“HANDLE WITH CARE…” BOOK REVIEW

ABSTRACT

“Handle with care” is written by Fr Varkey, who had his training in India, France and U.S.A. He has been enriched with a wide experience as educationalist and counselor. He gives courses and seminars to parents and teachers on the theme of this book. This book is warmly recommended to parents and teachers and all those who are interested in their wards. Once they go through the book, they will be better parents and teachers and their wards better human beings.

The author has handled his theme with great insight and sensitivity. He takes the reader through complicated psychological issues and problems with appropriate anecdotes interlaced with observations of psychologists and other authorities.

INTRODUCTION:

This book on parents and children is mainly based on author’s experience in Loyola School, Trivandrum and various seminars that he presented. During his years in Loyola, first as a teacher and then as the Headmaster he and his colleagues began to realize the tragic paradoxes in training of children. As one of his colleagues told him one day, “I have slowly come to realize the contradiction in my behavior. I shout when children make noise and I abuse them when they use bad language. I find that I am as undisciplined as my worst student.” The author says that no wonder that we fail so often in our attempts to get the desired response from children. In fact, we often do cause serious damage to them.

The author mentions that the slow realization helped them to change their attitude and behavior towards children from punishment and scolding to love, understanding and appreciation. They were able to make little change though not completely in themselves. But even the moderate change in them encouraging results that he wanted to share those ideas with wider public. In this book, the author offers some suggestions to parents and teachers to make the bringing up and training of children both at home and at school an experience that is satisfying and full of promises, although not without challenges.

The author mentions a saying by Carl Jung, “All neurosis is the result of the individual’s unwillingness to go through the necessary pain.” This book mentions that, it will demand a lot of self-discipline to become a good parent or teacher. But the result will far exceed the trouble.

Why Do Children Behave The Way They Do?

“Monsters are not sent into decent homes from heaven or hell.” Alice Miller

               

1.       If I am hurt, I hurt myself and others…hurt will have its revenge

In preparation for a workshop in a college, the author made some discreet inquiries among the students about their lecturers. The students told him that they had nicknames for all their lecturers who spoke or behaved disrespectfully towards them. They created trouble in classes of those lecturers while they behaved well in the classes of those who treated them politely. The students did not bother to give the latter any nicknames either.

The author says that as long as the hurt remains unhealed, he or she is a source of hurt. In Jayan’s example who was studying in Std. IX. He was bright in class but performed badly in all his exams. The teachers were puzzled. The sympathetic class teacher used to ask him why he was doing so badly in the exams; but in vain. Then one day a teacher, who knew Jayan’s father, asked him the surprising question: “Are you doing this to teach your daddy a lesson?” The core of his being was touched. The boy’s face revealed both sadness and relief. He replied: “Of course! All that I hear from him is that he was the first in school, college and God knows, where else. And he tells me that he is ashamed of me and will never step into the school until I get the first rank in the class.” Jayan was not of course, aware that he was doing badly in exams to spite his father. It was an unconscious compulsion. But he was hurting his father and himself.

2.       To forget the hurt does not mean that it has been healed

When children are hurt they experience the pain of it. But often in the course of some weeks or months, the child ‘forgets’ the hurt. He has to forget it to get some relief from the pain. Psychologists call this repression. Repression does not remove the hurt or heal the emotional wound. It only keeps the memory of the hurt away from the conscious mind. But it lies buried in the unconscious to influence the behavior in unhealthy ways as in case of Jayan.

3.       Sources of repetition compulsion

Cruelty can take a thousand forms and it goes undetected even today because the damage it does to the child and the ensuing consequences are still so very little known. Almost every human being has been hurt as child and there is almost always some unhealed hurt in everyone. It could range from the compulsion to get into mood occasionally, to the necessity of having to be shut up in an asylum. The psychological stages in the lives of most of these people are:

·         They get hurt as children without being able to look as he situation objectively.

·         They, as children, are unable to react with anger or rage even if they are treated unjustly because they are so dependent on their persecutors, namely, parents.

·         Even if they are treated unjustly they are told that they are thus punished for their own good. And most children come to believe it.

·         As they grow up they forget all this through repression.

