Our tortured teenagers

The media this week has been dominated by the desperate situation this country faces with the many teenagers who are dangerous and violent.

For me, the greatest tragedy lies in the fact that the commentators keep shouting out ‘jail, boot camp, the army’ with not one single person addressing the issue of how these teens became this way. The closest they get is saying the parents should be held accountable for their teen and learn to discipline them more!

I believe every human being is born ‘good’. Babies aren’t bad!

Next week I’m speaking in Brighton about Humanity’s evolutionary blueprint: BREASTFEEDING.

As humans, we are born expecting the breast at birth. We are born expecting to see our mother’s face constantly for at least nine months. We are born expecting to hear her heart beat constantly for at least nine months. This doesn’t happen if a babe is bottlefed and kept out of a mother’s constant body contact. When we don’t meet these very basic biological needs, the PAIN is with these kids for life. The symptoms are manifesting on our streets and in an overworked health care system.

In Britain, 200 000 kids are born each year who never even make it to their mother’s breast. They never receive colostrum (the first syrupy liquid from the breast at birth and for the first three or so days). Colostrum contains tryptophan which is vital for developing serotonin. The one thing all criminals, depressives and other perpetrators of violence have in common is a drastically reduced level of serotonin! Breastfeeding not only provides the ingredients our brains need for developing optimally, but it also provides us with mother love in a way that bottle feeding doesn’t. Studies show us over and over again that breastfed babies receive more love, pleasurable touch, eye contact and interaction than their bottlefed peers. No wonder we have mental health problems of epidemic proportions.

If we want a culture where we’re not scared of our kids (and, let’s be honest, teenagers ARE children) then we have to meet their biological expectations ~ quite simply, we have to stop abandoning our babies to bottles, dummies, car seats, cribs, day care centres, and bedrooms separate to their parent’s room. NONE OF THESE THINGS PROVIDE the physiological benefits of affectionate mother bonding.

Sending violent teenagers to bootcamp or the army reeks to me of ambulance at the bottom of the cliff mentality. As Jeannine Parvati Baker used to say: the wound reveals the cure.
What wound do these teens have? Let me tell you, the cure isn’t to be found in more violence and aggression.