Children

Sometimes things don’t go the way we had planned. This might be down to us, or down to things that are out of our control. But this cannot justify not being allowed to eat, or having to spend the night on the street. You have the right to be looked after!

We all forget things sometimes, or fail to do things perfectly. Even your parents actually! Physical abuse cannot be not the solution to deal with your oversight or mistakes.

Just as an alcoholic parent is not an excuse, only perhaps an explanation for alcoholism in an adult child, abusive behaviour cannot be an acceptably excused by saying the abuser was also hurt in this way as a child. The sentence above shows us what the inherited pattern is, but it is very problematic if someone believes that abuse is a parental style to be followed. The threat of violence, psychological abuse, putting the fear in the other person is just as unacceptable as actual beatings.

The care provided by parents is really a very important thing. We shouldn’t forget who gives us food, buys our clothes, who works towards providing us with decent circumstances. However, caring comes from love, and there is no disagreement in which the above statement could be seen as appropriate reasoning.

We may get low grades at school because we have not prepared, or we do not understand the given material. It feels bad to get a low grades but humiliation and negative judgements don’t help. Making such negative judgements is actually quite aggressive verbal abuse, and humiliating a child is unworthy of a responsible parent or adult.

Adults are not the only ones with a right to express their opinion. And in a debate, it’s not the age of the person that determines who is right. A responsible parent is curious about the opinion of their child, even if the child may have seen less of the world so far because of their age and life experience. Suppressing disputes with a command words is an extremely aggressive practice.

It is unacceptable to forcibly take someone’s own personal belongings. And it is especially humiliating if after the fact, the perpetrator is condescending, and acts as if nothing had happened. This, indeed, is also abuse.

There is many different types of love between people from romantic love through friendship to the love between a parent and child. In some ways these are similar (for example, accepting and respecting each other) and in other ways they are different. The sexual advances of an adult relative towards an underage relative is completely unacceptable regardless of any kind of love the molester might refer to. Acts like these are serious crimes! If you experience anything like this, talk to an adult you can trust! (If there is no such person in your immediate family, talk to your teacher, school social worker, or school psychologist!)

Sexual approaches from an adult man / woman towards a child are a crime! Providing a child with food and accommodation does not entitle him or her to have sexual intercourse and does not mitigate the criminal consequences of such sexual acts in any way. A parent who encourages his or her child not to complain about this is also committing a crime.