All children, except one, grow up.
So said JM Barrie in the opening words of Peter Pan. Only it isn’t true. The reality is that far too many children never get the opportunity to grow up; or have to grow up before their time; or find that childhood isn’t the wonderful experience portrayed by Peter Pan, and all because of abuse or neglect suffered at the hands of their parents.
Right from the beginning they started beating him for almost no reason at all. They never called him by his real name, but always referred to him as ‘you disgusting little beast’ or ‘you filthy nuisance’ or ‘you miserable creature’… His room was as bare as a prison cell.
Roald Dahl. James and the Giant Peach, p8.
The food would be cold and would be given to her on a piece of plastic while she was tied up in the bath. She would eat it like a dog, pushing her face to the plate. Except, of course that a dog is not usually tied up in a plastic bag full of its excrement.
Neil Garnham, QC – Victoria Climbié Inquiry
Victoria spent much of her last days, in the winter of 1999–2000, living and sleeping in a bath in an unheated bathroom, bound hand and foot inside a bin bag, lying in her own urine and faeces. It is not surprising then that towards the end of her short life, Victoria was stooped like an old lady and could walk only with great difficulty
He found the cause of death to be hypothermia, which had arisen in the context of malnourishment, a damp environment and restricted movement. He also found 128 separate injuries on Victoria’s body, showing she had been beaten with a range of sharp and blunt instruments. No part of her body had been spared. Marks on her wrists and ankles indicated that her arms and legs had been tied together.
Child abuse is a reality, an unimaginable reality, for many children. A reality that goes way beyond the imagined worlds we see in children’s fiction.
These notes are from a seminar I gave recently on child abuse and children’s literature. I’d be really interested in any views/comments on the issues raised.
A pyramid of severity
I find it helpful to think of child maltreatment in terms of a pyramid of severity. At the peak are the, fortunately rare, extreme cases of severe, deliberate and persistent abuse. Many more children though experience either isolated incidents, or ongoing situations of inflicted physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Still more live in family environments of neglect, poor physical care or emotional unavailability. At the bottom of the pyramid is a vague category of casual attitudes, carelessness and poor parenting. Most families probably drift in and out of this area at times – there are no perfect parents or families.
What constitutes child maltreatment (a generic term encompassing all forms of child abuse and neglect) is culturally determined, and may vary across societies and time. Somewhere within the pyramid above, society draws a threshold of what is considered unacceptable parenting, and when agencies (the State) should intervene to protect children.
Categories of abuse
Physical abuse
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.
Physical abuse is the most readily recognised form of maltreatment. It is frequently alluded to in children’s literature.
Physical abuse is the most likely form of maltreatment to result in fatality, but also, perhaps, the most likely to be detected, leading to possibilities for intervention, and the least likely, of itself, to leave long term impacts on the child.
Question: do you agree with my statement above?
Neglect
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment. We can conceptualise this as the failure to provide a child with any of the conditions he/she needs to survive and thrive. It may result from lack of understanding or parenting skills; other parental stresses, including physical or mental ill-health, addictions, poverty; or more malicious deprivation of the child’s needs (‘deprivational abuse’).
Question: is neglect always due to exogenous factors, and do parental stresses such as those listed above inevitably lead to neglect?
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone, p20
Well now he’s temporarily unconscious because I nearly drowned him. He’s already in bed covered with the duvet and asleep and I am having some quiet time.
Text message from Ms Luczak, Daniel Pelka’s mother, to her partner.
Daniel Pelka’s reality was not that much different to the fictional experience of Harry Potter, or that of James in Roald Dahl’s novel: Daniel Pelka was shut in a cupboard, was scapegoated, undernourished and beaten. A stolen childhood.
As he worked, James began thinking about all the other children in the world and what they might be doing at this moment. Some would be riding tricycles in their gardens. Some would be walking in cool woods and picking bunches of wild flowers. And all the little friends whom he used to know would be down by the seaside, playing in the wet sand and splashing around in the water.
James and the giant peach, p14
Sexual and Emotional Abuse
Sexual abuse is rarely considered in children’s literature, probably appropriately so. However, it is a common experience for many children, with potentially long-lasting effects on survivors.
Question: What is it about sexual abuse that has such a significant impact?
There are a lot of overlaps between sexual abuse and emotional abuse. Perhaps sexual abuse hits at one of the most central parts of our individual identity, so is one of the most extreme forms of emotional abuse. All forms of abuse involve some emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is the least well recognised form of abuse.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Miss Honey said. “It’s too horrible. But in the end I became so frightened of her I used to start shaking when she came into the room.”
Roald Dahl, Matilda.
Any abuse, but particularly sexual abuse, is incredibly hard to talk about. So, if a young person confides in a trusted adult, they should be taken seriously.
Question: By raising the reality of abuse, can children’s literature provide an opportunity for children and young people to identify the abuse they are experiencing, and potentially to find a way out of it?
Resilience
It seems to me that two themes come out strongly in much of the children’s literature that addresses maltreatment: escape and resilience. It is about surviving, and this is really important.
Some literature portrays a fantasy world into which children who are experiencing maltreatment escape from reality.
Question: is this an appropriate way to portray maltreatment? Can it be a means of promoting survival?
Other literature portrays a more real world, but one in which the child is resilient and survives, for example, the resilience we see in Tracy Beaker.
We know a lot about resilience-promoting factors.
However, in contrast to what we see in children’s literature, what we tend to see in professional responses to maltreatment is a focus on minimising or removing the child from harm, rather than promoting resilience.
Questions: is this an appropriate emphasis in child protection?
Is there more we could do within child protection systems to promote resilience?
A final thought:
If we could only stop bumping a moment and think about it, could we discover another way of approaching child protection?