·         In adulthood they discharge the stored-up anger or sadness or guilt onto others or direct them against themselves.

Why Are Children Influenced So Much?

“The foetus lives an active emotional life from the sixth month on.” John Bradshaw

1.       Even adults swallow what they are told: more so children

The author gives an example of two girls of same age, Vimal and Vijaya, who are also neighbours. Vimal is very fair skinned and really pretty. But her mother believes that she herself is even more fair skinned and pretty. Mother here is disappointed that her daughter is not  as pretty as she herself is and communicates to her daughter this feeling in words and behavior even though subtly. Chances are that as she grows up Vimal will feel that she is not pretty and will act accordingly. Vijaya is not as fair skinned as Vimal; nor is she so pretty. But her mother genuinely feels that her daughter is really pretty and communicates to her that feelingin words and behavior and that too, quite openly. So Vijaya grows up believing that she is pretty and behaves accordingly. The two girls will behave in the presence of others according to their beliefs. They really hypnotize the children casting on them a blessing or a curse.

2.       ….because children are so helpless

The reason why children are so very susceptible to this process is that they are so helpless, especially in their earlier years. Parents are like gods to the children. Their greatest fear is the fear of abandonment by their parents. For it they lose their parents they don’t have anyone else to depend on. It is the question of pure survival, as the children see it. Children’s fear of losing their parents is so great that they will often identify themselves with and be strongly bonded to the ‘persecuting’ parent and incorporate that parent’s beliefs and values. The explanation is that the ‘good’ parent is there, any way, for them. It is the ‘bad’ parent that they are afraid of losing. So they hold on to the bad parent in their frantic effort to get his or her love also.

3.       Parents take advantage of this helplessness

Since training begins in infancy, the helplessness and lack of intelligence makes it virtually impossible for the child to discover what is actually happening to him. This dependence on parents’ love also makes it almost impossible in later years to recognize these traumatizations which often remain hidden behind the early idealization of parents. The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on children is to refuse to let them express their anger and suffering except at risk of losing their parents’ love and affection. It is not so much the trauma of parental abuse itself that is the source of illness but the unconscious, repressed, hopeless despair over not being allowed to give expression to what one has suffered and the fact one is not allowed to show and is unable to experience feelings of rage, anger, humiliation, despair, helplessness and sadness. The next step in the destruction of the spontaneity and childlikeness of the child happens when children are made to believe that the cruelty inflicted on them is for their own good.

4.       Children are more vulnerable than adults

There is significant difference between cruelty suffered by children and cruelty suffered by adults. Theoretically a child beaten by his father could afterwards cry his heart out in the arms of a kind aunt or mother who presumably would not try to minimize the child’s pain or justify the father’s actions but would give the whole experience its due weight. But such a good fortune is rare. The mother or aunt herself is often in an equally terrorized and helpless situation. Besides, the battered child may be unlikely to have inner freedom to seek out and make use of such an adult. Thus the plight of more serious consequences for society, than the plight of an adult who is ill-treated in a prison or concentration camp.

 

Attention Is a Basic Need

“I know nothing about all that (i.e. about Adam and Eve being driven out of paradise). It was my father who drove me out of paradise.”- Christoph Meckel

1.       Strokes are a basic need

The first thing that a cow does once it has given birth to a calf is to lick it. By doing it the mother is not only drying the calf but also giving it instinctively attention or ‘strokes’ which energize the calf. And the calf gets up and begins to take his first faltering steps. The cow will lick the cow as long as the calf is kept with the cow. In one study a collection of rats were injected with leukemia. Half of them were given, besides food, lot of attention by researchers. The other half got only food they needed. Survivors in the group that received attention far outnumbered survivors in the group that received only food. Attention seems to be able to fight even leukemia.

It is common knowledge that children need to be stroked a lot in their first months and years. In fact if a child does not get a minimum of attention or recognition it gets sick. The only language a newborn baby understands is that of touching, holding, hugging, caressing and cooing. As babies grow older they need less and less of physical acts of recognition. They need to be told in words that they are appreciated. But the need for physical touch never ceases. We see this most especially when one is sick or hurt. The touch of a loved one has a healing effect. Yet as we grow older the need for words and other acts of recognition takes precedence over the need to be touched.

