Denial

An issue that invariably needs to be addressed when assessing a parent's parenting capacity is their self awareness.

Parent's with insight are generally well attuned to their child's feelings and needs.

Parent's who are short on insight tend to have little understanding of how, and in which ways their actions, risk or pose harm to their child.

A parent's insight or level of awareness shows itself in many ways, but one of the ways in which a parent may show their lack of awareness, relates to their propensity to deny responsibility for matters that are almost solely, in their control.

This is a matter that all witnesses at court need to be mindful of, because failure to acknowledge responsibility for matters within your control, never works in your favour, or shows you up in a good light, in the witness box.

The willingness to deny responsibility, gives rise to a considerable amount of conflict between parents and professionals.

Let me use a fairly common example that springs to mind.

A view held by many parents, is that children are not being harmed, when being exposed to verbal or domestic abuse.

Due, they would argue, to being too young for the experience to make sense to them.

How often have you talked to a parent, who seems oblivious concerning the possibility that their child is being harmed by being exposed to, a climate of conflict?

Or, where they witness their parent's misuse of drugs, alcohol, or episodes of mental ill-health?

The parent's strongly held belief, seems based on the idea that because they are children, they are too young to understand or make sense of, what they are being exposed to - and as a result, unable to be harmed.

However, that argument is not one that holds water, or can be considered to be sound, since irrespective of whether you are a child or an adult, you don't have to understand the event or incident, in order to be harmed by it.

In exactly the same way that you don't need to understand electricity to use it appropriately; if the conditions applied to your use of electricity are hazardous, whether you understand it or not, you can be electrocuted or shocked.

Even when children are too young to be able to speak, or understand the words they hear; they are nevertheless able to pick up the emotional tone of the environment they live in.

Children are highly vulnerable, sensitive beings and in any communication, the telling or most significant aspect of it, is the emotional tone used - not the words spoken.

So children don't need to even understand the language, they are very adept at interpreting the emotional content of messages between others - able to sense friendly, loving tones, from hostile, harmful ones.

It pays to remember that only a small part of our communication is communicated via the words we use. Most of our communication is transmitted through aspects such as the tone and cadence of voice, your facial expressions, the way you use eye contact, mannerisms and gesticulation.

The information noted above is very relevant to anyone giving evidence at court, because in the same way that children pick up meaning, and interpret whether the emotional climate is a safe one or not; the judge and those scrutinising you at court, pick up and understand far more, than can be gathered solely from the words that fall from your lips.

Always remember when giving evidence, that whilst what you say is important - the way you say it, and the way you present is considerably more so!