Be the VOICE. Be the AGENTS of CHANGE. STOP CHILD ABUSE FOR OUR CHILDREN!

Be the VOICE. Be the AGENT of CHANGE. STOP CHILD ABUSE FOR OUR CHILDREN!

Welcome to I Am A Human Being Too. https://iamahumanbeingtoo.wordpress.com/.

I Am A Human Being Too has created this blog with the community of parents, caregivers, educators, significant others, and anyone who interacts and comes in contact with children, in mind.

We hope to help adults understand the differences between teaching discipline and punishing children.

This page will include links to resources and articles about positive and gentle parenting techniques and strategies, on interacting with and responding to children, in enriching ways.

We hope you’ll join us in protecting our children by Standing Up, Being the Voice, Being the Agent of Change.  Help Stop Child Abuse.

WHO ARE WE?

The administrators of this page are all in the education field. While our focus is primarily in the early childhood field, our administrators combined have taught from early childhood through to primary, secondary, A-Levels, to adults (Degree Level).

Our Beliefs

We love children deeply and children are our passion. We believe that children are to be loved, that they are precious, and that they are vulnerable. They are without a voice. Our children need us.

Our children are our future. We need our children.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdpTJ14IFr0 “I was spanked, and I turned out ok”

“A knee-jerk reaction to the complaint that spanking is abuse is, “I was spanked, and I turned out OK.” Did you turn out OK? Cast your vote on http://stopspanking.org.

“Well, I got hit when I was a kid and I turned out okay. And sometimes I wonder if those people had really examined their feelings because when there is a feeling that we have that is hurtful and we bury it because we can’t deal with it. The powers are too strong around us, we put it away somewhere. And so, when someone asks us about spanking, we are likely to have a knee-jerk response, which is, I got hurt when I was a kid, I mean, I got spanked and I turned out okay. And I sometimes want to say, We don’t know how you would have turned out. We don’t know.” Nadine Block National Child Protection Training Center

“When someone says, I was spanked and I’m okay, that’s true but the implication intended that spanking is okay, is false. It just they’re part of the lucky ones” Murray Straus, Ph.D Sociology Researcher, Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire

“I think there’s a lot of blockage like, mothers might block out what they’re doing. But when they do step outside and look at how the child is wincing when they approach them, or the child looks at them or can’t look at them, when a mother makes that turn, they feel extreme sorrow. I’ve heard mothers talk about sorrow that they feel because of what they’ve done to their children. But when the mother doesn’t get to that point where she can assess her own behaviour, then it’s just a vicious cycle of what was done to me. So, I’m going to do it to you.” Asadah Kirkland, Author, “Beating Black Kids”

“You are hitting a child. To me, that’s a violent act. The child’s bodily response to being hit is one of pain, one of fear, and the physicality or it goes into many nerve-endings from the feet, to the arm, to the bum, to the face, it has a physiological, neurological, traumatic consequence.” John Allan, PhD, Child Psychologist, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia

 

“The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.

I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection.

And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt – and there is the story of mankind.”

— John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952
“If we are ever to turn toward a kindlier society and a safer world, a revulsion against the physical punishment of children would be a good place to start.”— Dr. Benjamin Spock

“There never was a time when a major social problem was solved by beating a child. And there never will be such a time…

For centuries adults have injured children and have lied about it, and other adults have heard those lies and then merely turned away,” — Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, 1989.

“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Despite frequent and loud screaming heard coming from the house, the neighbor said there was no indication of abuse.” – Contra Costa Times, September 4, 2008

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” — Eleanor Roosevelt

There never was a time when a major social problem was solved by beating a child. And there never will be such a time. – C. Everett Koop, M.D., Sc. D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services; from the Keynote Address to the Kids Symposium, “Uniting America to Fight Childhood Injury,” Washington, D.C., February 16, 1989

“… It is still shocking to me, when people tell me that — based on the cold, hard statistics — the greatest potential threat to the average American child is the child’s own family and environment… There’s still a lot of folklore about “accidents,” about fate taking a hand in this or that.

In other words, a lot of folklore that relieves adults of responsibility. And changing that totally erroneous mind-set is our most serious challenge. We must not allow the adults of America to “get off the hook” that easily. We need to explain to them and convince them and get them to believe right to the depth of their souls that childhood injuries are no accident… It’s time to be honest with ourselves about the way we treat children in general in our society…

Children do not automatically get a fair shake in our society, and they should… I do not believe you can separate the phenomenon of childhood injuries from this issue of where children fit in our society.

I don’t think you can separate childhood injuries from the fact that far too many school systems in this country, with the approval — tacit or otherwise — of state law, allow severe physical punishment to be meted out to their students…

I’ve read all those stories in the newspapers and in weekly magazines about the principals who have “cleaned up” their schools by physical force. And I am ashamed for them, for their communities and for any of my fellow Americans who think such principals have the “right idea.” They do not.

There never was a time when a major social problem was solved by beating a child. And there never will be such a time…

For centuries adults have injured children and have lied about it, and other adults have heard those lies and then merely turned away… When a child gets hurt, we must no longer automatically perpetuate the mythology that it must have been the child’s fault or that it was the result of another mysterious “accident.”

Instead of that, we must begin putting the blame where it belongs: perhaps on some other human being — most likely an adult — who did the wrong thing unintentionally or intentionally, but not accidentally…”