Alice Miller, on Child Rearing

Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere
of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.

Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings, those who are intimidated will
be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose
souls are murdered will murder.

It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a
victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and
strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person.

We produce destructive people by the way we are treating them in childhood.

The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and
temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not
permitted to defend themselves.

Alice Miller ne Rostovski (1923 2010) was a Swiss psychologist of Polish origin, who is noted
for her books on child abuse by their own parents, translated into several languages.

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Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

1. All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs
and feelings for their self-protection.

2. For their development, children need to the respect and protection of adults who take
them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to become oriented in the world.

3. When these vital needs are frustrated and children are, instead, abused for the sake
of the adults' needs by being exploited, beaten, punished, taken advantage of,
manipulated neglected, or deceived without the intervention of any witness, then their
integrity will be lastingly impaired.

4. The normal reactions to such injury should be anger and pain. Since children in this
hurtful kind of environment are forbidden to express their anger, however, and since it
would be unbearable to experience their pain all alone, they are compelled to suppress
their feelings, repress all memory of the trauma, and idealize those guilty of the abuse.
Later they will have no memory of what was done to them.

5. Disassociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger, helplessness, despair,
longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression in destructive acts against others (criminal
behavior, mass murder) or against themselves (drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution,
psychic disorders, suicide).

6. If these people become parents, they will then often direct acts of revenge for their
mistreatment in childhood against their own children, whom they use as scapegoats.
Child abuse is still sanctioned -- indeed, held in high regard -- in our society as long as it
is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to
escape the emotions from how they were treated by their own parents.

7. If mistreated children are not to become criminals or mentally ill, it is essential that at
least once in their life they come in contact with a person who knows without any doubt
that the environment, not the helpless, battered child, is at fault. In this regard,
knowledge or ignorance on the part of society can be instrumental in either saving or
destroying a life. Here lies the great opportunity for relatives, social workers, therapists,
teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, officials and nurses to support the child and believe in
her or him.

8. Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted
in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great-
grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by
wicked drives, who invent stories and attack innocent parents or desire them sexually.
In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve
their parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.
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9. For some years now, it has been possible to prove, through new therapeutic
methods, that repressed traumatic experiences of childhood are stored up in the body
and, though unconscious, exert an influence even in adulthood. In addition, electronic
testing of the fetus has revealed a fact previously unknown to most adults -- that a child
responds to and learns both tenderness and cruelty from the very beginning.

10. In the light of this new knowledge, even the most absurd behavior reveals its
formerly hidden logic once the traumatic experiences of childhood need no longer
remain shrouded in darkness.

11. Our sensitization to the cruelty with which children are treated, until now commonly
denied, and to the consequences of such treatment will as a matter of course bring an
end to the perpetuation of violence from generation to generation.

12. People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected,
respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be -- both in their youth and in
adulthood -- intelligent, responsive, empathic and highly sensitive. They will take
pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They
will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to
do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their
own children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience, and
because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up
inside them from the beginning. It will be inconceivable to such people that earlier
generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel comfortable and safe
in this world. Since it will not be their unconscious drive in life to ward off intimidation
experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in
their adult life more rationally and creatively.

From Alice Millers FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: HIDDEN CRUELTY IN CHILD-REARING
AND THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE

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 Breakthrough Initiative Criteria

Leverage: The initiative should make a significant contribution to

addressing the status of women and children in Samoa, but doesnt have to
be the most important concern.

Visibility and Measurability: Choose a high-profile initiative, one that will

be certain to be noticed. And be able to quantify at least some of the key
results.

Relatively near-term results: The initiative can be in the realm of longer-

term results, but needs to create specific results in a three-month
timeframe as well. Its wise also to target and plan earlier, interim
accomplishments.

Not business as usual: The initiative should require a breakthrough in

at least one of the following: velocity, productivity, innovation,
effectiveness, participation, impact, efficiency.

Relevance: The initiative must be related to already existing concerns and

commitments, and must have wholehearted backing from top management.

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Until one is committed
there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in ones favour all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt
would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect

for one of Goethes couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

W.H. Murray
THE SCOTTISH HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION

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 Two Primary Types of Discourse:
Dialogue and Discussion

DISCUSSION: From the same root as percussion and concussion.

Like a Ping-Pong game, hitting the ball back and forth between us.
The purpose is normally to winto have ones views accepted by the group.
You fundamentally want your view to prevail.

DIALOGUE: Dia means through. Logos means word or meaning. Thus, a free flow
of meaning between people.
The purpose is to go beyond any one individuals understanding.
People participate in a pool of common meaning, which is capable of constant
development and change.
In dialogue, a group explores complex, difficult issues from many points of view.

THREE BASIC CONDITIONS FOR DIALOGUE: Dialogue requires the

willingness to play with new ideas, to examine them and test them. As soon as we
become overly concerned with who said what, or not saying something stupid, the
playfulness evaporates.
1. All participants must suspend their assumptions, literally to hold them as if
suspended before us.
Once an individual digs in his heels and decides this is the way it is, the flow of
dialogue is blocked.
The mind wants to keep moving to adopting a position and defending it. This
makes it harder to suspend assumptions.
2. All participants must regard one another as colleagues.
Seeing each other as colleagues and friends is critical in establishing a positive
tone to offset the vulnerability dialogue brings.
The greatest dialogue occurs when participants choose to view adversaries as
colleagues with different views.
3. There must be a facilitator who holds the context of dialogue.
The facilitator keeps the dialogue moving.
The facilitator points out assumptions as they creep in and, at times, participates
by offering differing points of view.

Source: Peter M. Senge, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, 1990 (citing physicist David Bohm).

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 TEST

1. A new employee seems to you to be someone having high potential. What do you
do?
Give him/her special attention to develop his/her potential
Show him/her relatively less attention than his/her peers
Treat him/her the same as anyone else

2. A new employee, while sufficient in his/her job, seems to you to be someone having
low potential. What do you do?
Give him/her special attention to develop his/her potential
Show him/her relatively less attention than his/her peers
Treat him/her the same as anyone else

3. Your Sales Manager bursts into your office and says, Our number one client is
canceling their contract with us. What are the first one or two questions you ask
your Sales Manager?

4. Your Production Manager calls and says, Our most important supplier is angry with
us. What are the first one or two questions you ask your Production Manager?

5. Your Executive Assistant comes into your office and says, Ive just learned that our
top accountant is quitting. What are the first one or two questions you ask your
Executive Assistant?

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 RIGHT/WRONG

1. Identify a situation in the organization where cooperation is not occurring the way
you would like to see it.

2. In this situation, what are you being right about?

3. What is the cost of being right?

4. If you were interested only in having this situation or relationship work, rather than in
being right, what might you do?

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 Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot
listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your
appearance or impressing the other, or if you are trying to decide what you
are going to say when the other stops talking, or if you are debating about
whether the word being spoken is true or relevant or agreeable. Such
matters may have their place, but only after listening to the word as the
word is being uttered. Listening, in other words, is a primitive act of love, in
which a person gives self to anothers word, making self accessible and
vulnerable to that word.

William Stringfellow

A Keeper of the Word

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me
what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Henry David Thoreau

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 CONVERSATIONS FOR GENERATING OPPORTUNITY

Conversations for Opportunity bridge from possibility toward action.

In one form, Conversations for Opportunity are conversations for feasibility. They make
use of knowledge, evidence, preference and opinion in evaluating possibilities for
action. In this way, they honor, but are not bound to, the past.

In these discussions, one asks: If we were to implement this idea, how might we go
about it? What are the potential benefits of this approach? The possible costs?

Conversations for Opportunity also transform possibilities into openings so powerful that
action is irresistible. They are the point at which choice is made: Go, or no go? To
which plan or direction or strategy do we commit ourselves?

A warning sign that Conversations for Opportunity are possibly missing is the absence
of action on possibilities. When something is possible but people arent taking action,
then that possibility is certainly not an opportunity for them.

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 CONVERSATIONS FOR GENERATING POSSIBILITY

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Linus Pauling

At the source of all accomplishment is the declaration of possibility. While we

constantly make declarations about what is or is not possible, we seldom do so
responsibly. That is, we dont speak from the awareness that our words either expand
our options and bring forth a new future, or guarantee a perpetuation of the past.

Examples of speaking possibility are:

I am committed that this can work.
I say it is possible to
We are capable of

Conversations for Possibility are creative, innovative. They open up pathways to a

future beyond what already exists.

In meetings, Conversations for Possibility must be managed, lest they deteriorate into
discussion of opinions and points of view. The following guidelines are useful in
facilitating effective Conversations for Possibility:

1. No decision or commitment will be made until the Conversation for Possibility is

complete.

2. It is safe to speculate, to entertain wild ideas, to propose seemingly impractical

options.

3. There is no discussion of the feasibility of the possibilities until after all have been
presented. Discussion of implementation comes later, in Conversations for
Opportunity.

4. Shift conversations that make people and situations right or wrong. Possibilities are
neither right nor wrong, and all possibilities are equally valid, as possibilities.

Extreme aversion to risk and excessive preoccupation with ones own job (to the
exclusion of the bigger picture) are warning signs that Conversations for Possibility may
be missing.

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O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O

Connect all of the nine dots with four straight lines without lifting your pencil
and without re-tracing lines. If you know how to do the puzzle with four
lines, do it with three.

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2013