Suffering in Silence: The Anatomy of Our Nation's Greatest Epidemic

Last week, our entire nation was struck by an unspeakable tragedy when 20 young children were shot and killed along with 6 adult faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Every time a tragedy of this magnitude occurs, the first question we always ask ourselves is "why?", because of course, we all want and NEED to know how we can prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. In the aftermath of these events, there are always heated debates on gun control, security measures in places where shootings have occurred as well as other things of that nature as we continue to see in the news. But one thing that everyone with a public voice always seems to agree on is that the shooters in these cases are/were "mentally deranged", "troubled", "just not in the right mind", etc. Of course, no one who does what Adam Lanza the 20 year old gunman did is in the right state of mind at the time, but what no one seems to understand or truly attempt to figure out is what could possibly push someone into such a deranged state of mind that they decide to do something so horrible?

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to talk about an epidemic in America. The largest problem facing our nation and the modern world today. Who does this epidemic affect? all of us. Who does it hurt? everyone. In this blog I will explain exactly what this epidemic is, all of its root causes, and most importantly, what we can ALL do to help fix it.

A few days after the shooting in Newtown, everyone in America was (unfortunately) treated to a blog titled "Thinking the Unthinkable" which was written by a mother, LL, who tells a story about her son, "Michael", who she says has a genius level IQ but is also prone to violent rages and has threatened violence against family members as well as suicide in the past. She claims her son is "mentally ill" and then goes on to compare him to Adam Lanza along with several other mass murderers, saying that she fears her son and worries that he will one day become a murderer as well. She states that she has had him institutionalized several times, also that he is being given "mood altering" medication. She says he is thought to have several different "mental disorders", but that no one is sure exactly what is "wrong" with him. By reading the comments on her blog, it becomes very apparent that there are many other parents in America in a situation exactly like hers with a genius child that is allegedly "mentally ill" and are at a loss as to how/where they can find "help" for their child.


I would like to share a few things with all parents of children like "Michael" as well as everyone else who may be affected by the way these children are looked upon by society and handled by our current systems. Although many of you may not realize or fully understand this, it affects every single person in America, and perhaps the entire world. I will explain why shortly.

I have worked with highly intelligent or "gifted" children and their families in several different capacities for almost my entire professional life, which was a career I chose largely because of my own personal experience as a high IQ child with average IQ parents (in the "old" days mind you).

First off, no one can debate the fact that raising a child like this is a challenge. It can cause a great deal of difficulty for almost any parent. But it is of the utmost importance that we as a society and especially parents understand the true causes of these children's "issues" and learn how to deal with them properly. And believe me, there are solutions!

In this blog I will detail the exact "secrets" of how (and how NOT) to properly raise your genius child, eliminate their rages and give them, yourself and everyone else in our country the best life we can have.

The first step is to accept your child's intelligence. Having a highly intelligent child with a greater IQ and a more advanced mind than your own may seem unfair. Parents and adults in general are often very intimidated by these children. But just as your child has undoubtedly heard before, life's not fair. Accepting your child's intelligence is the first key in learning the best way to relate to them.

Having a child of such high intelligence with a mind containing wisdom that you do not possess can certainly be a difficult thing to wrap one's head around. You may want your kids to always to turn to "mommy and daddy" for answers, always trust your knowledge and ALWAYS look up to you as they're growing up, but once you try to FORCE this upon your children, they WILL rebel against you. Do not develop an inferiority complex (or a superiority complex for that matter) toward your children.

The next important thing you must remember is to always use LOGICAL arguments in any disagreement with your child (things such as "because I'm the parent" or "because I said so" are not logical arguments). When you give your child illogical explanations such as these, they will immediately recognize them as simple denial on your part - inability or refusal to admit when you're wrong and insistance that everything be done your way regardless of whether or not it is the right way (as in the child's best interest). This is practically BEGGING your child to fly into a rage. You need to be open to the possibility that your child's perspective may be right and yours may be wrong. Regardless of the child's age, you must never underestimate their intelligence or sense of self-awareness.

Use logical arguments or don't argue.

