The cruellest thing you do to your child, is stop it being true to itself - how it wants to be.
The most loving thing you can do for your child, is allow it to be absolutely free to express its whole self,
all it thinks and FEELS.
The most loving thing you can do for your child, is allow it to be absolutely free to express its whole self,
all it thinks and FEELS.
The 'Free Child'
on this page:
Let's go to the library
Feeling powerless is one of the worst feelings. And all that is wrong within you, stems from it.
Whose side are you on?
The free child - freedom of self-expression.
What message are you giving your child?
What do you do?
Let’s go to the library…
It’s hell at home…
It’s hell getting ready
It’s hell getting into the car
It’s hell in the car on the way to the library
It’s hell getting out of the car when we get there
It’s hell waiting in the foyer for the library to open
It’s hell returning our books; putting the books in the hole
It’s hell at the book-reading group
It’s hell checking out our books
It’s hell getting back in the car
It’s hell in the car on the way to the shop we have to stop at
It’s hell getting out of the car to go into the shop
It’s hell in the shop
It’s hell getting back into the car
It’s hell driving back home
It’s hell getting out of the car at home
It’s hell back home…
Feeling powerless is one of the worst feelings. And all that is wrong within you, stems from it.
Big James says feeling powerless is the worst feeling you can feel. He described it to me and I hate it too. I feel it often because of how mum and dad treat me.
He says that from that bad feeling come all other bad feelings, and that really we only feel bad when we feel powerless. And if we feel powerful, and that's truly powerful and NOT the untrue, false feelings of power so many people have, we feel good. I wish I felt powerful all the time.
Maddy told me that when you deny any part of yourself, and particularly your bad feelings, you feel depowered, that is what bad feelings are: being there to help you to know that something is not right, that your will is being compromised some how. First you get angry so with it you can fight off and repel whatever it is that is depowering you, but if you can’t express your anger using it to reclaim your power then it backfires and makes you feel even worse, causing you to feel very miserable and depressed. She said very depressed people only feel so bad because when they were small they were so heavily, and so often, made to feel very powerless, and were unable to do anything about it. And so still can't do anything about it as a grown-up.
She also told me that when you are denying your feelings and not allowing them to all freely come out, that once left trapped inside you, they will make you sick. And we only get sick because of our repressed childhood feelings.
Sometimes I feel very sick and mum says it’s because I must have eaten some bad food, but Maddy says it’s because mum is not allowing me to express all my bad feelings. Maddy says that nobody seems to understand that ALL our problems, and why things don’t go right for us; and why we get sick, come from our not having been allowed to freely express our feelings when we were a little child.
And that if parents cause their children to feel powerless they are stopping them from expressing all they feel, and this will be very bad for their children. She says if parents could put themselves in their child’s place and feel what it feels like to be made to feel so powerless, they would stop doing many of the bad things that hurt their child. They'd become aware of things they were doing that they didn't even know were causing their child to feel so powerless.
And she said that, how you can tell you are making your child feel powerless and bad, is by the child showing you loud and clear – if you want to listen to it – by its protesting, its crying, its anger, its tantrum throwing, its misery, by it being sick; all of which are the only ways it knows of trying to stop having done to it what is making it feel powerless. So now I know that every time I see a child and its parent locked in battle, the child is fighting for its right to have its own power and to feel good about that; fighting to stop its own parent from making it feel threatened and powerless. She says such parents who make their children feel so powerless aren’t loving them, no matter what they might believe and think they feel; for the child who feels so bad certainly isn’t going to feel love from or for its parents. And I know I don’t feel any love when I feel so upset and angry with mum and dad. I hate them and wish I could kill them, so they would stop treating me so badly.
She says from all she can see, grown-ups don’t have any real idea about how they are making their child feel – they don’t put themselves in their child’s place, because if they did they wouldn’t treat their children so badly. They wouldn't make them feel so bad, traumatizing them by being so unfeeling and so uncaring about how THEIR OWN CHILD feels. I wish mum and dad would care more about how they make me feel.
