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“When I was about twenty years old, I met an old pastor’s wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn’t believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time.
“But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking — the first in his life. And she told him he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying.
“He said to her, ‘Mama, I couldn’t find a switch, but here’s a rock you can throw at me.’ All of a sudden this mother understood how the situation felt from the child’s point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone.
“The mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. Because violence begins in the nursery — one can raise children into violence.”
— From a peace prize acceptance speech given by Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking, 1978
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Stop the Storm 
I am so sorry, Joe!!!! Such crimes – and very, very few of the criminals are EVER even identified, let alone brought to justice.
Have you seen the Center for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experiences research?
http://www.cdc.gov/ace/
This is their latest presentation of their findings
http://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/childmaltreatment/phl/resource_center_infographic.html
YES! What you know is exactly what these studies are showing!!!!!!!!
Thank you for visiting the blog – and for commenting!! Hope to hear from you again!!!!!
When I was four and five I was beat and cursed unmercifully and that affected me the rest of my life. I’m an old guy now and it still hurts.