2.       Positive strokes over negative strokes

All of us need strokes and if we do not get enough positive strokes we look for negative ones. The inner dynamics of looking for strokes produces a strange situation. We seem to develop those traits or behaviours for which we get even negative strokes. This was the subject of one study. Children in one school get their dictation sheets back with all correct words marked in green and with the number of correct words put on top of the page with circle round it. So the correct words were given attention. In another school the wrong spellings were marked in red, with the number of wrong words on the top of the page with a red circle round the figures. Here the incorrect words are getting attention. In the first school children showed a sudden improvement and then most children began to slip back to their old level, some even going further down. This might look strange and almost unbelievable.  

3.       Poisonous Pedagogy Principles framed by Alice Miller in her book – “For Your Own Good”

She calls them “Poisonous Pedagogy” because these are the summary of child-rearing practices which give negative strokes to children.

·         Adults are the masters (not the servants!) of the dependent child.

·         Parents determine in god-like fashion what is right and what is wrong.

·         The child is held responsible for their anger.

·         The parents must always be shielded.

·         The child’s life-affirming feelings pose a threat to the autocratic parent.

·         The child’s will must be broken as soon as possible.

·         All this must happen at a very early age, so the child ‘won’t notice’ and will therefore not be able to expose the adults!

Author says that whether we like it or not, many parents follow these principles without realizing that the children are hurt badly, that they get a lot of negative attention. But since children are not allowed to express their anger, they are obliged to repress it with all consequences that follow such repression.

Love is nature’s psychotherapy

“I saw the angel in the marble and I just chiseled till I set him free.” Michelangelo

1.       Love does transform people

The author gives an example of Vimala who was the teacher of standard II. She had difficulty in maintaining discipline in class. Then, at the suggestion of one of her friends, she tried an experiment. Each child was to choose another child on the first day of every week, write his or her name on a fresh page, observe and note down on that page anything good that his ‘ward’ said or did in class or outside. On Fridays each would share his findings with the whole class. In a month’s time as children got plenty of positive attention, the whole atmosphere of the class changed; discipline improved and children formed new friendships and became more interested in studies.

2.       The effect of love

The effect of love and recognition is so powerful that we will have a better look at this magic that nature has put at our disposal.  In an example, the author says, that ..A young professor of sociology in New York asked his students to go into the slums of New York and pick out two hundred children who, because of the atmosphere in the family and neighbourhood, would normally end up in prison. As students of sociology they were studying the influence of the environment on the individual.

Twenty five years later the same professor asked his new batch of students to find out what had actually happened to those persons. They were able to locate about a hundred and eighty of the original two hundred. Only four had ever been to jail, the others were leading respectable lives. On further inquiry they found that most of these people remembered vividly a particular teacher who taught them in primary classes, a Miss O’Rourkee, as an inspiration in their lives. Asked to explain her influence the puzzled lady, then more than seventy years old, said: “All I can say is that I loved everyone of them. I knew they would make it and I told them so.” She believed in these children and was able to communicate that belief to her students.

3.       Reinforcement in practice

The author gives example of Mathew, a student of standard VIII had the habit of raising both his shoulders to indicate or say that he did not know the answer to a question. Whenever he did it the whole class laughed, that is, he was rewarded for his queer behavior. The new teacher brought this to the notice of the students and asked them not to laugh when Mathew raised his shoulders. Result: Mathew stopped that habit in less than two weeks.

In another example, Tom, aged three, had the habit of leaving the toys on the floor after play. His mother wanted to teach him the habit of putting away things in the proper place after use. So she asked Tom gently to arrange the toys in the shelf. His mother helped him in this. She then told him how smart he was and how well he had put back the toys. She had to do it only for two weeks before he could do it all by himself. After a month Tom began to do it all by himself. After a month Tom started again the old habit of leaving the toys on the floor!

What happened? Only this: The mother did not ‘reward’ Tom now and then.                    

