2.2.1 Motivation

In all my time supporting families affected by imprisonment, parents have universally expressed to me that they want to see their child (or children) doing well, succeeding in school, getting a job, steering clear of drugs, being involved in healthy activities throughout their childhood and teenage years and growing up to be responsible adults.

We are all born with different talents, gifts, capacities for learning and working, and general being in the world [1].  Many people would call such talents and gifts God-given.  Some people are born into poverty and disadvantage and are endowed with the capacity of making the most of the circumstances into which they are born.  Others are born into advantaged backgrounds and they appear to outside observers to continually squander opportunities for their betterment.  This has puzzled philosophers, psychologists, scientists and educationalists (not to mention ordinary people) as long as humans have been thinking about such things.

Some argue that grace is a factor in this phenomenon.  I am sure that the saying ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ comes from this thinking.

I have been fortunate to collaborate with many workers, both in the statutory and voluntary sectors, concerned about the protection and welfare of children.  However imperfect our knowledge, experience, education, judgment etc. our concern was never in question.

I believe that protecting children and other vulnerable people, in a very hands-on, practical, warm, enthusiastic, real and genuine manner, significantly enhances feelings of morale among staff in our professions. 

Having great ideas but finding them continually stymied by policies, procedures, protocols and restrictive practices that make little sense is, on the other hand, very bad for morale.

So one major motivation behind this website is to help better utilise the scarce resources that organisations have at their disposal to support families affected by imprisonment.

I passionately believe that large amounts of money are wasted because solutions proposed and subsequently implemented do not match the needs presented.  Many of these solutions are based on beliefs held by the planners and/or proposers and/or funders rather than the realities of the families’ situations.

Other solutions are offered in desperation because something has to be done quickly. 

Still others arise from bureaucratic or political top down pressure to save people in power from embarrassment in the media, (reminiscent of the TV Series ‘Yes Minister’ [2]), or even simply because that is always the way it has been done, and no one thought to question it.

Some of the solutions may, and probably do work very well for more mainstream type families but I argue that they do not transfer well to the families that are the subject of this website – that I will call the Focus Group – this term will be described in more detail in the Chapter entitled Important Descriptions.

Another motivation is connection.  I have considerable motivation to connect, as seamlessly as possible, theoretical concepts and good work!  Generally speaking I believe that there currently is, (and historically there has been) considerable disconnect between research on social matters in academia (where most of it is done) and the work in the field.

Thus I devote an entire Chapter to Research and Evaluation in Section Five and mention it from time to time.  (I have experienced this disconnect many times over my working life and I can give a host of examples if anyone wishes to contact me).

As a scientist I feel that if a problem cannot be solved we should admit to it. Of course this would be difficult to do in the helping professions because it would attract very negative vibes.

But the opposite is also true. If there is a solution we need to describe  it – in its entirety – and the scientific basis for its promotion. A lot of my motivation is just that – to share what I have experienced, based on observations and evidence from my own work over 30+ years, and how I have integrated heart experience with head science.

And finally I have strong motivation to write this website because of the something that I observe in human behaviour.

War is waged by a small number of amoral, uncaring manipulators who control and then exploit entire populations by spreading fear and hate, armchair generals who suffer little of the consequences of the war being waged, whereas peace is built by all of us together. And true justice (and democracy) is the harvest reaped by peacemakers from seeds sown in the spirit of trust and generosity.

There are parallels here with crime and in particular so-called gangland crime, which is controlled by a small number of power and money-hungry criminals at the top.  (I will elaborate on this in Chapter Four in Section Two, Power and Control in Society in a Sub-Chapter that is entitled Interesting Parallels).

In contrast, support work that prevents the kind of activity that causes so much harm to family, community and society is a cooperative endeavour done in a spirit of generosity that brings out the best in people and affirms those parts of us that care about others. 

[1]. Being in the World is a term that I like – that I borrow from the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

[2]. A very funny and popular comedy on BBC in the 1980-90’s that poked fun at the decision making processes at work in bureaucratic – political systems in the UK Houses of Parliament.  Episodes are now on Youtube – if you haven’t seen it have a look – it can be applied in all situations where there are dominant top-down bureaucracies.

The methods by which children were prepared to be honest, trustworthy, responsible and productive adults evolved over the course of human history and are still evolving. While the methods may differ from culture to culture, discipline is seen as important in all cultures.

The regular administration of harsh (and sometimes very severe) physical punishment was widely seen as the best method of disciplining children (in what we call the Western World at least, which is the only culture that I have direct experience of) over many centuries [1].  This was as true (in different ways) for children born into privileged backgrounds as it was for the children of the poor.

The connection between consistent and enduring misbehaviour in young children and the fact that they may have experienced, or be in need of protection from trauma or traumas was not (generally) made until quite recently, though I would argue that there was always a felt awareness of the link between traumatic experiences as a small child and problematic behaviour as an older child and/or young adult among people in general.

I intuit, (and also I conclude, from talking to many people who have been to prison and who spent many years of their childhood in institutions) that at some point in time in Ireland in the mid-20^th Century the link between the two was made by those with responsibility for children’s education and development.

However, the lack of understanding of how complex a job protecting such children is, (combined with the prevailing culture of the time), led to the decision that a controlled kind of physical abuse (which, to make it appear less harmful, was known as corporal punishment) would be the dominant method by which the behaviour of children would be corrected or improved so that they would grow up to be the responsible, productive, (and indeed happy) [2], adults that I referred to above.

Nowadays, discipline is still seen as the key to healthy upbringing.  However, the methods of disciplining children have changed from dishing out beatings and shouting harsh critical put-downs to offering encouragement, praising of what is going well and reinforcing all that is positive in the child – in theory at least.

I fear, though, that sometimes harshness has been replaced by something else that is, perhaps, not as damaging as hitting and insulting children, but potentially has a very negative effect nonetheless. My fears in this regard are described in various posts throughout the blog and particularly in this post.

I will come back to this subject in the Chapter on Important Descriptions, particularly in the Sub-Chapter on Academia and Education.

[1]. I refer to this again in the Chapter on Anthropology in Section Three – in respect of raising children in hunter-gatherer societies, where, as many researchers have shown, methods of disciplining were/are far different.

[2]. I am sure that most of you would have heard the expression spare the rod and spoil the child!