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.’The viewer is left with the impression that this behaviour will toughen the baby up – but educational writer Patricia Knox noted in her book Troubled Children that low-weight babies who were subjected to this routine in hospital often failed to bond properly with their mothers.The babies weren’t fed when they cried for food then were woken when they finally fell asleep.They were too small and confused to feed sufficiently in these circumstances so remained hungry and distressed.The vital mother-baby bond didn’t form and these babies had numerous problems as they matured.Such lack of bonding – especially if combined with a later lack of care – can even cause serious pathology.Co-ed killer Ted Bundy and child-killer Ian Brady were both left alone for long periods during their first few weeks of life.Bundy’s religious mother was ashamed of his illegitimacy and initially left him at the orphanage.Brady’s mother bravely ignored the stigma of having a baby out of wedlock but had to go out to work in the evenings, leaving him with whoever she could find.Both men matured into dangerous psychopaths who killed many times.One of the female serial killers that this author profiled in Women Who Kill – Gwen Graham – had been left to cry by her mother who wrongly believed that cradling a crying baby spoiled it.Gwen soon showed the signs of an unbonded baby, refusing to look at her mother when she entered the room.This lack of bonding was reinforced by physical abuse from both parents and Gwen eventually went on to kill.There’s an unfounded notion that too much love spoils a baby – but it is hate that ruins human beings.A child who feels loved has the confidence to increasingly explore and enjoy his or her world.Another opportunity to tell it like it is was lost during an episode of the Richard And Judy show aired in February 2002.A man whose son had just been jailed for torturing pensioners appeared on the programme.Whilst introducing him, the presenters said he believed his son was simply born bad.But during the short discussion which followed the father said that he believed in corporal punishment and would hit his children on the backs of their legs.Now, our prisons are full of violent adults who were subjected to corporal punishment as children but neither of the presenters picked up on this fact.Instead, they asked the man if his son had been in any way unusual as a child.The father replied ‘Well, he’d always lie.I’d tell him I’m going to slap you for what you just did but I’ll slap you harder if you lie to me and he always lied.’No one pointed out that of course a child will lie to avoid being physically hurt and humiliated.An adult in the same position would do the exact same thing.The man said that he also believed in capital punishment and that his son now deserved to hang.Shortly afterwards the interview ended with one of the presenters murmuring sympathetically ‘I feel sorry for you.’Such programmes offer an opportunity to inform the general public.Instead, they simply bolster the status quo.Sadly, our formal educational system can equally fail children in various ways.The educational systemChildren who are being poorly parented are understandably unable to concentrate in the classroom so they are labelled as suffering from attention deficit disorder and may be punished with powerful drugs.The influential and rich drugs lobby gives the impression that such tablets are a cure for all ills but in truth, all drugs have side effects.An abused child is liable to play truant from school in order to have a few hours refuge from the demands of authoritative adults.Jesse Pomeroy, William Allnutt, Robert Thompson, Rod Ferrell, Wendy Gardner, James Evans and Johnny Garrett fall into this category.Again, these truants are simply penalised and there’s little effort made to understand the reasons for the truancy.Educationalist writer Patricia Knox tells of distressed school-phobic children being told by judges that they’d have to go to jail if they didn’t return to class.Anyone who downplays bullyingA child who is being bullied at home will go to school with violence on his or her mind.Some of these children become bullies – Jesse Pomeroy, Cindy Collier, Jon Venables and Johnny Garrett fit into this category.Others will remain victims – Shirley Wolf was taunted because she smelt bad.Wendy Gardner was called a tart by less promiscuous classmates.And Kip Kinkel was so remorselessly picked upon that he wrote in his diary that he was ready to kill another boy.(This is not to imply that all bullying victims are being brutalised at home.Children who are in any way different can be picked upon with bullies honing in on a victim’s clothing, weight, height, hair colour, intellect and so on.)Bullying causes numerous problems for the victim.A victimised child may become school-phobic, develop an eating disorder, have nightmares and start to do badly in their schoolwork.It’s regrettably common – when four thousand children were polled in the mid eighties, 68% of them reported being bullied at some time.Bullies also have many problems.Kidscape, the charity which specialises in alleviating bullying, has said that most bullies are ‘afraid, jealous, envious, cruel, angry, insecure and unhappy.’ This may be due to family problems, loneliness or other frustrations.Clearly, there are no winners when bullying occurs.Yet many parents and teachers continue to downplay the misery that such behaviour causes, saying that they went through it themselves so today’s children will just have to live with it.But as Michelle Elliot of Kidscape has pointed out, we used to stuff children up chimneys and down mines then we realised that this was wrong and stopped doing it.We can stop school bullying too.Some teachers and parents erroneously try to change the personality of the victimised child rather than confront the bully – but children are often bullied for their special qualities.These qualities are the very ones which society will value in later life.Many of today’s most successful adults – including Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and Ranulph Fiennes – have stated that they were bullied when young [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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