Whose side are you on?
Do you yell at your child for being naughty?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you smack your child?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you punish your child when it’s done a bad thing?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you criticize your child?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you humiliate your child in public drawing too much attention to it when it’s been bad?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you over praise your child?
How do you think this makes your child feel?
Do you…
Do you put yourself in your child’s place?
And when you are angry with your child and want to punish it, are you happy it feels bad and you are getting the message through to it?
And are you happy that it’s all a ‘happy loving family’ when everyone is being good, when your children are doing as they are told?
And are you happy, and does it make you feel good, being the controlling, dominating, destroyer of your child’s freedom of self-expression, all so they will do what they are told to do?
Are you happy making your child feel so powerless – is this your objective being a loving and good parent?
And have you never really given it much thought before: how you might actually be making your children feel underneath the superficial gloss of smiling faces?
And do you want to put your self in your child’s place? Do you really? Come on now, it’s okay to be honest, nothing bad is going to happen to you if you admit you enjoy having power over someone or something – your children.
Do you have a pet – any pet?
You do?
So you do enjoy having power over another creature, so you must also enjoy having power over your child.
Do you treat your child like a pet? Making it become the obedient dog that’s always happy to see mummy and daddy? Making it live according to your rules causing it to deny so much of itself and its own natural self-expression to do so – just like your pet does.
But what can you do?
How else can you be an effective parent if you don’t take control?
And that is the dilemma, the age-old problem. And it’s too difficult to answer so you just keep right on being how everyone else is, doing what everyone else does.
But does that still mean it’s right?
So what do you do when you come to the dead-end?
Where do you go?
How do you change?
How do you let go of control?
How indeed?
So let’s ask little james what he'd say about it... And I say, I don’t know, you had me mum and dad, you’re the grown-ups, that’s for you to work out. I only know that so much of what you do to me makes me feel bad because you’re not putting yourself in my place. For if you did you wouldn’t do those bad things to me because you wouldn’t want to feel as bad as you are making me feel.
Maddy says part of the problem with parents is that, as they were never allowed to freely express themselves as children, they don’t allow their children to freely express themselves. They never did it when they were young so don’t know how to allow their children to do it. And because of their feeling-expression being so repressed, they haven’t properly grown up from a child to a grown-up, with those parts left unexpressed still being as the child is: still waiting to be expressed one day; still waiting to have its say.
She tells me that when mums and dads look at their children, really all they are seeing is themselves and the little person they are who is unexpressed. So when their own child tries to express itself freely they won’t allow it, because really its them and they weren’t allowed to, as they would get into trouble. So they stop themselves as if they are the child, thereby stopping their own child, and at the same time being also their own parent who stopped them. It’s all very complicated isn’t it?
The free child – freedom of self-expression
Big James says – I’m too young to know about such things – that how he would liked to have been parented was to have been allowed to freely express himself. He says that in our world, society, and unfortunately in most families, the child is made to do all sorts of things it doesn’t want to do – it just can’t be free. Neither is the child free to say whatever it likes. It’s not free to express itself – all the feelings it feels.
I can’t do everything I want to do. Mum and dad don’t allow me to stay home from school when I don’t want to go. They say I have to go, just as they say I have to brush my teeth, tidy up my room, go to bed early, and eat vegetables I don’t like the taste of. And when I say I don’t want to do these things, they say I have to. I have tried to not do them but they force me to. I get punished, even smacked, if I don’t do them and do as I am told, so I have learnt that I have to do them even though I still don’t want to. And they tell me that doing these things is good for me; that eating my vegetables will keep me healthy; that brushing my teeth will stop them getting holes in them; and going to school will help me learn things for when I grow up. So they make me do as they say, telling me not to make a fuss, not to resist them, not to get angry, and definitely NOT to cry; and to instead, try to look at them as good things – things that will help me and that are good for me. So I do. What else can I do? I try, but I still feel bad about doing what I don’t want to do.
