Thanks Robyn,

I agree with you. It is certainly through the co-regulating relationship with another who is regulated that parents can heal. I’ll have to think about this and will comment with some more ideas and I look forward to yours.  

Marcia Stanton posted:

FYI - Oct. 3, 2019 - Scotland becomes first UK country to ban smacking: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-sc...nd-politics-49908849

 

So exciting! It is incredible to see colonial nations that carry such a deep attachment to violence/war who historically have promoted practices of violent child rearing, begin to heal and embrace their children with love. France banned spanking last year!

It will be a huge evolutionary step toward healing and peace when the United States bans spanking (legalized domestic violence against children.) I see it on the horizon!

Tina Cain posted:

Thanks Robyn, 

Always love work by Dr. Porges..... 

I’m curious, Do you know about the work of this individual?  

https://www.cambridge.org/core...E22006A0/core-reader

Thank you for sharing! I do believe the idea that violence is not learned goes against the neurodevelopmental evidence that behavior is adaptive and a function of memory and prior experience. Of course, some of that experience is epigenetic, but it is learned and is experience nonetheless spanning across generations. So even violence is learned, in essence.

Naturally, small children are more dysregulated, but to conceptualize this as "violence" may be too narrow a construct. The degree of dysregulation has more to do with the environmental scaffolding that co-regulates the child's experience.  It is why I believe that we need to do more than "educate" parents, which implies that they need more information. What parents need is an experience of being in a co-regulating relationship that then calms and heals their nervous system. From that foundation, parents are online enough to find information useful and relevant. It is why I often share this link below, because parents can join supportive communities. In my mind, it isn't about information (cognitive), but about safety in community (emotional, nervous system.)

https://stopspanking.org/resources/

CONCLUSIONS

Both glamorising and demonising violence help us avoid having to understand the violent mind. We should enter the violent person's subjective world, not just in order to be able to offer treatment, but also to anticipate the nature of the risks they embody both to themselves and to society. To explain is not to exculpate, but understanding is the first step in the prevention of violence. The answer to the riddle of how individuals can lose restraint over their propensity to injure others must lie in what is ordinary rather than extraordinary: normal human development.

MENTALISATION

FYI - Oct. 3, 2019 - Scotland becomes first UK country to ban smacking: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-sc...nd-politics-49908849

Thanks Robyn, 

Always love work by Dr. Porges..... 

I’m curious, Do you know about the work of this individual?  

https://www.cambridge.org/core...E22006A0/core-reader

Tina Cain posted:

Robyn, 

What do you think about the need to teach parents about attachment?    It’s very likely that securely attached parents would not feel any need to result to physical violence; certainly they wouldn’t need verbal assault and would be the parents who are available to the child to protect the child from going on to experience ACEs.   A disorganized mother who isn’t getting massively intensive services has very little emotional control or impulse control - and often does use emotional and physical violence against the child or if she doesn’t use explicit abuse herself - the look on her face and the tone of voice and her greater likelihood to hand over her child to a partner who will engage in physical and emotional abuse is far greater than a mother who is actively seeking earned secure Attachment.

Thanks

Yes, I think teaching parents about attachment is so important, and especially teaching them about their own nervous system and how punitive parenting activates their own system putting them in a state of defense as well as their child. We need to provide parents with resources and support to heal their own nervous system and to find more trust-based parenting strategies that help them move out of fear and into greater safety with their children. Here is a webinar interview with Dr. Stephen Porges that we shared in our positive parenting community to help people better understand these concepts.  https://youtu.be/DNIozAiorZA

What I like about this resolution is that it requires funding for parenting support which helps us address ACEs upstream. And of course, it is no surprise that spanking is also an ACE and is the most prevalent risk factor for physical child abuse.

Robyn, 

What do you think about the need to teach parents about attachment?    It’s very likely that securely attached parents would not feel any need to result to physical violence; certainly they wouldn’t need verbal assault and would be the parents who are available to the child to protect the child from going on to experience ACEs.   A disorganized mother who isn’t getting massively intensive services has very little emotional control or impulse control - and often does use emotional and physical violence against the child or if she doesn’t use explicit abuse herself - the look on her face and the tone of voice and her greater likelihood to hand over her child to a partner who will engage in physical and emotional abuse is far greater than a mother who is actively seeking earned secure Attachment.

Thanks