When you believe that you are always right simply because you're the parent and attempt to rationalize away your child's genius qualities while dismissing their actual needs, you are in fact pushing your child away and ultimately could deny them the opportunity to live up to their great potential. Your child has already surpassed you on an intellectual level. You will never win a battle of wills with him/her as all of your rules and ideologies (and those of society in general) are completely illogical to their advanced mind. You must not deny or dismiss their opinions and attempt to force your own upon them. You will never succeed.

When looking at LL's blog and so many of the comments, it is very apparent that in contrast with the name of the blog, the only thing that is truly unthinkable to these parents is the possibility that they themselves may be their child's biggest problem, rather than an "illness" or something else they can use to deflect responsibility away from themselves and their lack of proper parental knowledge and skills. LL states that she has had her son institutionalized for threats of violence against himself and others. But if this were the proper thing to do, shouldn't she herself have been institutionalized or incarcerated as well for publicly stating her desire to throttle her 7 year old and fantisizing about stabbing someone to death as she has done in previous blogs? She and others who may come to her defense would most likely claim that she was just kidding and that the thought of her actually considering doing such things is ludicrous, and that this should be obvious to everyone. Which brings me to my next point; When children like "Michael" make these "threats", 999 times out of 1,000 they do not mean them literally. I repeat, THEY DO NOT MEAN THE THREATS LITERALLY. They are not genuinely threatening to take their own life or that of anyone else. ONCE AGAIN, THE THREATS ARE NOT REAL. What they are in reality is a last resort by the child to express to someone intellectually inferior to themselves (who happens to be their parent) how strongly they feel about whatever issue is at stake and how important it is that they be heard and taken seriously rather than dismissed and told their concern is imaginary, as they most likely were when they tried to reasonably and politely explain themselves to the parent (and believe me, these children are more than aware of their intellectual superiority to 98% of those around them and therefore will become that much angrier when someone acts as if they're smarter than them). When the parent remains totally oblivious to why the child feels the way they do about a certain issue, and refuses to take them seriously no matter how clearly and politely the child explains their stance, the child then resorts to the only tactics that he/she knows are sure to get the parent's "real" attention, which can sometimes include "threats", name calling and physical violence.

The one pressing issue which almost everyone seems to agree on in principle (even LL and her supporters) is that the stigma surrounding so-called "mentall illness" must end. As with any problem, we must first identify the cause of this problem in order to find a solution. So what creates the stigma surrounding mental illness you ask? the answer is the very term "mental illness" itself.

By labeling (or as I prefer to call it, "branding") our most intelligent children with "illnesses" such as ODD, OCD, ASD, ADD, ADHD, IED, BPD, etc, with the last "D" in each label representing the highly stigmatizing and degrading word "disorder", we are in reality giving them a TRUE handicap (of which they had none previously) which will follow them for the rest of their lives exactly like a criminal record. These labels will destroy your child's self confidence and cause them to be judged and feel like outcasts and freaks everywhere they go for as long as they live. Who wants to give a person that sort of life? especially one's own child. The problems associated with labeling are things many of us cannot understand or comprehend because we grew up in a time before such labels existed, and since we ourselves have never experienced the unimaginable feelings of helplessness and inadequacy that come as a result of being labeled, we do not realize how damaging these labels truly are.

Labeling is disabling.



Next up, we have the medications which are supposedly designed to alter the mind of your "mentally ill" child. Well they most certainly do alter their minds. But in reality, these alterations are only negative. These drugs cause severe damage to your child's developing brain as well as their body. They will drastically stunt your child's development in essentially all areas of their life. Those of you who give your children these drugs are POISONING them. You are actually MAKING THEM ILL.

Say no to drugs.

Branding children with labels, poisoning them with drugs, committing them to mental institutions and trying to convince them that there is something "wrong" with them because they employ different (and often more advanced) thought processes than what society considers "normal" is CHILD ABUSE and accomplishes absolutely nothing positive for your child's well being.

LL recently did a follow up article about her blog with USA today in which (among a ton of other malarkey) she stated that she wants people to move past her essay, claimed that she is "fortunate" to have have found a "special" school for her son and offered a response to her critics. The response was to compare her son's "illness" to cancer and asking if critics would react to her in the same way if her son had cancer. Yes you read that right folks. I can honestly say I'm not sure just how one can respond to such a thing, other than to say that it is perhaps the most insane, nonsensical and just plain stupid analogy I have ever heard in my lifetime. But since what I can only assume was by divine intervention I managed to avoid vomitting all over my keyboard after reading that, I can now counter with this: If you did have a son with cancer, would you force him to smoke 5 packs of cigarettes, snort a pound of cocaine and drink a full bottle of tequila every day until he died? even if this were what the "experts" had recommended?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what our current mental "health" system is. A fraud. A failure. A killer. And therefore, all parents who choose to put their innocent, genius children into this system or follow it's design in any way are these things as well. Frauds. Failures. Killers.

