Over the last few decades it has become increasingly obvious that, together with a hosts of emotional and other personal problems, sexual difficulties and maladjustments, in a majority of cases, have their origin in environmental conditioning in childhood. One may safely assume that everyone's behaviour, in one way or another, has been influenced by either the good feelings, or anxieties of those who surrounded them in infancy, and so I wish to direct our attention to the GULF that exists between the overwhelming amount of information on child rearing that is available now-at-days and, on the other side, what actually happens in real life.
Later intervention of disturbances which have their origin in early childhood can be difficult on this side of puberty. It has been said that even major psychotherapeutic treatment in adulthood has little chance of success.
The reluctance to change and progress has been a mystery for a long time. Only emotionally charged issues bring enough people together to force a change. Our children's future sexual fulfilment, however, can not be expected to raise emotions sufficiently high. Ever so often, fear and confusion sweep those issues under the proverbial carpet. This has been reflected by the remark I read somewhere recently that many have their physical bodies in the space age, except their genitals, which are still in the Victorian age.
What are the barriers to sex education? Let me begin by explaining the meaning of sex education within the framework of this paper. Sex education does not start at age 15 or so in school, nor does it begin at age 10 or five. Sex education begins long before the infant is able to understand or form the spoken word. More specialists in the area now seem to believe it begins at the moment the baby is born. Recent research has shed new light on the shock that the traumatic birth experience can have on the baby. Then there is the sudden change from the totally enclosed, secure environment of the womb to an isolated, possibly very frightening place. Clinically sterile, the newly-born is denied the comforting human touch at a time when touch is the most meaningful communication for him, at a time when he needs it the most, at a time when he has no opportunity to tell us about his trauma. More recent considerations seem to indicate that such experiences can have an effect on the security, the emotional stability if not even sexuality of that future adult.
Let us now point the spotlight on to this barrier: The long interval of cause and effect. This interval can be expressed in terms of tens of years. Time separates adult behaviour from the original cause. Imagine a child sex offender goes to jail for his misdeeds while for the child the consequences in his or her adulthood may be incalculable. The primary cause and the victim's feelings surrounding the experience is unknown. The way we experience the world as children we have forgotten once we reach adulthood.
And that leads us right into the next barrier: An adult perceives the world through the colouration of his/her own filters. Like fingerprints, they are highly individual. They have been constructed by millions of conscious and unconscious impressions, collected over a life time. The way we experience the world, or to say it in different works, our representation of our model of the world is unique to us. It can never be duplicated by, or transmitted faithfully to, any other person. How much greater the barrier is between the perception of the adult and that of the child cannot be demonstrated easily. Perhaps if we imagine a space traveller coming to this planet for the very first time: what sense would our way of life, our thinking, our behaviour make to the virgin mind of a visitor from outer space? It goes even deeper if we accept the fact that for any person - no matter how peculiar or eccentric his or her views may seem to us - that view will be NORMAL for that person. The unrecognised possibilities for misinterpretations and misunderstandings between adults and children arising from all this are simply enormous.
To give one example closer to the topic: Many adults will predict catastrophic outcomes in that child's mind who has been exposed to discussions or demonstrations of sexually-related events. To illustrate how children might react I would like to relate to you an experience I have witnessed years ago. The children in the family were between the ages of about four and nine. They watched a film called: Birthday. Demonstrating the joyful event that childbirth can be under the natural method developed by French Dr. Lamaze is the real purpose of the film. It shows the birth of two babies in full colour, in detail and close-up shots. The reaction of those children to that film is still vividly in my memory. After the finish, one put her nose up in the air and announced that that would most certainly be the way one could imagine babies to be born. She hurried back to her much more important play. Another, however, got very excited and exclaimed: Gee, did you see that, dad? Babies are born - naked.
The barrier of the perceptions of the world leads us to the next: Traps in our language system. Imagine a child learning new words. Take opposites. Opposites are hot and cold, sweet and sour, war and peace, hideous and beautiful, and then someone comes along and talks about the opposite sex. We may argue that the unfortunate choice of such a word may even colour and distort adult attitudes. It should have been replaced by, for instance, complementary, long ago. This is but one example of how confusing and misleading it can be for a young child who is trying to make sense out of what we say.
