What an adult feels and thinks, and the way they communicate and relate, are direct consequences of the influences that marked them in childhood. People and environments work as vectors that shape a developing child’s responses to the challenges of their own survival. Their repertoire for supporting decision-making forms and consolidates from the models around them, from observing how effective adults’ actions are and, finally, from testing against reality.

From a child’s point of view, even everyday situations can seem immense; often, the surroundings are truly frightening. The adults responsible for a child’s care are not always loving or capable of offering the unconditional love fundamental to their psychic health. In many cases, material and social insecurity add to the scarcity of affection. The child has to learn to deal with these factors and finds ways to do so. Not always adequate, their survival strategies ensure they reach adulthood.

The adult who cares for a child today was also exposed, in their own childhood, to greater or lesser challenges, but very similar to those faced by the child in their care. Few grow up with healthy models of parenting; few receive the gift of guidance that stimulates, recognizes and promotes an internal structure of safety. On taking on the parental role, each does what they can with the resources they gather as they grow. Rare are the human beings who cause harm deliberately; most do so because they do not know, because they cannot imagine the impact of their words, acts and omissions on their children’s development.

Where it comes from

Some survival decisions adopted in childhood crystallize into beliefs. Thinking comes to be guided by these experiences, which in turn drive behaviors, relationships and feelings. But an adult can devote part of their time to “growing up again.”

In a superb body of work built over decades with families, parents and children, Jean Clarke and Connie Dawson present strategies and possibilities stage by stage of development, which allow the building of strengthened senses of identity, competence, belonging, safety, bonding and meaning. John and Penny McNeel, in working with injunction messages, offer a similar proposal for rebuilding these senses, starting from awareness of the messages received, their impacts, the limitations installed and the possible releases.

Injunction messages are communications that block, restrict, limit and sometimes paralyze the possibilities for a child’s thriving evolution. Often they are not true, but the child’s age and limited interpretive repertoire make them the basis for decisions about themselves, about others and about reality.

Words, acts and omissions

The genesis of violence happens under the pressure of different factors: social and economic context (scarcity and inequality); behavioral and emotional disturbances rooted in childhood; unequal power relations; discriminatory cultural norms; and the perpetuated cycle of violence. It is irresponsible to attribute only to the words, acts and omissions of important childhood figures the authorship of perpetuating violence as the basis of coexistence.

However, these messages from caregivers are one possible source of the genesis of violence. As victims or witnesses of violent behavior, some children adopt violence because they believe it is the priority route for managing their relationships. The child learns both the behavior and the thinking associated with violence, which assumes the neutralization of empathy and of validating the other as a human being. By training not to perceive their own pains, fears and despairs, the person gradually loses the ability to qualify the impact of their violent behavior on others.

The frightening power of caregivers’ messages and examples shows the urgent need for multifactorial, multidisciplinary intervention. One path to generate new decisions and release these blocks is to recognize, name and structure a route for forming new beliefs, a process that is not painless, part of the healing of the Script System.

Another path is to raise awareness among those who parent so they take care of the messages they direct at their children through words, acts and omissions. Whoever parents needs to take responsibility toward the developing being.

Open your mouth wide

The proposal of this text is a simple exercise: to think about what to convey to a child, about the impacts caused by a significant adult’s communication and about the future consequences of frequent, thoughtless remarks. I imagine that, by thinking before speaking, the adult can, in caring for the child under their responsibility, also care for their own inner child. To that end, I present a few phrases from a much larger universe. After each phrase are listed some potential impacts on the child’s belief system and behavior.

• Leave me alone!
  Do not come near, do not bother me, you get in my way.
• It’s fine!
  You do not feel what you feel, swallow your tears.
• Don’t cry!
  Repress your feelings, expressing emotions is inappropriate.
• Do it again until it’s good.
  What you do is not good enough; you will never meet my expectations.
• I’m disappointed in you.
  You are responsible for my emotions; feel guilty for what you made me feel.
• Because I said so.
  You may not think; you must obey without questioning; your opinion does not matter; I’m OK, you’re not OK.
• You’re just like… (someone).
  You have no right to your individuality; I do not accept who you are; feel inadequate.
• You always… / You never…
  Your efforts do not matter; what you do does not interest me.
• I do everything for you.
  Feel guilty for the work I have; you are a burden in my life.
• Show your strength; if they hit you, hit back.
  Do not think, do not feel, do not consider the other.
• You can do whatever you want to whoever you want.
  I do not want to be bothered by you; fend for yourself; you cannot count on me.

Recognizing the weight of words and attitudes directed at a child is recognizing the depth of human experience. Every gesture, every silence and every phrase said or omitted takes part in building someone who does not yet have the resources to understand the world but already feels everything intensely.

When adults are willing to revisit their own history, understand their wounds and expand their awareness, they become able to interrupt cycles and offer children something they may not have received: presence, safety, hope, respect and empathy. And, above all, a language of coexistence without violence, based on co-construction and cooperation.

Caring for a child is, at once, an invitation, a responsibility and an opportunity to cultivate healthier, freer, more loving futures.