In the Chapter entitled Universal Theory of Change (Section Three) I refer to what I call the root foundations of emergence, identity, relationship, integration, affect, time, love and consciousness.
These, I propose, are part of the natural world that are mostly in the feeling and emotional (and even spiritual) dimensions.
The Concepts and Propositions in Section Four are also part of the natural world – many of them straddle the cognitive/knowledge and the emotional/spiritual.
But there is another reason why the word natural appeals to me when I talk about child protection.
That is, whether we are parents, uncles/aunts, teachers, grandparents, youth club leaders, social care workers, therapists etc. I really don’t believe that we have to learn an awful lot when attending to the well-being of children who are in our company. I believe that all humans have, to a greater or lesser extent depending on our personality, these skills naturally.
If we look at child protection in the context of 40,000 generations of evolution it is clear that we would not have evolved into what we are today without an abundance of characteristics such as presence, warmth, empathy, love, boundaries, common-sense, patience, genuine care etc. (We will revisit this theme in the Chapter on Anthropology).
However, in order to allow them to emerge and then flourish, we may have to unlearn some behaviours that originate in prejudices, beliefs, or attitudes that we have absorbed into our bodies and minds and informed our value system over many years or even decades.
Much of the website is concerned with raising our awareness that will, in turn, assist this unlearning.