Here's an even better analogy for anyone who supports LL and the way she has treated her son: If LL had sexually abused her son and then written an essay complaining about how pedophiles don't have enough rights in America and claimed her son was "mentally ill" because he didn't enjoy being molested by her, would you all be so sympathetic to her then?

Whether you realize this or not, the way parents like LL, our mental "health" system and society as a whole treats these chidren is on par with sexual abuse in terms of the irreparable damage it can cause to their psyche. They feel unimaginable shame, worthlessness and self-loathing while the one's who they thought were always supposed to be there for them; their parents, are in fact the one's abusing them. They are afraid to come forward because of the fear (and in the majority of cases, the reality) that no one will listen to them. In fact, the fact that our society as a whole still condones and supports the way these children are treated could possibly make this even more damaging than sexual abuse.

I have copied a couple of posts from the small minority of rational commenters on LL's blog who were victimized by our mental "health" system while growing up.

This first victim tells a very sad, and "classic" story that I have heard all too many times from highly intelligent children and young adults who grew up or are growing up misunderstood because of their superior level of intelligence to those around them and branded as "mentally ill" because of their different styles of thinking, and what the system supposedly designed to "help" them truly does to them:

　

"This story just completely disgusted me. Not about the child, but at the PARENT. I have been in the child's place before, and you know what? You are making it worse! SO much worse! Infinitely so! He is acting that way because he wants you to understand him, to listen to him, to LOVE him! By committing him, and freaking out huge like the whole family is super scared of him is making him very upset, feeling very unloved, and you know what? YOUR behavior towards him is what will really make him flip out one day, not like you have seen but by doing something drastic, probably by killing himself. He WILL get a lot more violent by you treating him this way.

He is tired of you treating him like some freak. Put him back in his original school and take him out of that 'special' school. He doesn't deserve that. He does, however, deserve to be treated like a human being, and like a young man rather than a bad child/freak of nature.

YOU ARE TEACHING YOUR CHILD TO HATE HIMSELF. YOU ARE MAKING HIM FEEL LIKE AN INNATELY BAD PERSON, WHICH HE IS NOT. LOVE HIM. UNDERSTAND HIM.

What you are doing is CHILD ABUSE, whether you believe it or not. It is more harmful to him than if you were to beat him.

If you want any more tips on what is going on in your son's head and heart right now, please feel free to contact me. I feel for him so much right now, and it brought tears to my eyes just knowing how badly he is hurting inside from all of this.

By the way, he is showing his hurt through anger. That is the main point here. He does not trust you enough to cry in front of you, or to show his honest, painful feelings. Get that trust back by talking to him, like an adult - that part is important, to himself he is NOT a child, do not degrade him that way. This boy is a child genius, as I myself was as well, and it is NOT an easy world to live in being surrounded by children being childish/stupid and adults treating you just as if you were like them.

If you want to stop this from permanently affecting his life in a very negative and dangerous manner, you HAVE to change your behavior. Quit playing the victim - more importantly, quit playing HIS victim. He is hurting inside, very much so, and he needs YOUR LOVE and UNDERSTANDING. So far, all he sees from you is hate. Hate and fear.

Do you really want him to grow up seeing himself as the monster you show him he is? I didn't think so.

　

Also, medication is NOT the answer, either. I would say that if you were to medicate him with anything whatsoever, an anti-anxiety medication, such as Vistiril, would likely help but anything beyond that is just harmful. His mind is still developing, as one poster said earlier, and giving him SSRIs and the like are very detrimental. He is a very smart boy; don't ruin that for him.

And please, do NOT commit him anymore. It is so clear by your post that you did that as a punishment; I would go so far as to say it was out of revenge, as was frantically asking for the police to be called. You are hurting him, so much, while he is already hurting more than you could ever imagine.

