page 10: The Rights of Children
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child 1959
page 13: Alice Miller in "The Drama of Being a Child" (1988) states:
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 the respect and protection of adults who take them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to become orientated in the world.
3. When these vital needs are frustrated and children are instead abused for the sake of adults needs by being exploited, beaten, punished, taken advantage of, manipulated, neglected, or deceived without the intervention of any witnesses, then their integrity will be lastingly impaired
page 14: Kellmer-Pringle describes the need for love and security as probably the most important for healthy development and for the future capacity to give and receive love and affection. Children experience love and security through continuing reliable relationships and the security of familiar places.
page 19: Definitions of Child Abuse.
Child abuse is usually categorised into physical abuse, physical and emotional neglect, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.
Physical Abuse .. is defined as any child suffering form non-accidental physical injury
Neglect is also maltreatment of the child, this involves failure to safeguard the health, safety and well-being of the child.
Neglect occurs when there is a failure to meet the child's basic needs and implies and omission or indifference to the needs of the child. There could be a lack of physical contact, lack of emotional support or recognition of the child as a separate individual.
Emotional Abuse involves more active negative attitudes and includes verbal or emotional attacks or threats of attacks. These can include:
Sexual Abuse is defined as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities they do not truly comprehend, to which they were unable to give informed consent or that violate the social taboos of family roles.
page 29: D.W. Winnicot says: It is by playing and only in playing that the individual child is able to be creative and to use the whole personality and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.
Jung (1931 wrote: The creative activity of imagination frees man from his bondage to the 'nothing but' and raises him to the status of one who plays. As Schiller says, man is completely human only when he is at play.
page47: The form of children's play is essentially dramatic, through the child's capacity as natural actor. Children use symbolic play to create their own special worlds set in her own time and space away from 'ordinary' life. They have a clear understanding of the boundaries of play and signal their intention to begin and end play in ways which keep the boundaries clear enough. ... Play is a journey of self-discovery for the child (and for those who, as adults, want to keep in touch with the inner child inside us all), a way of making sense of the past, present and future. Play is a creative process and the form of the process is essentially dramatic
page 48: To join a child in making a journey of self discovery though play is a privilege ... and should be regarded as such.
page 54: Huizinga writes that all play moves and has its beginning, within a playground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the 'consecrated spot' cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the tennis court, the court of justices, etc. are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary worlds, dedicated to the performance of an act apart
page 107: Mia Kellmer Pringele (1974) described four basic needs of children for their healthy development. These are: the need for love and security, they need for new experiences, the need for praise and recognition, and the need for responsibility
page 124: As a therapist, I can only admire those families who go on caring for damaged children, who change so slowly and whose damage can never be fully repaired. It seems a strange world where money can be found for expensive residential placements for damaged children, but no offers of support, help and therapy for children who might be able to live in a family if this extra support was available
page 143: There are stories which say that if you are confronted with evil the only thing to do is to lie your way out of it; others say no, be honest, even towards the devil, don't be involved with lying (von Franz 1974).