The following is a personal narrative that may be difficult for some readers. We hope that it will produce a nuanced discussion about sexual abuse and how the state and the field of psychology often fail children in fundamental ways. Because it involves children, we are publishing it anonymously at the request of the author…. Read more →
Tag: Children
The Gender Trap: The Problem of Raising Boys As Warriors
By Sean Cosgrove
It strikes me as odd that having identified a crisis of masculinity in our young boys that anyone would suggest these same boys should be raised more like ‘warriors’ than they otherwise would have been. And yet, Maggie Dent, a former high school teacher and counsellor, suggested at the beginning of this year that many of the social ills facing young men today—from Sydney’s king-hit culture to lacklustre personal and academic performance—are related to a broader societal problem of strangling the masculinity out of the boy.
My Children and the Limits of White Privilege
By Danielle Swiontek
The community in which I live held a march in memory of Trayvon Martin two weeks ago. It seemed so dated, in a way. In this 24-hour news cycle that we live in, it feels like forever ago since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed on February 26, 2012. It seems like ages since the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of his death this past July. Yet the killing of Trayvon Martin continues to haunt me, as it probably does the people who joined the march. The news cycle has moved on, but the issues that Trayvon Martin’s death brought to the forefront have not. When I first heard about Trayvon Martin’s death, it made me fear for my son. That fear has not gone away in the last two months. It will probably never go away.
The Blame Game in Autism
The interwebz have been abuzz this week, debating Moises Velasquez-Manoff’s editorial in the New York Times on autism and immune function. Although Velasquez-Manoff is a little late on the autism/immune function thesis (which has been posited in research projects since at least 2005), it’s his use of autism stereotypes and ableist language that put this article on my radar. It’s the assumption that autism is a sign of a broken or damaged child that has made me question both his interpretation of that thesis and the implications for the families of children with autism – and the autists themselves.