As I said in my previous comment, I have been exactly in his place, and I know what is going on in his head and his heart. I say that with certainty. Later on in my life, my mom realized how wrong she was to have treated me that way, and while we have a very good relationship now, we didn't have any for a long time.

When you regret your actions years later and see how strongly, and badly, they hurt your son, will he forgive you? Or will he choose to treat you the same way you treated him - with hate, and fear? Or will it be too late, and he won't be around anymore for you to love?

Please take these words to heart; I am speaking straight from mine. As you said in your post, you are Adam Lanza's mother, well, I am Michael, just about ten years later.

He needs you right now more than ever. I think you know that, you just don't know how to go about it. Together, you can fix this.

(By the way, state mental facilities are right next to jails in terms of quality of life, in every aspect. There is a lot of abuse, child abuse, that goes on in those places. You can find out about that on Google. Please don't subject him to that anymore. It is Hell in those places!)"



This heartfelt, heart wrenching piece perfectly describes the life of nearly every child misdiagnosed with some type of imaginary "mental illness" and the sheer HELL they go through as a result of being branded and then chewed up and spit out by our evil system. It is especially important to take note of the victim's mother's ultimate realization that she was very wrong to have treated her son this way after finally seeing the result of all the so called "help" he had received. Keep telling your child they are "mentally ill" and you could be this mother one day. But is this truly what you want for yourself and your child?

Also the poster states that what LL is doing to her son is worse than beating him. This is so true in fact, that some of the kids I have met in the past who were also beaten in addition to being labelled "mentally ill", drugged and institutionalized have almost forgotten about being beaten when telling their stories because of how insignificant it was compared to all the other forms of abuse they received under the guise of "treatment" for a so-called "mental illness".


Next we have this marvelously written piece from another victim, perfectly summarizing the anatomy of our nation's greatest epidemic and the reason it remains unfixed. Also if you need an example of the just how intelligent these children are and can grow up to be, look no further than this post:


"You may be the mother, but we are the son. Your naivete is astounding. Your bromides noxious, but predictably they allow the herd to self-sooth in one large group therapy session. If we weren't so aloof and amused about the limitless stupidity of the masses (it's the only way we can manage to stay relatively sane, mother), then we would be foaming at the mouth. The simple truth is that while the hordes react in fear at the prospect of death, a prospect that will always be there, a prospect that cannot be expunged through legislation, through medical care, through any action we can conceive of, you inevitably make the situation worse, you exasperate the problem. Mental care -- ah, that socialization, that soma -- here, it shows its true colors as a cheap coping mechanism. The masses fear, and so they sacrifice for the good of the tribe. They fear those they're told to fear. But in the end, you make a deadly miscalculation. The more such treatment is administered, the more tragedy will strike. That unruly elements can be subsumed is an illusion, and mere pretense used to fortify the domination of the herd through a few measly statistical cases. We salute those pulling the strings for their genius! May the simple truth forever remain beyond the minds of the oblivious rabble! For it shall. Few things are as predictable. Crocodile tears are worth more than gold.

Humans are notorious for their rationalizations. They don't even need much of a rationalization to paper over their agitation. Oh no, reason takes a backseat, and the quixotic battle cry predictably pierces one's ears. Every mother with a "gifted" child (knowing fully well somewhere in the dark recesses of your subconscious that the word "special" is much more suitable) seeks redemption. A few humblebrags here and there. "Yes, my cripple is a Wunderkind! Take that, world! Justice is mine!" How cathartic it must be to have such a grand opportunity to discharge one's sad resentment!

And do you know what the brilliance of it all is? The brilliance, so delicious a delicacy it would render mere mortals comatose, is that we can tell you exactly what we're doing. We can tell you where, when, and how it all will unfold. We can spell the truth out for you in black and white, and you won't believe us. You will remain powerless, and willfully so. It is this truth that allowed us to fully appreciate the meaning of the term "numbskull". And what of this comment? We write for our own amusement, as an affirmation of the futility of it all. For even if by some impossible chance you were to believe, or at least worry, at the content of this message, it would do no good. It would change nothing. It would be as ineffectual as punishing a pillow for the sins of the father of your spawn. But alas, in the life of every human creature comes a day when the abyss spreads its jaws and begins devouring all of the psychological defenses, the false identities, before finally consuming whatever sad dregs remain beneath the saccharin, the plastic, the pleather.

