Articles
Protecting the Gift- Finish
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De Becker includes several chapters on protecting our teenagers. I will highlight a few of the points he makes.
Teenagers, especially girls, are the most victimized segment of our population (and, the least likely to report a crime). Girls offer less resistance and pose less risk than adult women. Teenage girls are perceived as sexual objects. The issue is complicated by the fact that teenage girls themselves are exploring the dynamics of male attention and want to be accepted by men.How would it be if teenage girls had some initial wariness about every man they encountered? It would be realistic--sad, but realistic. Rapes and other sexual crimes are virtually always committed by men and most happen to girls under 18 years of age. We have to teach young women that "No," is a complete sentence. When a man in our culture says "No," it's usually the end of the discussion. When a woman says "No," it's the beginning of a negotiation. If young men learn how to hear "No," and young women learn that it's alright to explicitly reject, then stalking and date-rape cases will dramatically decline By the time a girl reaches her teens, she has gone from being an occasional sexual predatory prize to the leading sexual predatory prize. Her understanding of how persuasion strategies work and how targets are selected is now her armor. Nearly all of the hazards teen girls face can be reduced by teaching, but parents must first un-teach the cultural lesson that girls are not able to defend themselves. Self-defense training for girls should be as automatic as teaching them to swim. (Recommended places to get that teaching are listed.)
A huge risk boys and girls face equally is drunk driving. Given that so many teenagers drink alcohol, effective parental responses include more direct forms of supervision, as well as teaching teenagers about the risks of drunk driving.White, African, urban, suburban, gunshot wounds are now the leading cause of death for teenage boys in America. If the present statistical curve continues,
firearms will soon surpass cars as the leading cause of injury-related deaths for people of all ages. We need greatly enhanced gun-safety requirements, and to disallow children unsupervised access to guns.
While it's characteristic of the species that males can be particularly aggressive, aggression need not evolve into violence. Just as violence appears to be a learned behavior, nonviolence can also be taught--most effectively by fathers. The absence of a father in a boy's life is a predictor of future violence.
Like adult men, young men in our culture are discouraged from showing emotion. Violent boys are frequently expressing the only "acceptable" male emotion--anger. Chronic anger is an important predictor of violence. How did these boys get so angry? Most of them got that way at home.
Research suggests that lethal violence against children is more a modern phenomen n than a basic feature of our species--which means that we can do something about it. The very bond that compels most parents to protect their
children is frequently a license to harm them. And put simply, violent and abusive stepfathers are 100 times more likely to kill a child than are biological fathers. Children are also at higher risk of sexual abuse by a
stepfather. Since teen girls tend to under-report victimization, the task of ensuring safety falls to the biological mother and other adults. A single
mother's selection of a new partner is highly relevant to her child's wellbeing.
Parents must seek to know and evaluate the new spouses of their ex's. This is not to deny the millions of stepfathers who are exceptional parents to their wife's children. But whether by husband or boyfriends, intimate violence is the
most predictable serious crime in America; and 75% of the homes where there is spousal violence also have violence towards the children. Many of the ten million American children who witness violence between their parents will model the behavior they see. For most people abused as children, the secret is kept for a lifetime. This
means the duty is ours. The popular slogan about drunk driving could be amended to "Friends don't let friends abuse kids." We can stop or prevent violence in
our own families, and be alert to signs of violence in other families. Since some of the children now being mistreated will grow up angry and violent, and our kids will live in the same society with them, we cannot afford to do less.
Your resolution to learn about violence is an expression of so much love for your own children that you likely have enough in your heart for children not your own.
Things will change if more people make reports when they suspect a child is being abused or neglected.
No crime can flourish in view of millions of attentive eyes. Appropriate support of child-welfare agencies is important, since the issues they address happen to be the established risk factors for future criminality:
poverty, child abuse and neglect, drug addiction in a parent, drug or alcohol abuse by the child, and single-parent childhood. Combined with other social programs, these agencies offer us protection from violent crime that is more effective and less expensive than our local police department. It's easier to deal with children at risk of becoming criminals than with adults who are already criminals.
Abused children are not destined to become violent adults.
The good news is that children at risk of growing up violent can often be helped more easily than most people realize. If mistreated children have effective human contact, some recognition of their worth and value, some "witness" to their experience, this can make an extraordinary difference. The kindness of a teacher or a neighbor is never wasted.
It may literally be a matter of a few hours with a person whose kindness reconnects the child to an earlier experience of self, a self that was loved and valued I can say from experience that it doesn't take much. As a boy, I needed most of all to know that the violence and madness was not my fault. The people who gave me that gave me the great gift of my life. If, as he claims, De Becker's adversity became his university, here he proves himself to have been a remarkable student.
