All living things are biologically programed to survive.
As humans, our survival is utterly dependent upon our parents.
This dependance will last well beyond a decade.
The vital importance of this attachment cannot be trivialized.
To your child, on a sub-conscious biological as well as literal level, you are the only thing protecting him from certain death.
When you spank, yell, threaten, intimidate and punish a child, you are fracturing this bond.
These common disciplinary methods imbed the terrifying fear of utter abandonment and imminent death into a developing brain.
A child's brain cannot conceive of a naturally occurring death.
His perception of these events equates to the horror of being murdered.
Murdered by the very people that he must trust for his survival.
This creates a dissociated alteration in the right hemisphere of the brain, and cannot be corrected as the child grows into adulthood.
The range of dysfunction associated with this trauma is tragically broad.
Criminality, violence, depression, addiction, suicide and all forms of dissociative disorders.
All things every parent wants to protect their child from.
Touch with kindness, speak with patience, listen with interest, negotiate with fairness, and learn from your children.
And then do it some more.
Change the world.
Please.
I really appreciate that!