Children Need Protection. Children Need Protection?

The fact that children all over the world suffer from mistreatment finally has gotten into focus. Especially sexual harassment by priests was a big subject for the media, sexually harassing teachers of a boarding school in Germany, as well as severe punishment of children in foster institutions. Even school and pre-school facilities like kindergarten have been noticed as a possible threat to children, so that the question arised what to do about it: how is it possible to protect our children against this kind of criminals?

Because parents feel helpless against the situation - they simply cannot control the people who look after their children or supervise each of their children's contacts - mainly educationalists came up with the answer, children should be made strong against mistreators. That means, they should be taught to defend themselves: to say NO, if they do not want to do anything a person wants them to do when it doesn't feel good (or feels weird); and, to tell a person of trust (usually a parent) about it and so get help.

I think, this is extremely cruel and absurd. It means telling children of a very young age (kindergarten!) that they live in potentially threatening circumstances. Now imagine: Say, you are a five year old child, and you are told (or shown by a play) that you have to watch out for yourself because some people (maybe even the nice ones) are after you. After you alone, because you are a child; not after the one who tells you about the threat, or after your parents, your family, all of you. Just you, only you.

Imagine what it means for a child to grow up under the threat of being hurt by someone from her own community - the threat of becoming a victim just because you are a child. (Or, later in life, just because you are a woman. Or homosexual. Or black.) And, when you ask what kind of bad things those people are supposed to do to you, there is no clear answer. Just a certain atmosphere.

I call this exceedingly hurting circumstances which have to be altered by adults in the first place. Telling children about it can only make them weaker, not strong. In my childhood we were told not to trust any stranger, which meant not going with them or taking sweets from them. That alone made me feel insecure when going out. I was taught to fear people I didn't know. And because nobody gave us any criterion about how to identify a dangerous man, I felt extremely insecure about not knowing what I'd possibly have to deal with. (Yes, we were warned against men, not women; we were not warned against any family members, although the danger for being mistreated by a close one is much higher than with regard to strangers.)

Here lies the real absurdity: Do we really think it to be normal for children not being able to refuse to doing what they don't want to? Or, do we see children as not feeling or experiencing a threatening situation as threatening?

What happens when a child has weird feelings concerning an adult, but does not act accordingly? I think he or she already learned to mistrust their own feelings, and to not putting in question the falsehood an adult person is presenting of himself; better said, to not see the fake of behavior that is presented. But this can only happen when a child feels dependent. That means: A child cannot refuse to do what an adult wants him to, when refusing means a threat to their relationship. It is, of course, the experience that not obeying an adult's request is answered by putting the relationship in question. This can be done by telling the child she would not be a nice person when saying no. Or: Because you are a nice child, you will do me the following favor: . . . Or: Don't you want me to be happy? I would be very happy if you did . . . -- There are a lot of manipulative ways to get a child to do what you want. There are also ways for telling a child that what she feels does not mean anything: say, Grandma comes to visit and grabs the two or three year old grandchild sitting on the floor playing or looking at a picture book. Any child at first will protest such a disrespectful behavior. Will the protest be accepted or is the child being told that "nothing happened, your grandmother just wanted to say hello"? The latter, when usual, will help to get a child obedient.

A child who is treated like that by the people closest to him is always in the hope for being accepted for what he is and wants - he cannot risk leaving an opportunity. Although puzzled by his feelings, he won't say NO to a person who appears somehow threatening in atmosphere but (usually in a subtle way) promises to give him something he urgently needs. In case this person does not take "much" - for instance, just taking the child's attention for himself, while giving the opposite impression (e. g. "letting" the child admire things he has got like books, photographs etc. that just for the motives or else for the context he puts them into are nothing a child would take interest in; the s. c. gray area) -, the child will learn to oppress his negative feelings. Several situations like the described, and the negative feelings won't be recognized any more.

This is exactly what makes children weak and, unfortunately, prepares them to be a victim. They may not meet a sexual harassing person, but there are a lot of other people with low self-esteem who are eager to use a child's need for being accepted. At least we must see that the many cases of sexual harassment by priests and school teachers are also characterized by children who did not tell anybody about what happened to them; they must have feared that nobody would believe them. (Something the criminals sensed and took adavantage of by using just these children, not others.) This is, of course, a result of a society where most children grow up in disrespectful circumstances. A statement like "I can't tell you why (I have no words for my feelings, and because the appearance is different, I don't understand these feelings), but I don't want to go there any more." often is not taken seriously; instead, the child is manipulated into "seeing things differently". No wonder that criminals have little trouble with getting what they want without being caught.

We can only "prepare" children for dealing with threatening situations when we allow them to feel what they feel and not manipulate them into agreeing to what they know is not good for them. Children need to be respected - that is the best protection we can give them.