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["Omhoog" = "Up"]

Several files in this section are placed upon my other website:
< http://www.helping-people.info/ > or other websites. They will appear into a new screen.


(1) Profession

Abram, Ido, Raising Children After Auschwitz; 1998; Translated from a Dutch local newspaper

In Germany, a heat debate is going on: which meaning have the horrors of the holocaust and other deeds of the nazis for us? We often said: "Never again!" But isn't this a hollow phrase?  Or does our conscience need to remember Auschwitz?
[...] Having the five-points program given above in mind, we are able to draw up such an outline for raising children between three and ten years of age. Actually, it will be and 'Education after Auschwitz without Auschwitz', an education without detailed and extreme horrors. [...] By doing so, we create the next three-points program: [...]

Maier, Henry W., The core of care: Essential Ingredients for the Development of Children Home and Away from Home, In: Child Care Quarterly 8(3), Fall 1979

Recent research findings in child development are applied to pertinent issues in child care. Child care is presented as the provision of physical comfort together with the experience of dependability and predictability. This composite optimally enables the child to experience a very personal care and with it, the feeling that he or she is special. Seven ingredients are outlined, and presented with illustrative child caring activities, as the Core of Care.
In the following pages I shall bring together some recent studies about child development with a number of critical issues in child care. I shall try to interweave these two spheres of learning, child development and child care.

(3) Child Love

Association Martijn, Ethical Commission, You would never want to harm a child, would you? The Netherlands, March 2012 - Statement & Explanation 


"The Martijn Association advises all its members to observe the law and to act in accordance with the following guidelines. Exercise integrity in all situations involving children while respecting: 

  1. Consent: the consent of both in every contact.
  2. Freedom: freedom for the child to end the contact if desired.
  3. Harmony: acting in accordance with the child’s development.
  4. Openness: openness towards the parents, especially in the case of young children."
     

Constantine, L., The effects of early sexual experiences: A review and synthesis of research, from: Constantine & Martinson (eds), Children and sex, Boston, Paper, Montreal, 1979. [External link]

Extein, Andrew, "Apparently, I am a Pedophile"; Living and Coping as a Child-Lover in the Netherlands; Fall 2005; Academic Advisor: Frans Gieles, Academic Director: Kevin Connors; School for International Training; Sexuality, Gender, and Identity; Amsterdam, The Netherlands

How do child-lovers in the Netherlands express, understand, experience, and cope with their feelings? I have conducted interviews with six self-identified child-lovers to help me answer this question.
In a bird’s-eye view, I can say that my assumption that sexuality should be the central desire of child-lovers appeared to be not true, at least for my sample. I want to plea for the use of correct and neutral terms to describe child-love, especially to make a difference between feelings (pedophilia) and acts (like pedosexuality). It became clear that society and even professionals have a lot of misconceptions about this topic. So, all the men of my sample had to cope with their feelings, a process of several years. All succeeded, mostly by educating themselves and one another about the nature of their feelings they have to live with. I may say that it is my strong impression that all of them are able to live with their feelings in a constructive, positive, and healthy way.

Howitt, Dennis, The Paedophile Demonology; From: Paedophiles and Sexual Offences Against Children, John Wiley & Sons, New York e.a. 1996, Chapter 8

Paedophiles have a role in modern demonology alongside nefarious others such as joyriders, drug users, illegal immigrants and pornographers. Their creation as such is not new, but only in the latter part of the twentieth century did their evilness significantly enter professional lore. This was not a function of ignorance since there was sufficient data available to establish sexual abuse as a common feature of childhood. [...]
So instead of a client-orientated ethos, psychotherapy is turned on its head when applied to sex offenders. [...]
The rapid change in our understanding of the paedophile is characteristic of the modern period but largely tied to the ascendency of wider ideologies than to psychological or social scientific developments. 

Koning, Petra de, Schools react cramped to abuse incidents - No goodnight kiss; translated from: NRC 24 October 1998

Behavior codes, protocols, rules about taking a child on your lap. Teachers try to protect themselves against suspicions. They are afraid. It is difficult for them to recognize child sexual abuse.

Kort, Huib, Demons - The Utopian Dream of Safety ; Huib Kort, in cooperation with G.  G.; In: KOINOS Magazine # 27

Society is faced with huge problems: needless violence, criminal refugees, and sex criminals who rape children. These appear to be separate problems calling for separate solutions. But one has to question whether they are really unconnected problems, indeed, whether these are problems at all. The actual problem is broader, more general, and is rooted deeply in the whole of society. Pointing out scapegoats as an excuse for a failing society is a well-known and apparently still successful way to exercise the law of the jungle.

Lammers, Marijke, Fear of touching hits also students and patients; translated from
De Volkskrant, 29 oktober 1998

Because of the growing attention to sexual abuse, more and more teachers and professional helpers suffer of 'fear of touching'. Marijke Lammers sounds a warning note not to make more and more severe rules. By so doing, the problem will be hidden, not resolved.

Miner, Barbara, We're here. We're sexual. GET USED TO IT; Color Lines, May-June 2008. 