In another example, the headmaster used to tell the children that if they happened to break a flower pot or window-pane they should report the matter themselves so that no one else would be suspected. If anyone could pay the compensation for the damage, it would be better to do it. If they were unable to pay either because they had no pocket money or because their parents would get angry with them if they approached them for money to pay the compensation, the damage would always be written off. In about a year when children were fully convinced that the Headmaster meant what he said most damages were reported by children themselves. And the number of damages did not increase at all! I do admit that sometimes some children will continue to tell lies even if this policy is followed. The reason, I believe, is that the fear of many punishments they received while still young continues to haunt them. They are not fully sure that adults are safe enough to hear the truth. Adults have to win this confidence by patience and our own truthfulness.

Children and discipline

“It is easier to rule a nation than to bring up a child”- Chinese Proverb

1.       What is discipline?

Yes, children need love and deiscipline, In fact, true love implies discipline. What exactly do we mean by discipline? Is it the discipline of the prison? Prisoners go for meals, exercise, etc. in perfect order. But is that discipline? There is outward order but deep down there is resentment and they are waiting for a chance to break loose. On the other hand in a good family every one does what is right though each may have his or her own character. Outwardly there may even be an appearance of chaos. Yet somehow there is harmony and everyone’s rights are respected. It is like an orchestra in which different instruments are played and yet there is harmony.

One of the author’s friend told him something that happened in his house. He has only one son. They had a custom for years of fasting from Friday noon till after the morning services on Saturday. He jokingly added that the rule applied to the cat and dog. One Friday evening his son Santosh came back after a game of tennis while the parents were in the sitting room. The boy rushed past his parents right to the dining table on which was big piece of cake. He grabbed it and lifted it to his mouth. Then without turning his eyes’ he asked: “Mummy, is it Friday today?” His mother, pretending that she had not noticed anything, replied: “Yes, son.” Santosh put back the cake as a matter of course, drank a full bottle of water and joined the parents to share some news. Santosh knew that even if he had eaten the cake his parents would not have objected. The weekly fast had become for him a rule; he had integrated it into his life. There was freedom and discipline in Mathew’s family, for the parents were disciplined and observed the rules. True discipline means the ability to discern what is right and to have some facility to do it, not because of any external force but from an inner urge.

2.       How parents should correct their children

In counseling there is a skill called confrontation by which the counselor challenges the client to examine his behavior and the consequences of that behavior. The purpose is of course to help the client to improve the quality of his life. The author thinks the principles and cautions about confrontation apply to great extent to the way parents should deal with their children when they have to correct them. The role of parents towards their children goes far beyond the role of a counselor towards the client. The principles of confrontation are:

·         Confrontation is like strong medicine. It can have dramatic effects; it can also be dangerously misused.

·         Only a counselor who has established a good emotional rapport with the client can confront productively.

·         It is never to be used as a means to discharge the counselor’s anger or annoyance at the client.

·         It has to be done with extreme care and respect for the client.

Words that work havoc

“Parents in pain yell at children”- John Bradshaw

1.       There was nothing wrong with him

The author gives example of Sydney, aged twelve, with his indifference to studies and lack of attention in class was a source of trouble to his teachers and a disappointment to his parents. The class teacher couldn’t find out what was wrong with Sydney. He was failing in three or four subjects in every exam. Probably, he could not follow the class thought the teacher.

One day the teacher visited Sidney’s home. After coffee and small talk, the teacher asked the parents “How is Sidney?” The dam burst! The parents began to pour out their complaints, anger, disappointment and sorrow. “We are fed up with him. He just doesn’t care. We are disappointed. He doesn’t study. He is failing in most subjects. He has also lost some of his textbooks. We have been thinking of taking him to a psychiatrist. But some of our friends feel that it would make the matter worse. Sometimes we wonder if we need to see the psychiatrist ourselves. We just don’t know what to do with Sydney!” Sydney was listening to all this with obvious pain. Then the father asked the teacher: “What is wrong with our son?”