We are all aware of the compelling, yet often quite misleading power of the First Impression. Is it too far fetched to assume that the first impression - and adult reaction - as the infant explores his body can lay a foundation and have an effect in later life? It is too far fetched to assume that a preschooler simple and innocent question can lead to confusion and anxiety if, instead of a simple answer the reply contains information the child is not yet ready for? One boy asked his dad where he came from. Dad assumed an air of National Importance, took him into his study, indicating: This Is It! The big moment has come. He then gave a comprehensive lecture, starting with the birds and the bees and finished, half an hour later, red-faced with an explanation of the sexual act which was totally meaningless to the confused boy who retorted: That's funny, dad, Charlie next door comes from Newcastle.
Aren't we all aware of stories and jokes on the theme of explaining the facts of life to children; but in contrast, in how many cases curiosity has been aroused but confusion exists because answers have been anxiously avoided? My hunch is that there are many youngsters who have been discouraged from ever asking their parents again in matters of the facts of life. But they will seek answers and they will receive answers. The question is: What answers and where from? Many remaining gaps in their knowledge may be filled with unreal (if not perverted for that matter) facts, supplemented by even more unreal fantasies. If those remain uncorrected they may well solidify and grow into weird, strange behaviour patterns later in life.
Every phase in growing up seems to have its own special barriers. As the child enters school, this one may come to the foreground: Labels. We are all aware of the difference between the comment: 'That was naughty of you', and the label: 'You are a naughty child!' The remark by a peer: 'You little prick', is a label and can be disturbing to an insecure or sensitive child. As they grow older, the label: homosexual can be a very destructive barrier. We will never know how many individuals' sexual destiny has been decided by that label just because it exists. Bandler and Grinder, in their book: FROGS INTO PRINCES describe a case where a homosexual fell in love with a woman. They described how, to cure him, they had to separate his conscious and unconscious minds hypnotically. He had been fooled into living as a homosexual for 25 years of his life.
Adults' attitudes can be destructive barriers. In the area of sexual development, the parent who forces his or her own convictions onto the child may even invite the very outcomes he/she tries to avoid. In one counselling encounter I remember the middle-aged man who had made many attempts during his life to have a sexual contact, hetero- and homosexual. In spite of psychiatric help he was able to relate sexually only to children. His mother had warned against this activity throughout his childhood.
Parental sexual hang-ups and attitudes can work in many different ways. For instance, some of you may have come across the father who, in his own childhood had been programmed into the belief that sexuality is a sort of weakness and, to give into it, shameful. As a result he may unconsciously feel ashamed that his weakness has produced a child. Can you imagine such a father's possible reaction to his child asking him where he or she came from? If we consider how forceful the language of attitudes is, especially to the intuitive, younger child, would it not be possible that damage can be done before dad utters one single word? The mother who bathes her small child and forbids to touch its genitals, surely wins the argument in the short term. She is quite convinced that what she does is right and proper. But what sense does it make to her child? Let us speculate once more with the virgin mind of the space traveller: "...I may touch my ears, my nose, my bum. That's ok. I may also touch my feet and play with them. With both them. I may also touch my elbows, my nave but not 'that' part. Must be something awfully special. Consequently, I focus my whole attention to 'that' part. Perhaps it doesn't belong to me. Perhaps it belongs to mum." Well, that's what we may call progress. After all, we have just grown out of the olden days when we had to surrender ownership of our genitals to the church. Seriously though, the ever so much more important long-term effects, the outcomes in adult life, may be quite opposed to mothers short-term victory.
Then there are parents who keep their children at an infantile level of dependence, personally and sexually, possibly right into ripe adulthood. The film: LONELY HEARTS depicts a case where a woman in her twenties is still under such control by her father. The film implies a happy ending. In real life, the barrier of overcontrol can remain even after the parents, themselves, have been dead for years.
Those are some of the barriers I have come across in my life's experience, research and in counselling. Perhaps I should point out at this stage that this paper has not been written without prejudice. It is the result of anger and frustration caused by many examples demonstrating the helplessness and defencelessness of many of our society's children. The most recent example was the one of the sexual cripple, how in his early thirties who, as a boy, was given a hiding every morning his nightwear showed any evidence of nocturnal emission. While this paper is biased, let us not overlook that tribute must be paid to the majority of nameless, well-adjusted and open minded parents for whom any such barriers simply do not exist. The children of those are not likely to become future clients of the psychotherapist.
