A lot of us have had to deal with difficult childhoods. We were likely spanked, hit, or beaten. If we were not physically harmed, we had our emotions killed. Our parents did not allow us to cry or express ourselves in an emotional capacity. In this regard, they failed to communicate with us; they failed to allow us to communicate with them.
Compounded by hitting, this authoritarian and pedagogical style of parenting could have wreaked havoc on a our well-being and inhibited proper brain development. What this has inevitably caused is an inability in adulthood to manage our emotions and provide our loved ones with a sense of emotional security. In other words, it dismantled our ability to communicate.
Treat Children as Humans; End the Vicious Cycle
Below are two videos (playlist) I made awhile back on this subject, but I wanted to revisit the content because it is so utterly important. If we do not internalize the importance of raising children with dignity and peace, we may be doomed to repeat the vicious cycle on the next generation...and children deserve to be loved and treated with utmost humanness. Without this humanness, we cannot have happy children or a happy world.
"The art of not experiencing feelings. A child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress emotions.”
― Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
Other References:
For your Own Good, by Alice Miller (She was a psychotherapist for 20+ years before her death)
Analysis on 5 decades of spanking research by UT Austin
Information on how yelling at children harms them
A blog I wrote with information on spanking
Sterlin Luxan is a visionary thinker, cryptocurrency junkie, connoisseur of psychology, an MDMA high priest, and the Mr. Rogers of Anarchism. He writes for bitcoin.com, runs a consultancy business in the crypto space, and is a public figure. He created the doctrine of relational anarchism and contributes to many causes in the thriving liberty ecosystem.