Cheers
Michael Mendizza

After viewing our interview with Jean Liedloff a parent said, ‘Jean talks about the effects of over protective parenting. I am so guilty of this. My son is much more capable when he is on his own than when he knows I am looking. I am wondering how I could undo this?

Great question, join the club.

As Jean pointed out in the swimming pool example, when the child does not know the parent was looking, the child demonstrated their true capacity. When the child feels a parent is watching – they express the adult’s helpless expectations. And this pattern is established very early. It becomes a reflex.

The guiding principal is to ‘assume competence’ from the beginning. Then the child’s innate capacity and the adult’s expectation are in sync instead of being in conflict. Imaging what this means lifelong!

The child turns to the adult moment to moment to ‘read’ their relationship to whatever is happening – assuming that the adult’s behavior is intelligent and appropriate. Big assumption here but what else is the child to do?
The adult serves as the child’s compass in uncharted territory. As the child develops the compass must adapt to the needs of what remains unknown to the child. The adult must fine tune his or her emphasis to match the developmental needs of each child. One shoe definitely does not fit all.

A compass is not a ‘teacher.’ Modeling is not ‘teaching’ nor is it ‘instruction.’ 90% or more of what a child learns lifelong is through modeling. 5% of lifelong learning is through instruction.

Your challenge is to ‘assume competence’ and model it in your relationship with the child, guiding them with very brief moments of mostly nonverbal encouragement and facilitation only when asked for or needed. Avoid doing for the child things they can do for themselves. Facilitate when appropriate their wonder and experimentation. Leave praise on the shelf. Of course they produce excellent results. That is what nature expects by design.
As always, the change that is needed must come from you.

Don’t worry. Celebrate every moment of your life and so will your child.

Michael Mendizza

In the spring of 2010 a small group, including the editor of Joe’s latest book and David B. Chamberlain, PhD, a leader in the field of prenatal intelligence and memory, gathered in Ojai California to explore with Joseph Chilton Pearce his Collected Works.

Throughout his life Joe shunned speaking about himself. For the first time, with this close group, Joe explored what was happening in his life and life around him as he wrote each of his major publications beginning with Crack in the Cosmic Egg.

I recently released the third edition of Magical Parent – Magical Child co-authored with Joseph Chilton Pearce. If you have not read it – I encourage you to do so now.

From the forward to the third edition:

Magical Parent – Magical Child began with a simple insight; The Future Is Now. If I am aggressive or kind today chances are I will be the same way tomorrow and my children will be too. If I want to bring about real change, a new pattern or possibility, a baby step forward in evolution it must take place now, this moment. By changing how I think, feel and act - now - I create a different next moment. If I don’t change now - I will be tomorrow what I am today.

Gandhi said; ‘be the change we want to see in others’. This insight brings that change, which is the future, into the present. Right now is where all the action is. Now is the only chance we’ve got.

Joseph Chilton Pearce added depth to this basic insight when he described the ‘model imperative’ in his bestselling book, The Magical Child. Each of us represents vast capacities, more and greater than ever imagined. The awakening and development of each capacity requires a model-environment to serve as a catalyst for that potential’s opening and development. No model – no development. That is the ‘model imperative’.

Becoming a Magical Parent is not really different from becoming a world class athlete or singer. All we need is a safe space to practice and experienced mentors (the model-imperative). Magical Parenting means really playing the game called being a parent. When we are really playing, that is, in the state of authentic play failure isn’t possible. Unlike high stakes testing or the World Series, given a safe place to practice and experienced mentors, meeting every challenge becomes an opportunity to expand and develop our capacity to meet every challenge. There are no right or wrong answers. The score of the day is irrelevant. Rather, the goal is continuing expansion of capacity and potential which takes placed naturally in the optimum state called play.

An educator used Magical Parent – Magical Child as the text for her class. She asked a few probing questions. You may find them of interest.