Beginning under former-president Bill Clinton and escalating under President George W. Bush, more than $1.5 billion in federal and state money has been poured into abstinence-only education. [...] 
Numerous studies have proven it to be ineffective, even harmful. 

Quotes from: 
A fundamental attribution error? Rethinking cognitive distortions 
Maruna, Shadd, & Mann Ruth E. - Legal and Criminological Psychology - 2006

The notion of ‘cognitive distortion’ has become enshrined in the offender treatment literature over the last 20 years, yet the concept still suffers from a lack of definitional clarity.
Treatment programmes for offenders often aim to eliminate excuse-making as a primary aim, and decision-makers place great weight on the degree to which an offender “takes responsibility” for his or her offending.
Yet, the relationship between these after-the-fact explanations and future crime is not at all clear. Indeed, the designation of post hoc excuses as criminogenic may itself be an example of fallacious thinking.

Nicolaï, N.J., The Consequences of Sexual Abuse of Minors - On behalf of the Commission for Examination of Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Roman-Catholic Church [* in the Netherlands]; In: Rapport Commissie Deetman, Balans, 2011, Part 2. Summary and conclusions in English by Frans E J Gieles, PhD. 

In this essay, sexual abuse is, conform the scientific and juridical mores, defined as "... sexual-genital manipulation of a child below the age of sixteen, by an adult of whom the child is dependent or with whom he or she has a relationship of confidence, with the aim of satisfaction of the sexual need of the first. [...] There is an age difference, and/or a difference in power, by which the child is not able to refuse the sexual contact, which is not consensual." 
Research of the later consequences of sexual abuse is done in three phases or generations of research. 
The most recent research explores what has appeared to be the most central factor: disturbance of the stress regulation. 
There is consensus about harm for the physical and emotional health, especially the attachment and sexuality, even if the consequences are invisible at first sight. They are just like a time bomb, that explodes as soon as, in adulthood, the impact of the events becomes significant. 

Randall, John L., From Bad Language to Crooked Thinking - Chapter 1 from Childhood and Sexuality, A Radical Christian Approach, Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc., Pittsburg, Pa., 1992

In the field of human sexuality the words we use reveal very plainly the deep-seated attitudes of our culture.  We live in a society which is strongly negative toward sex. This may seem a surprising comment to some readers, especially since the 1960s and 1970s were supposed to have ushered in a more enlightened age. Yet despite the very real changes which occurred during that period, our underlying attitudes remain basically negative. 

Ree, Frank van, Intimate relationships between young people and adults - Are there criteria for a positive experience?  KOINOS MAGAZINE #24 (1999/4) 

Both sexual abuse of children and consensual love relationships between young people and adults are found in all cultures and in all periods of history. Although research statistics show otherwise, at present the notion has taken hold in many countries that a difference in age inevitably results in damaging consequences. Some time ago, an extensive exchange of ideas took place in the newsletter published by the National Workgroup JORis (Younger-Older Relationships, intimacy, sexuality) of the Dutch Association for Sexual Reform (NVSH), about the criteria which an intimate relationship with a young person must meet in order to preclude harm at a later age, based on positions which had been formulated earlier by the Danish Pedophile Association. Remedial educationalist Dr. Frans Gieles took the position in this discussion that in the present situation adults should act with restraint in pedophile and ephebophile relationships, because they bear the responsibility also for the damage which social rejection (whether or not after the fact) can bring about. We asked the retired Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Frank van Ree about his view of this. Dr. Van Ree has written many publications and doesn't shy away from taking an independent position. As this article shows, he has passed on this way of thinking to his children as well.

Rind, B., Bauserman, R. & Tromovitch, Ph., An examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse based on nonclinical samples, Paper presented at Rotterdam, The Netherlands, December 18, 1998. 

 

Rind, B., Tromovitch, Ph. & Bauserman, R.,
A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, in: Psychological Bulletin 1998, Vol 124, No 1, pp 22-53. 

 

Thomson, Alice, Sex education: why the British should go Dutch; The Times (UK), November 24, 2008.

 

Britain's Schools Minister plans to introduce sex lessons for five-year-olds. They already have them in the Netherlands. Is that why they also have the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe?

Warner, Judith, The Myth of Lost Innocence; The New York Times, January 29, 2009. 

Two sociologists in Philadelphia, Kathleen A. Bogle, of La Salle University, and Maria Kefalas, of St. Joseph’s University, both specialists in teen sexual behavior, told Parker-Pope that they’d had to struggle mightily to get people out of their “moral panic” mindset, and make them understand that teens are not “in a downward spiral” or “out of control.” - “They just don’t believe you. You might as well be telling them the earth is flat,” Kefalas told me when I called to follow up with her this week.

Westcott, Kathryn, Why are Dutch children so happy? BBC News website, Feb 14, 2007.

 

Dutch children have been rated the most fortunate children in Europe [according to a Unicef report].
"Much of this [...] comes from the relationship that Dutch parents have with their children. And, from the fact that less pressure is put on them at school."

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