The perils of unprepared adulthood

Nieuws | de redactie
27 juni 2013 | Every year 10% of children in The Netherlands are subject to neglect, sexual abuse or violence. Researcher Jan Willems (Maastricht University) wants “incompetent parenting drastically reduced”.

“Every year we expose thousands of newborn babies to inhuman treatment.” This says Jan Willems, researcher on the structural prevention of child abuse on the Maastricht University webmagazine. The main reason: the sacred cow of automatic parental authority.

Willems calls for a different approach to dealing with the perils of unprepared parenthood. “Rather than child protection via postnatal intervention, we should be focusing on prenatal care and parenting education.”

Predictable trauma, problem behaviour

The figures are hard to believe: every year, around 10% of children in the Netherlands – more than 300,000 in total, and that in a highly developed country – are subject to neglect, sexual abuse or physical and emotional violence within the family. A former professor of Rights of the Child, Willems has long claimed that “given its scale and consequences, this is a serious violation of human rights.”

A violation, he says, that can be attributed to an old tradition: automatic parental authority. “We take as our starting point the traditional rights of parents, and not the right of the child to have competent caregivers.”

But what about child protection? “That’s part of a culture of waiting until predictable traumas have led to problem behaviour, and of only intervening when the issue is becoming a problem outside of the family. As a result, the parents are stigmatized and the children are damaged for life. It’s clear from the high incidence rates and the billions of euros spent each year on the most problematic families that this approach just doesn’t work.”

Shift to prenatal care and protection

Willems calls for an approach to child abuse that is rooted in a very different paradigm. He wants to shift the protection of the child from postnatal intervention to prenatal care and protection. To this end, the starting point has to be the fundamental right of every child to develop a ‘secure attachment’; that is, a sound relationship with at least one primary caregiver.

“That right obliges us to guarantee that every child’s basic need for love and guidance is met by ensuring that parents can play their proper role as caregivers. Where this is not possible, arrangements need to be made with expectant parents prenatally as to how and where proper care for the baby can be arranged. Without this, a child has no or drastically reduced chances in life. With one in three children not able to develop a secure attachment, we have to start seeing attachment security as a human right.”

Mandatory rehab

The rights of the child form a normative framework to put an end to what Willems calls ‘the perils of unprepared parenthood’. His practical proposals include parenting education as a school subject and in the form of courses for parents, the introduction of a minimum standard for competent parenthood (for example mandatory rehab before parental authority is granted), and the guarantee of a professional care continuum to support parents.

“The bottom line is that, from the very moment someone decides to have a baby, the child has a proper chance of developing a secure attachment, be that as it may in a foster or adoptive family in or outside the parents’ immediate families. Of course, this should always be arranged in close consultation with all parties involved, first and foremost the expectant parents. What is now an exception – prenatal care and protection – is becoming the rule. That’s the change here.”

Inhuman treatment

According to Willems, it is the government’s duty to tackle child abuse at its roots, drastically reducing incompetent parenting and improving services and facilities for parents and parents-to-be. “We can’t hand people over to situations of inhuman treatment. As a principle, this needs to apply first and foremost to the babies in our country. But in practice, this fundamental human right is not applied to newborns.”

Why not? “Politicians seem to show little ambition or sense of urgency to reduce the high figures of insecure attachment and child abuse. What’s more, parental authority is such a sacred cow that there’s little pressure from society to really do something about this. When it comes to child abuse, we’d rather stick our heads in the sand.”

In his view, action groups should be formed following the example of the women’s movement. But who will stand up for babies? After all, they can’t do it themselves and they have no voting rights. “Maybe those adults who were themselves abused as children will form action groups and come out with their stories.”

Sales approach

Child abuse is a blatant injustice, and Willems is spurred on by the hope of reducing it. If this can’t be done by way of the ‘preacher’s approach’ – an appeal to the rights of the child – then it will have to be done through the ‘salesman’s approach’.

“Child abuse leads to enormous health and social costs. Billions of euros are spent on problem families, therapies and treatment programmes for young criminals and perpetrators of domestic violence. These are essentially attempts to change the brain. But findings from neuroscience suggest that this doesn’t work after the first few years of life. By investing in an early approach, we could save a great deal of money. Hopefully, this economic story will be accepted more readily.”

 


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