Also, Che was a narcissistic mass murderer. May the empty caverns of your mind be demonstrated through your hollow words."



Truer words have never been spoken. Never ever, America. Both of these victims explain the true facts about genius children as well as all of society's misconceptions about them AND what can be done to avoid problems with them - all in perfectly clear English. Yet we as a nation choose to ignore them and simply dismiss their profound FIRST-HAND knowledge and expertise on these issues. Why I ask. Why?



In the case of the Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, it appears quite obvious based on what has been revealed about his mother Nancy that she was quite unstable herself. It has been said that she believed the world was going to end on what we now know as last Friday (this was allegedly her reason for keeping guns in the house) and also that she was in the process of having her son Adam committed to a mental institution, which she apparently still had the power to do even though Adam had already reached the age of legal independence.

Some of Nancy Lanza's former friends mentioned that she appeared to be "rigid and at times overbearing" toward her son. Typically, when this much is noticeable to the FRIENDS of this type of parent or any others outside of the immediate family, one cannot even imagine the severity of the abuse the parent has subjected the child to behind closed doors and out of public view. It has been said that when Adam Lanza would go to the barber to get his hair cut, he was always accompanied by his mother and would not even move unless she told him to and if asked a question, his mother would answer for him. Imagine the type of things you would have to say/do to a person (especially one so much more intelligent than yourself) in order to exert such dictatorship over them. To be clear, I am not claiming to know any facts about Adam Lanza's situation in particular as I am only going by what has been reported in the media, but I DO know for a fact that nearly all of what has been revealed about Adam Lanza's home life are the very same traits which are nearly always prevalent in the cases of all of these highly intelligent and so-called "mentally ill" or "troubled" children, whom I have come to know the (TRUE) stories of throughout my career.

Actions have consequences. If you plan to abuse your child, plan to expect the consequences. On rare occasions, these consequences can include mass murder. More commonly, they include things such as suicide. But regardless of the severity of the consequences, abusing your child in any way is never acceptable.


The "disorders" our children are so often branded with in this day and age are primarily a result of psychologists without adequate training or understanding about how a genius child's mind truly works and therefore, what truly causes them to act out - being given powers which they are not fit to have - which in turn comes as a result of those doing the training possessing almost as little knowledge as those they teach. Furthering the problem is the fact that most parents are completely oblivious to this and will put blind faith into whatever a psychologist tells them, not even daring to entertain the thought of questioning their credibility and conventional "wisdom". The fact is, anyone with an ordinary high school diploma is allowed to study psychology in college and pursue it as a career, regardless of whether or not they have any personal experience with or ability to relate to the subjects they are to be considered "experts" in.

　

For example, I know of several individuals whose biggest down moment through all of high school was most likely breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or perhaps getting drunk and doing something stupid - who were allowed to take psychology courses in college (where they continued their spoiled, problem free party animal lifestyle) simply because they received adequate marks in math, english, science and history class or memorized a book about psychology written by someone else with at most only a slightly better grasp on the subject than themselves. This is as ridiculous as letting someone become an NFL football player because they watch football on TV and know how to ride a bike without training wheels.

　

Also, even in the case of the psychologists who have had personal experience with the issues in their job description, many still do not know how to correctly interpret and relate to them and also rely solely on their handbooks, of which the majority are simply a collection of opinions of others with as little ability to properly interpret the issues as those who rely on these books (this includes the DSM manual). As for the diagnostic criteria itself, in addition to there never being any type of science behind these "disorders" to begin with, the list of symptoms required to qualify a child for diagnosis continues to be watered down more and more each year making it so that even the slightest childhood "quirks" can  now be labeled with some type of "mental illness". Still with me? These are the people being given the power and the methodology being used to brand our children with life-altering diagnoses of imaginary "mental illnesses", most times forever ending their chances of being understood correctly by society, raised properly by their parents and realizing their full potential in life.

