Poisonous pedagogy
[back] Child health
['Poisonous pedagogy refers to that tradition of child-rearing which attempts to suppress all vitality, creativity, and feeling in the child and maintain the autocratic, godlike position of the parents at all costs'--Alice Miller. You can see how poisonous childrearing has been created deliberately, by the promotion of Circumcision & Bottle-feeding (you can see them at work with the Third World export of baby milk), with the suppression of research/knowledge by the AAP and NICHD. Anyone with blocked feelings is easier to control as they can't feel the truth, and get fooled by people who are taugh how to fake rapport/congruence, such as Clinton, who was trained by NLP guru Anthony Robbins.]
Alice Miller,
James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
John Bowlby
See: Violence Emotions, feelings (kill) Emotions (addictive) Sodomy Circumcision Bottle-feeding Bonding (attachment)
Early History of The Origins of Love & Violence
James W. Prescott, born in the depression years, was orphaned as a boy with
his three brothers. These years of separation from his mother and family left
their lasting impression and provided the insight and drive to his life's work.
When he joined the newly formed National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD), NIH he formed the Developmental Behavioral Biology Program
and became its Health Scientist Administrator from 1966-1980. A major focus of
this NICHD research program was to understand why depression and violence
results from maternal-infant/child separations. Caspar Weinberger, then
Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (renamed the
Department of Health and Human Services-DHHS), directed the NICHD to expand its
studies to uncover the origins of child abuse and neglect and of violence in the
home. Dr. Prescott's seventeen-year federal career was terminated for
supporting DHEW Secretary Caspar Weinberger's Directive to the NICHD and for
opposing the NICHD's abandonment of its agency responsibility for supporting
child abuse and neglect research programs.
See:
http://www.violence.de/history/coverup.html
Quotes
There is a good deal else that would not exist without “poisonous pedagogy.”
It would be inconceivable, for example, for politicians mouthing empty
clichés to attain the highest positions of power by democratic means. But since
voters, who as children would normally have been capable of seeing through these
clichés with the aid of their feelings, were specifically forbidden to do so in
their early years, they lose this ability as adults. The capacity to experience
the strong feelings of childhood and puberty (which are so often stifled by
child-rearing methods, beatings, or even drugs) could provide the individual
with an important means of orientation with which he or she could easily
determine whether politicians are speaking from genuine experience or are merely
parroting time-worn platitudes for the sake of manipulating voters. Our whole
system of raising and educating children provides the power-hungry with a
ready-made railway network they can use to reach the destination of their
choice. They need only push the buttons that parents and educators have already
installed. (*“Poisonous pedagogy” refers to that tradition of child-rearing
which attempts to suppress all vitality, creativity, and feeling in the child
and maintain the autocratic, godlike position of the parents at all costs. See
the author’s book For Your Own Good, especially the section entitled “Poisonous
Pedagogy.”) — by Alice Miller, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
http://www.inclusiveorthodox.
It has yet to be recognized that cruelty, bullying and meanness that terrorizes so many of our children and youth in our elementary schools and high schools have their roots in the emotional trauma of mother-infant/child separations associated with institutionalized day care and from other separations These collective emotional-social traumas are sufficiently great to establish an unstable brain that combined with other stress experiences compels many students to despair and the violent acts of homicide and suicide. It is estimated that some 20% of our nation's students have contemplated suicide at one time or another (Moran, 2000; Silverman, et al 200l; Prescott, 2001). What is wrong with America and American families that drive so many of our youth to depression, despair and suicide? [2002] The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Watson (1928) in his book Psychological Care of Infant and Child stated: "…a
sensible way of treating children…Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on
your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night."
Luther Emmett Holt (1894), the
leading pediatric authority of his day, stated in his textbook: "To induce
sleep, rocking and all other habits of this sort are useless and may be
harmful"; and later in 1916 advised that the crib should not rock in order that
"the unnecessary and vicious practice may not be carried on". Holt could not
have been in greater error, as we now know that gentle rocking (movement) of the
infant/child is essential for normal brain-behavioral development and bonding.
