September 1, 2023
Relational and Social Constructionist Consortium of Ecuador (IRYSE)
Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A. y Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D.
“Everywhere I look I find the commandment to respect parents and nowhere a commandment that requires respecting children.”
(Alice Miller)
Throughout our lives, we will give ourselves and accept -in the different relational contexts in which we participate- the same treatment that we received when we were children. You have to respect the boy/girl, love him deeply, and show it to him. Parents must realize the meaning that things can have for their child, and based on that, do what is most useful for everyone.
The fulfillment of fathers and mothers is not the responsibility of the sons or daughters. Children are not there to save unhappy, frustrated, and dissatisfied fathers and mothers. Children are not from the mother; they are not from the father. They are in themselves. And they don’t owe anyone anything.
The child is not a toy or a doll, it is not a domestic animal; it is not a trained dwarf; it is not a trained subaltern; it is not a parasite or a complacent slave; it is not property or extension or prolongation or appendage of its parents; it is not a second-class being or an invisible citizen; it is not an object with which adults can indulge in anything (with the alibis of love, education, obedience, discipline), without consequences, in total impunity.
The child is a person, a subject, a human being, and deserves respect. The child’s needs must be considered important, putting them first. Boys and girls deserve to be loved for the mere fact of being, of existing, without the need to please, obey, or “owe” something to their father or mother: they deserve unconditional love, which is what will give them the right and responsibility to build a future with well-being for themselves and others.
The world of adults -with power- with the alibi of supposed good intentions, believe that they can do and say anything in their relationships with children and adolescents (covered by other complicit adults, who leave them unpunished; something which should even have legal consequences), and they do not assume the consequences of language and actions -clearly disrespectful and violent- towards their interlocutors and their context.
Love nourishes and does not martyr, illuminates, and does not darken, it is a reason for celebration and not suffering. Love is fair, it is not unfair; it is responsible, it is not cruel. Love is unconditional respect and acceptance of your different being; it is not abuse, violence, or mistreatment.
Emotional sexual abuse of fathers/mothers with their sons/daughters
When parents separate, divorce, or live in conditions and contexts that are poisoned in and with their communication and relationship, they tend to use their sons/daughters as soldiers in a war against each other, in an endless, destructive, cruel, and unfair war. They burden their children with the responsibilities of being adults. They project their frustrations onto their sons/daughters and blame them for their human miseries, which only depend on themselves.
They miserably blackmail their children by explicitly or implicitly demanding that they choose them and destroy and reject the other parent. They put their sons/daughters in a position of double bind, which will make them -in the present or the future- go crazy or make them addicted: whatever they do, they lose. If they choose mom, they lose dad if they choose dad, they lose mom. When in reality, these sons and daughters have the right to receive the love of their father and to receive the love of their mother, without having to choose or prefer; and, at the same time, choose to love their mother or father freely and openly, without being punished, blamed or disqualified for exercising that legitimate human right.
It is emotional sexual abuse because the father or mother develops an emotionally incestuous bond with their son or daughter -placing them in the place of a couple- who must fill and satisfy their emotional and/or physical needs. They vampirize them emotionally and plunder them spiritually. The adult, abusive father or mother, transmits the conviction that the son or daughter must assume the responsibility of being and permanently accompanying the father or mother; of filling their time and spaces, of dedicating themselves exclusively to pleasing them, obeying them and meeting their needs and wishes (of his father or mother) as absolute priorities in his life. An abusive, savage, and oppressive colonization of the subjectivity of that son or daughter.
Every child needs an empathetic and non-dominant human being for company. Those who are capable of empathizing do not need to repress the truth. Without total openness to what the other tells us, it is almost impossible to speak of authentic dedication. Only if he has an adult behind him who does not need his dependence, does the child feel completely free to grow. A child’s healthy growth depends on someone loving and accepting him or her unconditionally. When this infantile need is satisfied, his loving energy is released, so that he can love others.
Children and adolescents need fathers and mothers, responsible adults who guarantee their well-being; above all, they need adults to be available to them; available to give them attention, time, respectful listening, and commitment, to be there to share joy, to laugh with them; that nourish them with hope, that authorize them to be happy.
Adults are needed, who authorize themselves to construct and write another story, their own, freeing themselves from the family and social “should be,” from the invisible loyalties to their families of origin, to their previous partners, to social stereotypes. It is necessary that they assertively differentiate themselves from their respective families of origin. They do not have to repeat the cruel and unfair stories of their fathers, mothers, or relatives; nor the manipulative alibis to avoid choosing and deciding as responsible adults a path, a project, a different lifestyle, in favor of their well-being and that of their new family.
We need to develop consistent ethics; be aware that the consequences of our actions and our words affect others; even more so if they are people, vulnerable human beings such as children and adolescents, who are building their future as adults.
Mistreating, beating, raping, physically, psychologically, sexually, verbally, and emotionally abusing girls, boys, and adolescents is a crime that should not be committed and should not go unpunished.
In 1990, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was approved with the commitment to comply with the principle of the “best interests of the child”, which establishes that the rights of children and adolescents are not subordinated to the authorization of parents, but are a common good to be protected by the State and society.
Dad and mom are the fundamental significant emotional references (later, for example, teachers are added) who structure, model, and nurture their offspring. Their relationship teaches their children. The most important duty we have towards our children, after feeding and protecting them, is to be happy individually, and to be happy with the partner (it can be the same or a new one) with whom we decide to build a story and a life project.
Neglect is the most serious and frequent form of physical, emotional, psychological, and existential abuse. The atmosphere of disqualification towards the child and adolescent by their father, mother, or the adults with whom they live, is what will mean the lack of knowledge of the legitimacy of that child or adolescent as a human being, as a person. Hitting or humiliating (at home or in the classroom) a child or sexually abusing him is a crime because it means breaking him spiritually. Under the pretext and alibi of discipline and obedience, of education, of setting limits, all types of adult “educators” torture children; they conceal their perversity in educational justifications; They find complicity in a corrupt system devoid of human ethics. Violent/abusive adults are convinced of their ownership over their sons and daughters. They are scoundrels who maintain that it is their right to mistreat to set limits. They impose their human misery on the tale of love.
The trauma of abuse does not irreparably damage, although it marks with fire; what harms the abused child or adolescent is the lack of affection in daily family relations. The key lies in affection and solidarity, and these in the human context. Abuse is protected by the law of silence, which keeps the abuser in impunity and silences the victims. When the “witnesses” also decide to maintain complicit silence, the abusive system is maintained, and can only be broken when the “witnesses” break the law of silence.
If certain adults minimize, trivialize, ridicule, or deny the abuse of which children and adolescents are victims, perhaps it is because -sadly- they could have been victims of these crimes in their own childhood (and it is too painful and threatening to face them); or it could be that they are the ones who are abusing children and adolescents, or it could be that they have equally criminal blindness. As Alice Miller explains: cruelty inflicted in childhood breeds unhappiness, addictions, slavery; and, in more acute cases, social violence (criminals, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, dictators, torturers, etc.).
What hurts sons/daughters deeply is living with parents who do not look at each other with respect and love, who do not touch each other with words and actions of respect and love, and who do not dialogue. Couples who despise and hate each other; indifferent, absent cynics. Zombie couples.
Of the forms of relationship that we experience, only dialogue as the first option can be considered good treatment. All other forms of relationships (that do not build dialogue) are abuse and mean exclusion.
The fears of fathers and mothers can stress, and generate anguish in their children (fear paralyzes, just like guilt), parents must take charge of their fears (and resolve them) and not project them on the lives of their children. That’s respect. And, adults should not confuse fear with respect; they are opposite and antagonistic.
Children and adolescents are people, they are human beings different from their parents from the moment of their birth (they are others) and that difference must be respected throughout their lives. What they need from their fathers, mothers, educators, and adults with whom they relate is love, respect, listening, understanding, trust, and acceptance; they need limits that adults embody, limits that contain them, guide them, give security, and give confidence.
Abuse, physical, emotional, psychological, and relational violence with children and adolescents, is a state of barbarism that should not continue to be ignored, covered up, and made invisible -due to cowardice, hypocrisy, comfort, negligence-, and it is a crime that cannot be. The atmosphere of disqualification towards the child and adolescent by their father, mother, or the adults with whom they live, manifests the lack of knowledge of the right of that child or adolescent to be treated as a human being, as a person; to be heard, understood, legitimized.
Violence: It is any, and all acts and words perpetrated against someone, which denies their autonomy, their legitimacy as a human being; all abuse of power; any action, omission, and speech that denies the person to exercise their right and legitimacy; actions -and their consequences- that prevent living with a minimum of dignity… Any exchange in which one member places the other in an unwanted position or place; can be verbal and/or physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological.
