QUOTES

2 " The more we idealized the past, however, and refuse to acknowledge or childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

4 " It is not the trauma 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 that one is not allowed to show and is unable to experience feelings of rage, anger, humiliation, despair, helplessness, and sadness. This causes many people to commit suicide because life no longer seems worth living if they are totally unable to live out all these strong feelings that are part of their true self. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

6 " When we consider the major role intimidation plays in this ideology, which was still at the peak of its popularity at the turn of the century, it is not surprising that Sigmund Freud had to conceal his surprising discovery of adults' sexual abuse of their children, a discovery he was led to by the testimony of his patients. He disguised his insight with the aid of a theory that nullified this inadmissible knowledge. Children of his day were not allowed, under the severest of threats, to be aware of what adults were doing to them. and if Freud had persisted in his seduction theory, he not only would have had his introjected parents to fear but would no doubt have been discredited, and probably ostracized, by middle-class society. In order to protect himself, he had to devise a theory that would preserve appearances by attributing all “evil”, guilt and wrongdoing to the child's fantasies. in which the parents served only as the objects of projection. We can understand why this theory omitted the fact that it is the parents who not only project their sexual and aggressive fantasies onto the child but also are able to act out these fantasies because they wield the power. It is probably thanks to this omission that many professionals in the psychiatric field, themselves the products of "poisonous pedagogy" have been able to accept the Freudian theory of drives, because it did not force them to question their idealized image of their parents. With the aid of Freud's drive and structural theories, they have been able to continue obeying the commandment they internalized in early childhood: "Thou shalt not be aware of what your parents are doing to you. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

8 " In the following pages I shall apply the term "poisonous pedagogy" to this very complex endeavor. It will be clear from the context in question which of its many facets I am emphasizing at the moment. The specific facets can be derived directly from the preceding quotations from child-rearing manuals. These passages teach us that:

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

2. They determine in godlike fashion what is right and what is wrong.

3. The child is held responsible for their anger.

4. The parents must always be shielded.

5. The child's life affirming feelings pose a threat to the autocratic adult.

6. The child's will must be "broken" as soon as possible.

7. 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.

The methods that can be used to suppress vital spontaneity in the child are: laying traps, lying, duplicity, subterfuge, manipulation, "scare" tactics, withdrawal of love, isolation, distrust, humiliating and disgracing the child, scorn, ridicule, and coercion even to the point of torture. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

10 " There is in the word pedagogy the suggestion of certain goals that the charge is meant to achieve--and this limits his or her possibilities for development from the start. But an honest rejection of all forms of manipulation and of the idea of setting goals does not mean that one simply leaves children to their own devices. For children need a large measure of emotional and physical support from the adult. This support must include the following elements if they are to develop their full potential:

1. Respect for the child

2. Respect for his rights

3. Tolerance for his feelings

4. Willingness to learn from his behavior:

a. About the nature of the individual child
b. About the child in the parents themselves
c. About the nature of emotional life, which can be observed much more clearly in the child than in the adult because the child can experience his feelings much more intensely and, optimally, more undisguisedly than an adult

There is evidence among the younger generation that this kind of willingness is possible even for people who were themselves victims of child-rearing. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

12 " We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as persons. In any case, I don't know of a single person who enjoyed this respect as a child and then as an adult had the need to put other human beings to death. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

14 " It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

16 " As the sociologist Lucien Lombardo wrote in his introduction to a chapter of my recent book, The Truth Will Set You Free, “childhood is not the shortest age in our life but rather the longest because it stays with us until our death. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

18 " To escape this vicious cycle we must face the truth. And we can do it. We were humiliated children; we were the victims of our parents’ ignorance, the victims of their history, of the unconscious scars with which childhood left them. We had no choice but to deny the truth. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

20 " The change from rage to sorrow makes it possible for the vicious circle of repetition to be broken. "

― , For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence