i got an email today from Ani Star from My Dissonance letting me know that I had been added to her collection of survivor blogs. Naturally, I had to go take a look at her collection, and wow, it looks like quite a list of survivors! I’m going to be busy checking out some new (to me) blogs.
The fine folks over at Friends in Tech, a group that includes your’s truly, have updated the on-line child safety flier. Go get yourself a copy, and feel free to print it and hand it out to any parents who could use the information.
Check out the links in it as well. There’s a lot of really good information on keeping kids safe on-line as well as off.
Actually I got an email from Andy, with a couple of links:
I thought I’d pass on these observations I’ve found for you to consider, ponder and maybe even comment on.
The first is from Alice Miller, and comes from her website:
http://www.alice-miller.com/flyers_en.php?page=3 (the 12 points)
The second is from a search of wikipedia for the psychology of torture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_torture specifically this quote:
“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.” Judith Herman
Thanks, Andy. As far as my thoughts, the first link, to Alice Miller’s “the Roots of Violence”, I’m not sure I completely agree with. She paints a very utopian picture at the end of a world in which all violence is utterly unthinkable because all children have had a good upbringing. Not only does the realist in me think that’s ridiculous, but I also think it’s a very dangerous way to think. Blaming all of the world’s violence on poor childhoods provides too easy an excuse for people to not take responsibility for their own actions. If I were to do something violent, it would be because I chose to do that, as an adult, right now. It would not be because somewhere in my childhood that’s how I learned to act, nor should anyone allow me to use that as an excuse.
Besides, I really do think that there is some violence that is inherent in the human condition and always will be, even with the best of childhoods. Children are not the completely innocent angels of Alice Miller’s world, only corrupted by the discipline of their parents, they are fallible and prone to selfishness, just as adults are.
The second link is an interesting area of research, and I think the quote is also an interesting one. It is always easier to not know something than it is to acknowledge it and thus have to do something about it.
Interestingly enough, I think that tendency is also human nature, but a nature that can be overcome if we choose to.
I found this post about the statistics of on-line predators compared to the level of panic about on-line predators quite interesting. I’ve been aware for a number of years that focused media attention on any issue can greatly impact how people act, regardless of what the actual risk might be. How many people won’t travel overseas or do other things despite the fact that millions of people do it safely every single day, because of the impression they get of how dangerous it is? This is pretty similar.
It seems like the area of protecting children is especially susceptible to this sort of behavior. Naturally, most parents feel the need to do everything they can to protect their children, and that’s an instinct we really don’t want them to lose, for sure. But, it can be very easy to see the media stories about on-line predators, or registered sex offenders and conclude that your kids will be safe simply by moving to a neighborhood that doesn’t have any registered sex offenders in it, and keeping your kids off the Internet. The truth, however, is that you’ve actually done very little to protect your kids by doing those two things, because you’ve eliminated only two very small risks.
The truth is that, no matter how much you might try, you can never eliminate all the risks that your kids face. At some point they have to go outside your house, to school, to a playground, to the store, and they are at some risk then.
I’ve always been an advocate of teaching your kids to deal with risks as opposed to trying to hide them from all the risks. Let’s face it, many of you reading this were abused, and many of you were abused long before there was any such thing as the Internet, let alone on-line predators, and many of you were abused by people who had never been charged with a sex crime, heck many of you were abused by members of your own family. What would have served you better growing up, having your parents move you to a “safe” neighborhood and keeping you away from strange adults, or teaching you about predators, how to handle them, who to tell, etc.? I know which one would have done me more good.
The 7th Edition is up over at Sadly Normal. As always it looks like there’s quite a lot of reading material over there. Since we’re traveling to visit family I’m going to have to just look forward to reading it when I’m back home.
Hope you all have a great holiday!
Lisa from Sadly Normal will be hosting this months edition of the Carnival Against Child Abuse. She’s got some great suggested topics listed for the last edition of the year, as well as an offer to host your writings if you don’t have your own blog.
Her topics have got me thinking a bit. Hopefully, I’ll have some further thoughts to contribute to the carnival in the form of blog posts about those thoughts in the next few days.
Sorry I’ve been out of touch, life’s been a bit of a whirlwind thanks to getting sick, and then having a death in my wife’s family. Many things, let alone blogging, have had to be pushed aside due to those circumstances, but I did want to make a note.
Normally this time of year I talk a bit about what charitable donations I am going to make for year. Normally there’s a donation to a child abuse prevention charity, it’s been the local children’s hospital for example, but I think, in light of recent events, my charity donation is going to begin with something different this year.
You see, the death in my wife’s family was her great-grandmother. A woman with many fine traits, a woman my wife has looked up to with the utmost respect, and who has been a source of inspiration to my wife since she was a little girl. Unfortunately, she is also a woman I never knew. For while I’ve known Angela for almost 7 years, and we’ve been married for 5, and I’ve met her great -grandmother many times, she has suffered from Alzheimer’s for all that time. She wasn’t the woman my wife told stories about, our spoke so highly of, she was a shell of that woman, and as the years went on, she became less and less of that woman. Her Alzheimer’s took her away long before her life ended, it deprived all of us from sharing these last years with her, in my case it deprived me of ever getting to know one of my wife’s heroes. That was my loss, I have no doubt. From what I’ve been told of her, I can see her spirit living in my wife, and will continue to do so for many years, I hope, but I never got to see the source of that spirit, even though she was right there physically for all these years. That’s a shame, and it’s something I hope you never have to know.
I’ve known it in my own family, and now I’ve known it in my wife’s family. I’ve watched as my own relatives became distant shadows of themselves, and I’ve missed out on the opportunity to know a great lady because of Alzheimer’s, I want to try and do something to help make sure others don’t. I believe Angela and I will be making a donation to the Alzheimer’s Association, in memory of her great-grandmother this year.
The Fifth Edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is up over at Survivors can Thrive today. Once again it looks like there quite a bit of good writing going on, as usual.
Next month’s edition will be hosted right here, so start thinking about submissions!
As I’m sure you all know, I’m very interested in the idea of leveraging technology when it comes to spreading the word about child abuse, whether that be by getting the facts out in the open, or making sure that survivors know they are not alone. That’s why I have this site. That’s also why when I was listening to an episode of a tech podcast called Valid Syntax the other day, and heard Kreg mention a show called Missingalert.com that I jotted down a note to take a look at that. Well, tonight I finally did that, and found a very interesting idea. Using all sorts of new technology, including a PC-Desktop alerter, website modules, audio and video podcasts, to spread the word about missing children. As you know, you never know who is going to come in contact with a missing or abducted child. The more people are aware that someone’s missing, the more likely those random chance sightings can turn into a child being home. I like the idea of trying to leverage new technologies to make that happen. (Obviously, I have the amber alert bar at the top of this site, so it’s something I support. I may just have to look at adding this, or at least grabbing the video podcast.
I saw this morning over at Pysch Central that Thursday, Oct. 5th is National Depression Screening Day.
Follow the link and read more about it, and find out who should seriously consider being screened, whether on-line or in person.
As a personal note, this is incredibly important. Depression is a serious problem, it can be debilitating, and even deadly if not treated, but with a proper screening, you can get help before it reaches that point. If you suspect that you, or someone you know, may be suffering from depression, please take advantage of this time to seek out help.
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