Research shows that children who are beaten, mistreated, humiliated, and disqualified are more likely to suffer sexual abuse. Abuse, the absence of dialogue, insults, and punishments decrease security and trust and make it more difficult to defend their rights. The children least prone to abuse are those with whom you talk and reflect, those who feel loved, understood, protected, respected, and accepted. If the child feels loved, he will not easily fall for acquaintances who, by simulating the affection he needs, abuse him.
Avoid all forms of aggression (pulling hair, hitting, shaking, or speaking to them in humiliating ways: “stupid”, “useless”, “brute”, “ignorant”; yelling, insulting, threatening, blackmailing). Do not see or see yourself as a passive victim of abuse but as someone whose right has been violated (Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN).
Overprotection is a form of violence: it invalidates, and disqualifies; it kills trust, responsibility, freedom, and joy.
An upbringing sustained in disrespectful treatment gives rise to people who feel undeserving of affection or with a distorted vision of what love represents, taking abuse as a demonstration of it. Firmness has to do with security and trust. The limit is not a punishment, it has to do with a care guide, it is the responsibility of adults to set limits so as not to neglect. Firmness does not mean any abuse. Boundaries must (always, every time) be thoughtfully explained. It is the responsibility of adults to set consistent limits, without fear, and with respect; they are not there to be carpets for their daughters, nor to buy their love, being faint-hearted fathers and mothers. It is necessary to set human, congruent limits.
In a system that tends to compete and “win” at any cost, parents get hooked on that stress, the fundamental thing is to give unconditional love and trust to their children; have patience to respect your own pace and growth options; not burden them with the demands of the adult world, its anxieties; do not overwhelm children with adult expectations, but let children express themselves freely.
Dad and mom should provide them with the appropriate instruments to grow in independence and autonomy, which will make them do well in life. Have confidence in your children’s judgment; teach them to build their criteria (and respect it), and know how to choose, discern, and discriminate. When children choose, parents should congratulate them, tell them: “I’m glad, I congratulate you, I trust your judgment, you did well.”
Overprotection ends up turning people into beings who have difficulty taking care of themselves, they are not prepared for their independence, and they feel the need to live depending on someone who controls them. It is essential to establish good communication with children. It implies openness, determination, frankness, and a family climate that gives security and trust, that is not scary; which excludes without exceptions: hitting, screaming, threats, and humiliation.
Both not respecting the right of children to have their voice, or allowing children to do as they please, are forms of harm. Infants are learning to see the world and as parents, we have the job of establishing healthy limits that will preserve their integrity, that will speak to them of respect for themselves and others.
As parents, let us use love as the guide to educate our sons /daughters and understand that they do not belong to us, nor their lives, nor their dreams, they are not here to correct our mistakes, nor are they a second chance for us. They have a respectable life of their own and we must take care of their wings, teach them to fly, and support them when they do so. Is important to create healthy and human limits (that humanize), that are said and practiced, that are respected and made to be respected, and that are coordinated and built, with respect, understanding, relational intelligence, and affection.
We have the ethical responsibility to do and say differently, with consistency, so that this humiliating reality changes urgently, so that cruel and unjust abuses and violence against the human rights of children and adolescents are not accepted, tolerated, or trivialized, nor covered up.
No to barbarism with alibis, pretexts, and family, cultural, and educational justifications.
Just because it has been done does not mean that it should continue to be done; just because others practice it does not mean that it is good and that we should accept it, justify it, and much less repeat it. All forms of cruelty and abuse towards children and adolescents, even if they are presented with the manipulative mask of culture and national or family idiosyncrasy, of supposed educational limits, are unacceptable; they should not be accepted as normal, natural, and eternal. They are abusive, unfair, and stupid ideas and practices, and should not be accepted.
The extreme relativization of human behavior gives rise to barbarism. Some things should not be done, regardless of culture, family, nationality, ethnicity, idiosyncrasy, social class, or gender: hitting and abusing children and adolescents in any way is one of those criminal actions that we should not legitimize with cultural pretexts, of supposed “rights and authority” of fathers, mothers, and adults. Lack of respect and abuse is the weapon of the weak, it is the way out of the cowards and abusive.
For there to be healthy emotional and mental development we need to communicate and feel connected, we need to dialogue with each other, with authenticity, respect, and understanding.
“You are not just what you are used to being; You can become whoever you want to be.” Respecting a child’s emotions means allowing them to feel who they are, and becoming aware of themselves here and now. It means placing them in the position of subjects, authorizing them to show themselves as different from us. Consider them as a person and not as an object, and give them the possibility of responding in their own particular way to the question: who am I?
