The Psychology of Child Rage

The Gulag of the Child

I hope I am not giving the impression of a researched report with this title … like scientific documents. No … its still a matter of trusting the old coconut on human insight. Child rage … for the uninitiated is much like a bomb … that sits quietly with no expression … and then burst forth in a unworded expression … that reddens the eyes … purses the lips … and makes the body shake in convulsions. And what makes it do that? If you knew you'll cry.

I'll keep it straight. A child is dependent on its parents for its life and survival … and where he is not getting the attention at specific times … to his needs … he experiences a total loss of will … an inability to fend for himself … a fear of death … and a complete wipe out of anything resembling the future. But its unexpressed … and stores itself in his unconscious … like a dreaded gulag … that he'll never visit and will avoid it … all the days of his life. And what does the gulag … do to a man's personality?

A man who faces a powerful rejection of his passions … or is unemployed … faces in a sense the wrath of the world … that is not expressed in words. He is forced to search it himself … and to conjure all manner of possibilities … regarding the experience. Its here that he visits with the gulag … and finds in it … a noiseless echo of the void … that burns with the faith of passions' loss. In some way we are all helpless … in a world that's bigger than any one of us … but we create a socially acceptable response to such situations.

What distinguishes the hidden child gulag from others … is the apathy that accompanies it … and makes it extremely difficult for the man … to get a handle on it in some way. I thought the times … I spent walking noiselessly in the park … watching the kids at the playground … might have helped me … make contact with it. And while its not the easiest thing in the world to deal with … it does offer opportunities for engaging it … even if its cursory … without the effects of silently weeping … with no apparent cause.

I wonder if parents know about the child gulag these days … or feel it in their experience. In college I had parents telling me … they took some trouble with their kids … because they were denied many things as kids themselves. Oh sure! … that's why … Toys R Us … is doing a whopping business. But can a parent actually deal with that in a child? Its tough enough dealing with it yourself … for the unspeaking python it is … in swallowing up all enthusiasm.

What we do is to have the child engage in activities … that draws its attention to something new and interesting … like video games … toys … and hobbies. That helps even adults … but where you have stopped pandering to your pet snake … and he has grown into a fire breathing dragon … it says its about time … you did something about it. Its the start of a long … day into night … and giving the impression sometimes … of an infinite tunnel of issues. Being specific about your inquiries helps … and be sure to avoid … the charms of the snake … about having entered the cave the wonders.

I found the Disney movies … a very helpful guide … especially in the way … it highlights both the positive and negative aspects of the child gulag. It broadens the issues … to include much of what life is about … and women will no doubt find in the experience … the origins of female behavior … and the promise of Prince Charming … riding on a white stallion to the rescue. It also explains why children up to teen level .. . like to pretend they are some one else.

The Indic practice of Yoga maya … that pits elements of the passions in a play with each other … leaves a long trail of life's journeys … that they call the … Leela. And Vishnu … the preserver God … lies asleep on Sesha … the giant serpent of the universe. It places on record … the efforts of human society to come to terms with the issue of the child gulag … and succeeds in engaging it in a play of life … not solve its riddle … like a mathematical problem. Its an introduction to the modern mind … on the ways and means of life.

Is there something new … in the way we have come to deal with it? We may have moved it away from the medieval Gothic … with its experiences of sin … superstition … witchcraft … demons and trolls … and transformed it into … our hopes for understanding it as … our childlike qualities … our fun loving attitudes … and our ability to deal with it in peace from our fears. We can certainly do more … but we have most certainly made a start.

I remember a TV movie where a father is visiting his HIV teen daughter in hospital. ' I don't want you to worry about me,' she appeals to the father. I didn't realize it then … but its a moment when I was hit by the child gulag. We come across it all the time … and sometimes it stays to remind us of it. When my father passed away … I hadn't cried a single tear. I guess it must be possible to be … all cried out … and to focus on what can be done.

The sight of birthday parties or anniversaries … always fills me with a special elation. Its a promise of the continuity of life … amidst our daily grind. But if memory serves me right … I have never laughed at death. I don't suppose anybody does. Mark Twain was right about it though. It is an exaggeration. And that's another moment when the child gulag hits us … but it really doesn't matter.