For more info on the truth and "science" behind psychiatric labels, please check out these videos:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-wMP2Q0Ifs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atsCp2SErog


Let's also not forget that there were once eras when women were thought to be deformed men and suspicion of practising "witchcraft" was punishable by the death penalty (burning at the stake to be more exact). In this day and age, we like to pretend as though we're past these times of gross misjudgment and are now a fully civilized society open to all types of people. But then again, it was not very long ago that homosexuality was considered a "mental illness", complete with it's very own DSM label. What everyone needs to understand is that the labeling of individuals, especially children as "mentally ill" because of a difference in thinking is absolutely no different from any other form of oppression or persecution toward any other type of person with different customs or beliefs.


For some genuine, helpful advice on how to properly relate to your child, please read this excellent, detailed information about the characteristics of respect, fear, violence and the emotional needs of children.

Copied from a user comment on LL's blog and originally posted on eqi.org:

　

　

"Here are what might be called the top ten emotional needs, in alphabetical order:


1 Accepted
2 Believed in
3 Cared about
4 Forgiven
5 Loved
6 Safe
7 Supported
8 Trusted
9 Understood
10 Valued

I once talked to a teenager who had gone through a drug treatment program. There they told her that every child needs to feel two main things: safe and significant. I have thought about those two words often since then.

I started trying to organize my own list of emotional needs under those two main categories and this is what I came up with:

Safe -- accepted, secure

Under accepted I include: acknowledged, respected, admired, approved of, included

Under secure I would add not feeling judged, criticized, interrogated, laughed at, mocked, negated, or invalidated

Significant -- important - appreciated, worthwhile, heard, respected, helpful, useful, needed, valued, trusted, worthy, loved

Under loved I include cared about, nurtured, admired, supported, understood, reassured

This still left certain feelings from my list unaccounted for. So I wondered if once the emotional foundation has been set by establishing the feelings listed above, a child might then be ready to move towards filling his higher emotional needs which might be thought of as the need to feel free and fulfilled, as detailed below:

Free --independent, in control, private

(The feeling of privacy doesn't seem to fit perfectly under the feeling of freedom, but there I leave it there because I believe it is an important emotional need at times, and a child needs to feel free to have his own private thoughts and free to go to a private place when he/she needs to be alone.)

Fulfilled - challenged, creative, motivated, responsible, productive, accomplished, successful

By studying this list parents can come up with their own ways for helping a child meet these various emotional needs on a day to day basis. Just being aware that these needs are all important to children for their emotional health is probably a good start. In the next section I offer a few ideas to help this process along.

Some Questions for Parents

How do you want your children to feel? How do you create those feelings?

What if you could not hit, hurt, threaten or punish your children or teenagers?

What if they had the power to put you in jail, evict you from your homes?

What if they were legally free to leave home at 12 and they had safe places they could go?

What if you could not do anything to them that you could not do to a police officer? Such as threaten, bribe, use force...

　


On Punishment, Power, Fear -

Parents who use punishment, threats, force, anger, disapproval, judgement and control create feelings of:

fear, resentment, powerlessness, anger, defensiveness, insecurity

Restitution rebuilds self-esteem; punishment pulverizes self-esteem.

Fear kills learning and creates dependency.

On Labeling

Label feelings not children.

Labels stick. Labels blind us. Labels lock us into stereotypes. Labels limit our potential.

Avoid labeling your child as:

Antagonistic, Arrogant, Born loser, Bossy, Brat, Clumsy, Klutz, Crabby, Cranky, Crybaby, Defiant, Dodo, Drama Queen, Dramatic, Dunce, Egotistical, Finicky, Fool, Good-for-nothing, Greedy, Grouchy, Grumpy, Hellion, Holly Terror, Hot-tempered, Hothead, Idiot, Immature, Ingrate, Lame-brain, Lazy, Lazy-bones, Loser, Mean, Melodramatic, Moody, Monster, Moron, Nitwit, Obnoxious, Ornery, Pain, Pain-in-the neck, Pest, Picky, Pushy, Prude, Rebellious, Rude, Sassy, Sinner, Sissy, Scatter-brain, Self-centered, Selfish, Slob, Sloppy, Smart-aleck, Sore-loser, Spoiled , Stubborn, Too sensitive, Terror, "Too" anything, Troublemaker, Wallflower, Whiner, Worry-wart

Avoid expressions like:

Threw a fit, threw a tantrum, fell apart, made a scene, lost his temper, blew up



Where Respect Comes From-

Real respect is something that is earned. One earns another's respect by voluntarily doing the things mentioned above, such as taking that person's feelings, needs and thoughts into consideration.