It also means helping you to fulfill yourself, allowing you to perceive your “today” in relation to “yesterday” and “tomorrow”, being aware of your resources, your strengths, and your shortcomings, and feeling yourself moving along a path: your path. The child learns mainly from his parents. A respectful and loving educational attitude towards the child is decisive in the development of their emotional and relational capacities and skills. We build our emotional habits based on the emotions -accepted or prohibited by parents- consciously and above all unconsciously, on family taboos and secrets.
Parents who are insensitive to themselves because they have been insensitive to them, cannot be sensitive to the psychological needs of their child. They tend to deny them, to minimize them. They can inflict deep wounds with “the best will in the world,” just as their parents wounded them “for their own sake.” The greater the inner helplessness, the greater the need for power over others. When one does not feel up to the task, one cannot confess weaknesses that are inappropriate for one’s role or function. One terrorizes others to be less afraid of oneself.
Alice Miller proposes these liberating questions:
1) What tormented me during my childhood?
2) What was it that they didn’t allow me to feel?
Adults refuse to pay attention to their children’s feelings because they have had to forget their own sufferings. The more they have suffered, the more they will refuse to identify with the discomfort of the dependency situation and will not want to get in touch with the pain. By denying their pain, they deny the child’s pain. They compulsively repeat abusive behaviors as if to prove to themselves that they are not doing wrong. As long as a father or mother is not willing to question their parents, they will not want to remember what they have experienced. Some people do not know their true needs because they haven´t had the right to have them. They have never said no to their mother or father. They don’t really know who they are.
As Miller explains, a boy, a girl, from birth, needs the love of her parents; he needs them to give him their affection, their respect, their acceptance, their attention, their protection, their care, and their willingness to communicate with him. The less love the child has received and the more he has been denied and mistreated under the pretext of education and discipline, the more he will depend -once he is an adult- on his parents or substitute figures, from whom he will expect everything that his parents didn’t give him as a child. It does not mean that we have to pay the same price to our elderly parents and treat them cruelly, but that we must see them as they were, just as they treated us when we were children, without idealizing them or lying to us, to free ourselves and our children. of that model of behavior. We must get rid of the abusive, disrespectful, cruel, and unfair parents that we have internalized and that continue to destroy us; only then will we have the desire to live and learn to respect ourselves.
The boy or girl that takes his parents as models, tends to spontaneously follow their example more than his own path. Unconscious messages are as powerful -or more- than conscious actions or words. Accompanying our sons/daughters to develop their emotional-relational coefficient forces us to develop ours. Accompanying a boy and girl to grow means growing ourselves with them. Our sons/daughters (mirrors of our inner reality) confront us with our limits and teach us to love, they are excellent spiritual guides no matter how little we listen to them. Possessing emotional-relational intelligence is knowing how to love and build oneself through the difficult and complex experiences of life.
It is useless for you to sacrifice yourself for them; your happiness is one of the fundamental elements of their full development because it makes them want to grow and frees them from the burden of making you happy. Furthermore, a happy father and mother are more emotionally available for their son/daughter. What really gives you strength in the face of experiences is not the ability to submit and force oneself, but the ability to see things with good eyes, to laugh, to mobilize one’s resources and strengths, to invent solutions; and jointly build new possible futures.
What can we do and say differently with ourselves to accompany our sons/daughters with respect, love, and joy? How do I want to be with others? And how do I want them to be with me?
May boys and girls feel this: “I am present, I am with you, I value you, I accompany you with affection, connection, understanding, and respect, however, I accept you and let you be.” May the encounters be transformative understandings each time. Value -tell them- and trust in the capacities and abilities that children and young people have. Learn to reflect, to take care of words; to take care of the people in front of you; and the way that you are going to present and say what you are thinking. Tom Andersen: “Words are like hands with which we touch people’s faces. And, at the same time, you can see people being touched by their own words”.
Trust, acceptance, and freedom in raising children (and in the relationship between educators and students): the most important and decisive things. When we say “freedom” we understand it (according to the maturation of the boys and girls) as providing alternatives, gently. Not only prohibit something but offer possibilities to do it: at another time, in another way, in another place, etc. Inviting creativity. “Home is acceptance.” What does this phrase mean to you, dear reader?
Confidence in their own resources, listening to the needs of their sons/daughters, and helping them, progressively, to learn to think reflectively about themselves. Build a safe and reliable relational context, so that boys and girls make their voices heard, and take it seriously, giving it importance.