Let us also realise that some barriers can be reversed, changed into resources. I have already mentioned the strong language of attitudes. The younger the child, the more attitudes can be expected to override the spoken word. A parent who takes a young child to a doctor with an attitude of apprehension or even anxiety instead of confidence may lay a foundation of disturbance in matters of health in the child. Using attitudes in a positive way, the parent who takes the toddler with him or her into the shower in the morning, communicates in the simplest, easiest and most effective manner the differences between human bodies. As a bonus we have the embedded message: You do not have to be ashamed of your body. You are alright, and so the unspoken language of attitudes leaves little room for barriers of embarrassment, confusion and shame ever to develop.
To overcome the barriers we should also cultivate the trust and the insight that we, human beings, already have right inside ourselves a great resource: Our own natural forces striving towards maturity and progress. We should cultivate the insight that those forces will be our allies if we allow them to function. Noted psychiatrist Dr. R. Dreikurs, in one of his books mentions that sex play does occur in children and "in most cases adults are unaware and so no damage results". Does this imply that it is the adults interference which prevents those natural forces from functioning?
Virginia Axline is the founder of Play Therapy. Her system is child-centred and promotes those forces. Years ago when I had a closer look into Play Therapy I did accept Axline's belief that children have resources and intuitive knowledge for progress and cure and sometimes have a more accurate idea than the adult what they really need to advance. Children have demonstrated this to me and I believe that here we find a natural progression leading to progress and maturity. It is also my belief that those forces are often stifled before they have a chance to emerge.
Not unrelated, I would finally put forward a theory which points to one neglected factor in child rearing: laying foundations. Let me illustrate this by an example, a phenomenon which - at least on the surface - is unconnected with the issue of sexual development. The frequency of wife and child bashing in society amazes most of those who work in therapy. But then, how often do we encounter in supermarkets and other public places the senseless bottom bashing of very young children. The often frustrated or tired mother typically offers no explanation to her child. I have an idea that such adult behaviour creates confusion at a time of life when those children learn how to interact within the family. Freud's theory that the unconscious mind works in symbols may lead us to conclude that laying foundations - sound or sick - candid or distorted - goes well back into the preverbal stage and can provide a deeply seated, irresistible blue print for future adult behaviour patterns.
To put it simply: If we bring up our children as enemies, how can we expect them to grow up magically into friendly, peace-loving adults? This, however, leads us right into one more barrier, perhaps the most fundamental of them all: If a building collapses due to unsound foundations, we can examine it. We can find out what went wrong in the construction of that building. By contrast, in the creation of a personality, in matters of the mind, in spite of advances, we are still largely blind. While scientifically valid research into all this would take us generations to complete, you may wish to ponder on such a theory.
In the meantime, I wonder if it would not be appropriate to suggest that 'great effort' does not guarantee positive long-term results. To raise children is a great task under any circumstances. I wonder, however, if it may be useful to sometimes turn from the effort of rearing our children to insight, to guidance and supervision. More insight requires less effort for both parents to create and maintain open, honest communication with their children in all areas that is, including the facts of life. Apart from future gains, is it not the ignorant child who is at great risk should an encounter with a sexual deviant ever occur? For example, the enlightened child who has the defence that knowledge provides may even giggle or laugh at a flasher. Ironically it is just such a response from a child that may effect some cure that many of those offenders so desperately seek from professionals.
In the beginning of this paper I mentioned the gulf that exists between up-to-date knowledge and many parents in our society who need it so much. My purpose has been to provide some reflection, some reassessment of known factors and the resource of insight that we can pass on to those who are responsible for the quality of our next generation. In conclusion I'd like to summarise these points:
HONESTY, SIMPLICITY and BALANCE.
Only the adults imagination harbours the risks, the moral dangers that are supposed to damage the mind of that child who is exposed to dignity and frank discussions in matter of sex and procreation. Honesty in those matters is vital. Honesty carries the greatest promise for the development of fulfilling and caring attitudes in a persons future adult life.
If we have good communication with the child and if we are prepared to listen, if we under-explain and invite questions, we'll get a picture of what the child really wants to know. We'll get a feeling for what he already does know and then we'll be able to answer, in the simplest manner, what he or she is ready for at the time.
Although factors like uncertainties due to the long-term interval we have discussed earlier will prevent any of us, ever, from becoming perfect, we should aim at the balance between socially unacceptable behaviours, and the other extreme of repression and denial.
By creating awareness of the hidden barriers to sex education, by passing the resources of honesty, simplicity and balance on to the parents of tomorrows citizens, we may be able to bring light into some future lives in an area where so much darkness still prevails in our enlightened age.
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Copyright © 1983 Peter Schmedding.
Child Development Projects, Canberra, Australia.
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