Big James says he wishes mum and dad had allowed him to express his bad feelings; allowing him to cry, to be angry, to fight them, to say he didn’t want to do what made him feel bad, even if he still had to do them. He says he wishes they just allowed him to speak freely, to express his emotions and NOT punish him when he felt bad.
He says because they stopped him from freely expressing all he felt, right from when he was a little baby, now as a grown-up, he still can’t freely express himself. He says he is a false person who has to pretend he enjoys doing all the things he doesn’t like doing. He still convinces himself that all he doesn’t want to do is good for him even though he can see now that it’s not. He can see that by not being true to his bad feelings, by denying so many of them, they are making him sick. He also says, every time he eats vegetables he feels guilty if he doesn’t eat the ones he doesn’t like. He says he still makes himself do the things he doesn’t want to do because he is still sacred of getting punished my mum and dad if he doesn’t. And he is still not allowed to complain, or protest. And he can’t just not do it. He says he was so heavily controlled that now he keeps that control on himself. He says no matter how hard he tries to stop doing the things he doesn’t want to do, he can’t, because his conditioning, when he was young like me, was just too strong.
So he wants me to tell you, as you are (or are going to be) mums and dads, that he hopes you allow your children to freely express themselves – ALL THE TIME. So even though your child might still have to do what it doesn’t want to do, at least it will be free to have its say about that. And by having its say it can maintain some of its own power, and not just be told to shut up and do what it’s told. He says the best thing parents can do for their children is to allow them – AND BETTER STILL – even encourage them, to express and emote all their feelings – good and bad, and particularly the bad ones; allowing them to be free to say what they want, whenever they want.
To not allow a child to freely express all it feels is to deny it its own existence, so it feels powerless, which is only going to make it feel worse – even more bad feelings, such as feeling: angry, depressed and miserable, all because it can’t have it’s say. Imagine what it would feel like if you couldn’t have your say, if you couldn’t speak up and say no, protesting about what you don’t want to do, and it’s much worse for a child. Big James says grown-ups are already too far-gone in their feeling-denial, and mostly aren’t even aware of doing things they don’t like doing. And he says being so false and untrue to oneself causes so many problems in ones life, if not, ALL of ones problems.
And I too wish mum and dad wanted me to say, so encourage me to say, all I feel, because I don’t want all the fears and problems Big James has.
What message are you giving your child?
Your child has been naughty – you smack it.
What message are you giving it?
How do you think this message will effect the rest of its life?
What negative belief and behavioural patterns are you creating in your child for its adult life to be determined and governed by?
And do you think you are causing it to deny itself – to deny its feelings, its self-expression?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you? Is your mind spinning with rationalizations and justifications for your actions? And if so: why? Is it because you feel guilty and have to defend yourself? And if so: why? What are you afraid of? Could it be that you will get into trouble if you don’t treat your child as you were treated by your parents? Could it be you are still the little person afraid of your own parents?
Your child has been naughty – you banish it to its room.
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
Your child has been naughty – you deprive it of something.
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
Your child has been naughty – you stop it doing what it wants to do.
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
Your child is misbehaving – you threaten it: ‘I’ll put you in the car if you don’t behave yourself and we’ll go home’.
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
‘Stop that! Don’t do that! Don’t touch that! Do as I say! BEHAVE! I said, don’t DO THAT! And don’t touch that! COME HERE! LISTEN TO ME! Do as I tell you!'
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
‘If you don’t behave yourself I’ll leave you here. I tell you, I’ll leave you and I’m serious. I’m going home – you can find your own way back if you don’t behave!'
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
‘You bloody kid, I’m sick of you. You never do as your told… I wish I never had you!’
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?
‘Here, eat this. I don’t want to hear another word from you!'
What message are you giving it?
How does it react?
Are you making it feel good?
How would you react, and what would you feel, if what you did to your child were done to you?… and the list goes on and on… oh the joys of being a child…
Some people say Big James and Maddy don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t had children so don’t know what the pressures are like on parents. So they shouldn’t judge, and shouldn’t point an accusing finger blaming the parent.