De Becker includes several chapters on protecting our teenagers. I will highlight a few of the points he makes.
Teenagers, especially girls, are the most victimized segment of our population (and, the least likely to report a crime). Girls offer less resistance and pose less risk than adult women. Teenage girls are perceived as sexual objects. The issue is complicated by the fact that teenage girls themselves are exploring the dynamics of male attention and want to be accepted by men.How would it be if teenage girls had some initial wariness about every man they encountered? It would be realistic--sad, but realistic. Rapes and other sexual crimes are virtually always committed by men and most happen to girls under 18 years of age. We have to teach young women that "No," is a complete sentence. When a man in our culture says "No," it's usually the end of the discussion. When a woman says "No," it's the beginning of a negotiation. If young men learn how to hear "No," and young women learn that it's alright to explicitly reject, then stalking and date-rape cases will dramatically decline By the time a girl reaches her teens, she has gone from being an occasional sexual predatory prize to the leading sexual predatory prize. Her understanding of how persuasion strategies work and how targets are selected is now her armor. Nearly all of the hazards teen girls face can be reduced by teaching, but parents must first un-teach the cultural lesson that girls are not able to defend themselves. Self-defense training for girls should be as automatic as teaching them to swim. (Recommended places to get that teaching are listed.)
A huge risk boys and girls face equally is drunk driving. Given that so many teenagers drink alcohol, effective parental responses include more direct forms of supervision, as well as teaching teenagers about the risks of drunk driving.White, African, urban, suburban, gunshot wounds are now the leading cause of death for teenage boys in America. If the present statistical curve continues,
firearms will soon surpass cars as the leading cause of injury-related deaths for people of all ages. We need greatly enhanced gun-safety requirements, and to disallow children unsupervised access to guns.
While it's characteristic of the species that males can be particularly aggressive, aggression need not evolve into violence. Just as violence appears to be a learned behavior, nonviolence can also be taught--most effectively by fathers. The absence of a father in a boy's life is a predictor of future violence.
Like adult men, young men in our culture are discouraged from showing emotion. Violent boys are frequently expressing the only "acceptable" male emotion--anger. Chronic anger is an important predictor of violence. How did these boys get so angry? Most of them got that way at home.
Research suggests that lethal violence against children is more a modern phenomen n than a basic feature of our species--which means that we can do something about it. The very bond that compels most parents to protect their
children is frequently a license to harm them. And put simply, violent and abusive stepfathers are 100 times more likely to kill a child than are biological fathers. Children are also at higher risk of sexual abuse by a
stepfather. Since teen girls tend to under-report victimization, the task of ensuring safety falls to the biological mother and other adults. A single
mother's selection of a new partner is highly relevant to her child's wellbeing.
Parents must seek to know and evaluate the new spouses of their ex's. This is not to deny the millions of stepfathers who are exceptional parents to their wife's children. But whether by husband or boyfriends, intimate violence is the
most predictable serious crime in America; and 75% of the homes where there is spousal violence also have violence towards the children. Many of the ten million American children who witness violence between their parents will model the behavior they see. For most people abused as children, the secret is kept for a lifetime. This
means the duty is ours. The popular slogan about drunk driving could be amended to "Friends don't let friends abuse kids." We can stop or prevent violence in
our own families, and be alert to signs of violence in other families. Since some of the children now being mistreated will grow up angry and violent, and our kids will live in the same society with them, we cannot afford to do less.
Your resolution to learn about violence is an expression of so much love for your own children that you likely have enough in your heart for children not your own.
Things will change if more people make reports when they suspect a child is being abused or neglected.
No crime can flourish in view of millions of attentive eyes. Appropriate support of child-welfare agencies is important, since the issues they address happen to be the established risk factors for future criminality:
poverty, child abuse and neglect, drug addiction in a parent, drug or alcohol abuse by the child, and single-parent childhood. Combined with other social programs, these agencies offer us protection from violent crime that is more effective and less expensive than our local police department. It's easier to deal with children at risk of becoming criminals than with adults who are already criminals.
Abused children are not destined to become violent adults.
The good news is that children at risk of growing up violent can often be helped more easily than most people realize. If mistreated children have effective human contact, some recognition of their worth and value, some "witness" to their experience, this can make an extraordinary difference. The kindness of a teacher or a neighbor is never wasted.
It may literally be a matter of a few hours with a person whose kindness reconnects the child to an earlier experience of self, a self that was loved and valued I can say from experience that it doesn't take much. As a boy, I needed most of all to know that the violence and madness was not my fault. The people who gave me that gave me the great gift of my life. If, as he claims, De Becker's adversity became his university, here he proves himself to have been a remarkable student.