The teacher was silent for a while and then said: “Well, I don’t think there is anything seriously wrong with Sidney. If my parents had talked to me the way you have been talking, well, probably I would have behaved exactly like Sydney. You have been telling him that he is no good, and that you are fed up with him. I suppose Sydney resents all that. Probably he has begun to believe you; believes that he is really no good, after all. He has no urge to make an effort because you don’t believe he will any way. Believe in Sydney, believe that he is good, that he will improve. Love him whatever happens to him. I’m sure Sidney will have a pleasant surprise for your soon.” Few months later, parents said to teacher: “Thankyou Sir, Sydney is different now. He is earnest. He is doing much better in studies and in everything else.”

            Functional and Dysfunctional families

In a functional family each of the parents decides and chooses to stand by the other no matter what happens. Such parents accept that family is edifice that they need to build up day by day and are willing to invest time and energy for doing it. In a dysfunctional family 2 adults come together to get their needs met by the other.

In a functional family each member will be responsible for his or her happiness. There is no blaming. In a dysfunctional family one blames the other for once happiness, anger, or anything else.  In functional family problems are acknowledged and resolved. The husband and wife are aware of their family difference in attitude, values, communication styles, and behavioral patterns. These differences will be understood and accepted but not judged as right or wrong.

In a functional family all the members are free to think as they really do. In a dysfunctional family children are told that they should not feel this or that way.

In functional family parents do what they say or promise. They will not tell children to be honest when they themselves cheat and take bribe in business. Instead they are self disciplined and are willing to apply disciple in their relationship and in dealing with their children. In a dysfunctional family children feels that they can’t count on their parents. They are too busy with other things and are not there for the children. For example, children can’t watch TV because mother or father has a headache.

In a functional family, parents are willing to take a serious look into their childhood to see how they have been hurt so that they can look for ways and means of getting healed. They will do this so that they will not go on hurting themselves and their children. In a dysfunctional family, parents blame each other, the children and even the weather for their hurting behavior.

In a functional family, spiritual growth is priced more than purely material well being. Spiritual growth means the need to love and to be beloved, to care and to be cared for, to seek truth, beauty and goodness. Spiritual growth means to be concerned about the welfare of once children and the people at large. A dysfunctional family is characterized by spiritual bankruptcy. What interests parents and children is more and more gadgets, more and more material comforts, not people, not time to share.

            The gift of forgiving

Alice Miller writes in her book “Drama of the Gifted Child”:  Only the mourning for what he has missed, missed at the crucial time can lead to real healing. The achievement of the freedom – is hardly possible without the feel of mourning. This ability to mourn, i.e. to give up the illusion of a happy childhood, can restore vitality and creativity – if a person is able to experience that he was never loved as child for what he was, but for his achievements, success and good qualities… and that he scarifies his childhood for this love, this love will shake him very deeply. 

            Doing the child’s homework

The worst way to help a child is to do his work for him, like doing his sums and writing out his essays. It does help greatly to give him the necessary help to do it himself. The former is called rescuing, i.e. encouraging the child not to grow up. The latter is tough love that will not spare him the pain of growing up. The truth is we can neither force growth nor ensure success. Human nature is so complex that even with the best of our effort our children may not grow as we want.

            What is success in good life

Dr. Abrahim Maslow, spent his life studying the highest potential of human nature. He came to the conclusion that spiritual life was the core of human life. He writes in “The further reaches of human nature”: The spiritual life is … part of human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature. Without which human nature is not fully human nature.

Dr. Bernie Siegal, writes as a physician and summarizing his experience of the part played by the spiritual in the healing process “The spiritual life” has many meanings. It need not be reflected in any commitment to an organized religion and we all know that some of the most outwardly pious people are the least spiritual. These are the once who give the other people “Spiritual Ulcers..”. I view spirituality as including the belief in some meaning and order in the universe. I view the force behind creation as loving intelligent energy. For some this is labeled God, for others it can be seen as source of healing. Acceptance, faith, forgiveness, peace and love are the treats that define spirituality for me.

 

CONCLUSION

There is only one really effective way to give children a good character. Children learn what they live. They learn not so much for the advice as from example. Children should experience at home from the way parents deal with them and among themselves. People who are fortunate to have lived in the families where as the children they were protected, respected, valued and loved by their parents and those, though were once hurt and violated, but hacked been healed for their emotional hurt, can become emotionally healthy adults for whom welfare of others will be as important as their own. They will enjoy peace and joy and bring the same into the world.