And Maddy and Big James say it doesn’t matter about them not being parents because they have been a child, and it’s equally important being the child as being a parent. And to know WHAT IT FEELS LIKE BEING THE CHILD OF UNLOVING AND UNCARING PARENTS, is far more important then being those unloving parents.
They say parents who refuse to put themselves in their child’s place; parents who believe they have all rights over their child because it’s their possession – their creation, and so can do whatever they want to it, are wrong. These are parents who fail to understand and take responsibility for their own actions. Parents who themselves were made to feel so unloved by their parents, and therefore so powerless, that the only sure way of having power available to them is to have children of their own. To have children to use for their own selfish needs. To have children, not to help a new personality into life ensuring it’s absolutely free to express itself however it might want to, but to have children to lord it over them, all so they can make themselves feel good and all-powerful at the expense of their child. They make their own child suffer terribly so they can feel better about themselves, all because they too were made to suffer terribly and still are.
They say if you are NOT on your child’s side, then whose side are you on? And if you are NOT allowing your child to freely express itself; if you are controlling its self-expression in ANYWAY, then you are NOT on its side. If you are preventing your child from expressing all it feels making it deny its own feelings, then you are DEFINITELY not on your child’s side, so you are using it for your own gain. And to use someone else for your own ends is the BIG NO, NO. That is not how we are meant to live our lives. We are meant to love and respect each other, not use each other at the expense of denying another their freedom of self-expression.
And Maddy says, so do you see, that there is no escape for parents because they are all using their children in some way. And that is the whole point to this… to why I am writing this: to alert all you mums and dads to this fact, because until you start to wake up to it, and see it, and admit that it’s true, the plight of children being mistreated by all parents will continue. So all little children like me will continue to suffer and feel bad when all we want to feel is loved and good.
What do you do?
Big James wants me to ask you these questions – this being based on experiences he's had.
So, what do you do on that Tuesday morning when you’re running late for work and if you don’t go NOW –
What do you do when your beautiful little girl or boy – the one you feel such great love for; the one whom when you’re lying in bed at night and its all quite, and your thoughts drift to thinking about how lovely, innocent, trusting, accepting and so vulnerable it is; and your heart goes out to it nearly exploding in overwhelming love for it – is crying, saying he or she doesn’t want to go to the crèche?
What do you do as his or her small red face, contorted with anguish, is pleading with you not to take it, not to leave it, not to abandon it, not to reject it – yet again?
What do you do when you’re at the gates of the crèche and all you can do is leave your child but your heart is crying as much as it is crying?
And what do you do as the carer takes your child, as you leave and can see that dreadful look of resignation on its face, and you know that in that terrible moment it's been crucified a little more having to deny all its hurt and pain of you leaving it; of you making and subjecting it to doing something it doesn’t want to do – of you not loving it? And you know it’s now taken yet another step in its self-denial, and your relationship with it has yet another irreparable rent in it.
And what do you do as you’re killing your own child; crushing it with hurt; traumatizing it with pain, all of which it wants to express, reaching out to touch you, to find the love you say you do feel for it; but all of which in your brutal and callous act, you are forcing it to suppress and then keep always repressed – that awful moment of despair?
What are you to do?
And the answer is… you do what you do because that is all you can do.
However, Big James says, if you are serious about doing something to help yourself and your child, then you can consider doing your feeling- or soul-healing, as that is, from all he understands and has experienced, all you can do.
And how do you set about healing all that’s wrong within you: all that your parents did to you to cause your feelings-denial; and all that you now do, passing it onto your child?
By healing your childhood repression.
You want to please them so they’ll praise you and you’ll feel good getting what you want.
But then you’re trapped and enslaved to doing what you do to please.
And the saddest part is: why were you having to do anything to please them in the first place.
Why weren’t they just already pleased with you.
But then you’re trapped and enslaved to doing what you do to please.
And the saddest part is: why were you having to do anything to please them in the first place.
Why weren’t they just already pleased with you.