See
http://www.violence.de/tv/rockabye.html, which was premiered at the 1970
White House Conference on Children.[2002]
The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by
James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Cook (1996) has provided a review of how infants and nations are placed at risk with early child institutional care that ensures lack of bonding. For over a century we have been given wrongful and disastrous advice by "authorities" in pediatrics and psychology that continues to this day. Ferber (1985), a pediatrician, states: "If your child is like this, you may be comforted to know that headbanging, body rocking, and head rolling are very common in early childhood and, at least at this age, are usually normal. If your child exhibits any of these behaviors there is little need for concern about emotional difficulties or neurological illness" p.193; and "In the infant and young toddler, rhythmic patterns are of little significance and you will not need to intervene" (p.197). [2002] The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Spock (1972), and Ferber (1985) have
advocated letting the infant/child engage in pathological chronic crying, e.g.,
crying itself to sleep, that has pathological consequences of extreme adreno-cortical
stress reactions that adversely affect brain-behavioral development (Selye,
1956; Prescott, 2001). Another commentary by Dr. Ferber is so egregious that it
also deserves reporting: "A normal child will not
injure himself seriously while headbanging, although he occasionally may bruise
his forehead and, very rarely, there may be a small amount of bleeding.
Concussions, fractured skull, or brain injuries just do not occur. The main
damage is to furniture and walls" (p.198).
It is beyond comprehension to
understand how forces so great that damages furniture and walls do not damage
the immature developing brain. Microlesions of the brain that cannot be detected
today can have long term developmental brain consequences years later, as the
studies of Faro and Windle (1969) have demonstrated on the effects of birth
asphyxia upon the developing brain.
[2002] The Origins of Love &
Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
It should be noted that the American Academy of Pediatrics in its 1997 revision of its breastfeeding recommendations did not acknowledge the research studies that confirmed tryptophan deficits in infant formula milk which compromises normal brain development and places infants/children at high risk for the development of depression, impulse dyscontrol, drug abuse and suicidal/ homicidal violence. Further and inexplicably, the AAP did not affirm the recommendations of WHO and UNICEF that breastfeeding should be for "two years of age or beyond" (AAP, 1997; WHO/UNICEF, 1990). What does WHO and UNICEF know that the AAP does not know? [2002] The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
The report of the NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development) Study of Early Child Care (SECC) found that infants and very young
children who spend more than 30 hours a week in child care "are far more
demanding, more noncompliant, and they are more aggressive" and "They scored
higher on things like gets in lots of fights, cruelty, bullying, meanness as
well as talking too much, demands must be met immediately", according to Dr.Belsky, one of the principle investigators" (Stolberg, New York Times, April
19, 2001) (emphasis mine)
Dr. Sarah Friedman, NICHD
Scientific Project Officer was reported as saying ""We cannot and should not
hide the findings but I don't want to create a mass hysteria when I don't know
what explains these results" (Stolberg, 2001). Unfortunately, no measures of
biological stress disorders were incorporated into this study nor was there any
awareness of the early NICHD studies in the 1960s and 1970s, which documented
these behaviors in the maternally deprived young.
[2002] The Origins of Love &
Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Unfortunately, the road that gained insight into the developmental mechanisms that mediate the aggressive, noncompliant and other disordered emotional-social behaviors, e.g. depression and suicide consequent to mother-infant/child separations-- which was illuminated by the Time Life documentary "Rock a Bye Baby"-- was blocked and terminated by the NICHD in the late 1970s. The NICHD unlawfully abandoned its agency responsibility to continue to support research on the causes and consequences of violence against children and failed to recommend implementation of national health programs for the prevention of this violence. These unlawful NICHD/NIH actions has not only set-back scientific advances in this field for over a quarter of a century but more importantly has resulted in the epidemics of depression, drug abuse, psychiatric medications and violence that characterizes this nation today with a substantial loss of child and youth life due to suicidal and homicidal deaths that are mostly preventable. [2002] The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
It is transparent that the 1970 White House Conference on Children was a failure, as the prescient words of Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner attest. The children, youth and families of America are worse off today-- by any health statistic-- than they were in 1970-over thirty years ago. This massive failure of America can be laid at the doorsteps of the Congress and its political parties; The White House; the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, which over this past generation have failed to support mothers being nurturing mothers and which continues to this day. America has truly lost it's dream of "…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". The disintegration of America from within is well on its way. [2002] The Origins of Love & Violence: An Overview by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.