Respect seems to be like a boomerang in the sense that you must send it out before it will come back to you. Respect cannot be demanded or forced, though sometimes people mistakenly believe that it can, as I discuss below.

Since a baby has no concept of respect, and feels only its own needs when born, the only successful way to teach a child what respect is, is to earn the respect of the child as they slowly grow into a thinking human being.

The way this is done is first of all by attending to the child's natural needs, such as to be fed and nurtured. As the child grows, his needs change. He has increasingly sophisticated psychological needs. He begins to express his own views, his own preferences, and he has an increasing need for freedom, autonomy and independence. This is when the adults in his life can treat him with increasing respect and thereby earn his respect in return.

Showing and Earning Respect:

Respecting someone means respecting their feelings and their survival needs. Here are ways to show respect for someone's feelings:

asking them how they feel
validating their feelings
empathizing with them
seeking understanding of their feelings
taking their feelings into consideration

For this process to work efficiently several things are required. For example:

Each person must be aware of their own feelings; i.e. know how they feel.
They must be able to express their feelings.
They must know how to listen non-judgmentally & non-defensively.
They must know how to validate feelings.
They must believe that feelings have value.
They must believe that feelings matter.

If respecting someone means respecting their feelings and their survival needs, then if a person does not respect your feelings, they don't respect you. If those in positions of power and authority do not respect your needs and feelings, they will not earn your respect.

　

Confusion Between Respect, Obedience and Fear

A New York City gang member was asked why he carried a gun. He replied: "Before I had this gun, I didn't get no respect. Now I do."

Similarly, teachers and parents often believe that if a child obeys them, or says "Yes, Sir/ No, Sir," it means the child respects them. Several teachers have told me they felt more respected when there was more 'discipline' in the classrooms. When I probed deeper, without fail they made it clear that they were talking about a time when there was more use of corporal punishment in school, and thus more fear of physical pain for disobedience.

There is a danger in mislabeling fear as respect. To use an analogy, consider what would happen if two jars in the medicine cabinet were mislabeled. What if poison ivy lotion were labeled as cough syrup, or chlorine as contact lens cleaner?

Here are some comparisons between fear and respect:

Fear is toxic.
Respect is nurturing.
Fear destroys self-confidence. Respect builds it.
Fear is life-threatening. Respect is life-enhancing.
Fear is forced. Respect is earned.
Fear is learned. Respect is earned.

Respect, Fear and Control in Education and Society

In many countries it is now illegal to hit children in school. In some countries, such as Sweden, it is also illegal to hit them in their homes. One result of this shift in social thinking is that children are becoming less afraid of their teachers, and of authority in general. In the past, the fear of physical punishment was often one of the main ways of maintaining control of the classroom and of society.

The trend in many countries is away from this form of control. I support this trend, but at the same time I am afraid we have taken away one method of control without replacing it with a better one. We have told the teachers you can no longer hit the children. But we did not tell them what to do instead. The result, according to many teachers, is sometimes chaos. What is needed is another basis of control.

I believe that respect is this other basis of control. But this respect must be earned and it must be mutual. It cannot be forced or demanded. It must not be confused with fear. If we confuse fear and respect we are returning to the use of fear. (See sections on this confusion and on how to earn respect)

I believe there is actually an inverse relationship between respect and fear. (See related story) Where the student feels afraid of teacher X, there is likely to be little respect for the teacher. If you now remove the fear from the equation, the student has neither fear of, nor respect for, teacher X. Now teacher X has lost control of the class. But if the teacher has earned the respect of his students, he still has a basis of control, even when the threat of physical punishment is removed. Therefore he can be expected to have fewer problems maintaining control of the classroom. In fact, this seems to be the case in actual practice. Many educators have told me that the teachers who show respect to students have lower levels of discipline and control problems as compared to teachers who use punishment and threats. (See also Authority, Fear and Respect)

If a child or teenager is treated with respect at home, it is likely he will respond positively to being treated with respect at school. But if he is hit at home and he knows that he can't be hit at school, the teacher's job will be more difficult. This is one reason why I believe it is important that we train all teachers in how to earn the respect of their students as part of their own formal education. Ideally, I would also like to see all parents and future parents trained in how to earn the respect of their children. Some, of course, can do this naturally, but I believe most people could use some formal training.

　

On Crime and Violence

Remember that violence comes from feeling small, powerless, frustrated, controlled, trapped. Guns are a substitute for feeling respected-- children who were respected don't need guns to feel powerful.

Crime is a very often a result of unmet emotional needs rather than physical needs. People are more likely to hurt others when they have been hurt themselves, either physicall or emotionally. They are also more likely to hurt others when they feel no empathy for others. Kids join gangs to get the feelings they didn't get at home. For example: important, protected, respected, heard, connected, accepted, needed, challenged. I had a teenager tell me that her gang gives her love, and I know that she did not get this from her mother or father.



On Conflicts of Needs and Abuse

The parent's role is to meet the child's needs. This is how the relationship begins, and how nature has designed the relationship to work. The best parent, then, has few unmet needs. Thus he/she can be there to attend to the child's needs. The worst parents are the ones with the most unmet emotional needs.

When the parent has many unmet needs, roles quickly become reversed; instead of the parent being there to meet the child's nees, the child gets used in an attempt to fill the parent's needs. This creates an unnatural situation. Such unnatural use of a child is the first step to the abuse of the child. It matters little which unmet needs the parent is trying to fill--physical, sexual or emotional--it is still role reversal, still an unnatural situation-- and still abuse."

　

　

　

　

Bottom line ladies and gentlemen: If you want your children to respect you, you need to respect them. It is the golden rule after all!

In a nutshell: Instead of branding, invalidating and dehumanizing your children with labels, treat them like actual human beings whom you love, believe in and want to have a good life that they themselves enjoy. You brought these children into the world, it is your responsibility to give them the best life they can have, and it is up to THEM to judge whether or not you're doing a good job of this, not you, nor a psychologist, nor anyone else. If your child gets angry at you, ask why, listen to their answer and take it seriously. If they feel very strongly about something you don't understand, ask why, listen to their answer and take it seriously. They may not be able to explain everything to you in the adult terms you are used to as he/she may still be a kid in this sense, but you must remember to never discount or underestimate their intelligence and you may need to just trust that they knows what's best for themselves and give them the chance to prove their point.


　

How important is it that we stop branding, suffocating and dehumanizing our most highly intelligent children?

　

How important is it that we discover a cure for cancer? that we solve our nation's economic crisis? that we end poverty? that we end wars? that we help to save the starving children in Africa? that we prevent unspeakable tragedies like the one in Newtown from ever occurring again?

THESE CHILDREN ARE THE ONES WHO CAN FIND THE SOLUTIONS. BUT ONLY IF WE AS PARENTS ALLOW THEM TO GROW UP UNOBSTRUCTED.
　

When the system in place does not work, common sense should tell us that something needs to be done differently. It should be apparent to all of us that we need to make changes, we need new ideas on how to run the system. And we need them RIGHT NOW. The ones who are going to come up with these ideas are not the ones who have made the rules for the past however many years, but the ones who challenge conventional wisdom and introduce new philosophies on how to solve the issues we're faced with in life. These people need to have their voices heard and the world needs to listen. This means no more branding them like cattle and no more locking them up like criminals.

　

To all of the misunderstood child geniuses out there who may be reading this: Don't ever let your parents tell you that you're "mentally ill" because you don't meet their criteria for being "normal", never let them tell you that they know what's best for you better than you do, never let them tell you you're wrong simply because you're the child, and never let them tell you that you need "help" or need to be "fixed" when you rebel against them for any of the above reasons.


To all parents of these children:  You have the right to care about your reputation. You have the right to want to attain/maintain a higher social standing. However, you do not have the right to sacrifice the well being of your child in order to do this. The most important thing to understand when making the decision to have children is that EVERYTHING else in your life from that point onwards comes second to your child. No exceptions whatsoever.

You need to understand that you (and the world) have been given a tremendous gift, which must not be thrown away and wasted. You need to always tell your child how special they are, how much you love them and remind them of their limitless potential. If you want your child to live up to this potential and become a happy and successful adult, just let them be themselves. It's never wrong to admit when you're wrong and it's never too late to make a change. The world will thank you one day.

　

In closing, I'd like to offer this video. One simple solution to our nation's greatest epidemic:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxNGI4lSBQQ