Children and adolescents trust and feel safe when they do not feel judged or that they have been delegated responsibilities by adults. What creates and builds a significant bond in favor of the growth of children and adolescents is expressing their feelings with fair words; and, not judging them, but accepting them as they are. With words that contribute, guided by love.
The important thing: love them, respect them, accept them, support them, ask them, and listen to them. This means to talk, to dialogue with them, about what is significant, for them, and to do it enjoying, as a pleasure. It is to position oneself as an adult with affection and to position them as responsible beings. Legitimize them as subjects with rights, in a respectful accompaniment, which means living adult life, with autonomy and independence; enjoying one’s life -maintaining joy, dignity, solidarity, congruence, and generosity-; and also permitting children and students to do the same.
The internal well-being of the child or adolescent is based on the certainty that he/she has made from you loving and taking care of him/her, sharing and accompanying him/her in his/her future so that he/she becomes increasingly autonomous and independent. Of all gifts, this is the most important, as it is the basis of all happiness and goodness, and the protective shield against self-induced unhappiness.
Relational Ethics
What prevents people in these times -boys, girls, young people, and adults- from acting with relational ethics, from taking care of their relationships so that each person involved in those relationships becomes the person they would like to be, from developing their autonomy and independence? To achieve your goals with spiritual greatness, and not over the corpses of others?
It is common to hear that people do not express their dreams and do not act consistently and with an honest commitment to make them come true, from a reflective pragmatic perspective. In the same way, it is common not to be interested in asking others: what are the dreams that nourish your existence? And, much less, ask yourself: How can I contribute in a useful way so that I can make those dreams of mine come true? What can I contribute that is different, that is meaningful, to build the relationships that I would like to have, experience, and develop? What common and significant dreams enrich our being with each other, staying together, sharing times and spaces, with vital spontaneity? How to co-responsibly develop a shared meaning that includes a creative view of the process, a living feeling, and the participation in the generation of possibilities for different relational practices?
This petty and cowardly attitude of continuing to be installed in the dogma of private truth, which cares only and exclusively about its own navel, must be questioned, without this critical reflection implying a disqualification of the other, a personal attack, or the cancellation of the diverse; instead of covering up the stupidity of the stereotypes and commonplaces of the dominant culture with the sophistry of conformist theories and ideologies, which underpin the oppressive, cruel and unjust status quo; that sustain a culture of abuse.
Participate, from reflective pragmatics and relational ethics, with different words and actions, to allow ourselves to be moved by the flow to develop a shared sense of circumstances, events, and experiences. Doing so means taking the risk of participating by saying, responding, and acting responsibly (responsibility means responding), contributing something significant because it is transformative and because it is capable of creating its purpose when being in the world when being with others.
Stop thinking about what you can’t do and start thinking about what you can do. Don’t get hooked on what you can’t, but look at the possibilities and how to creatively create and generate new possibilities. Be radically present with ourselves to recognize our limits and be radically present to recognize the possibilities of creating dialogic spaces where it is possible to generate transformations in relational contexts. The quality of our conversations speaks/says about the quality of our lives.
Relational Ethics also contributes to this: instead of enclosing and limiting what we are doing, we open the possibilities of everything that can be done and that together we can build. In different ways, our challenges are to accept and embrace uncertainty and dialogue from complexity, by trusting in relationships, and in our ability to transform our contexts, relate, and invite the joint construction of unprecedented futures with common well-being.
Suggested bibliography
DOLTO, Françoise (1993) La causa de los niños, Ed. Paidós, Barcelona.
DOLTO, Françoise (2000) La dificultad de vivir vol. I y II, Ed. Gedisa, Barcelona.
FILLIOZAT, Isabelle (2001) El mundo emocional del niño -Comprender su lenguaje, sus risas y sus penas-, Ed. Paidós, Barcelona.
MILLER, Alice (2005) El cuerpo nunca miente, Ed.TusQuets, Barcelona.
MILLER, Alice (2020) Salvar tu vida, La superación del maltrato en la infancia, Ed.TusQuets, Barcelona.
SATIR, VIRGINIA (2002) Nuevas relaciones humanas en el núcleo familiar, Editorial Pax México.
https://iryse.org/serie-a-favor-de-los-derechos-humanos-de-ninos-ninas-y-adolescentes-2/
https://iryse.org/serie-aportes-y-autores-significativos-en-el-socioconstruccionismo/
https://iryse.org/el-viaje-incertidumbre-caos-complejidad-de-john-shotter/
https://iryse.org/tom-andersen-las-transformaciones-se-producen-por-estar-en-conversacion/
English translation by Bruno Tapia Naranjo.
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