Miracle Metres Fear

Miracle, Five Metres More, Scared Kids

By John Taylor; 2007 August 08

Lately I watched twice "Miracle," the Disney film about the American Olympic hockey team's surprise victory against the vaunted Soviet hockey team. At the time of this film I was actually still following hockey, and it was a bit of a nostalgic thing to see my hero, the goalie Tretiak, in his full strength, albeit in the role of bad guy.

The film includes some clips from current events of the Seventies; one speech I missed even hearing about at the time, Jimmy Carter's "America is stricken with a malaise" speech; it is notorious, it seems, but I had never even heard of it. America was in a severe crisis of confidence at the time, and this hockey team was the only good news they had had for a long time. Carter committed a capitol crime for a leader, it seems, he openly pointed out how miserable his people were. Now I understand a bit better why the American people turned against Carter, and why Ronald Reagan was elected. Thanks to him and his right wing heirs, the world is in terrible crisis, but at least America is still feeling good about herself. If nothing else, they know how to project an upbeat message on the wall.

I have been drawn to Disney films lately, since they are virtually the only film production company making movies for adults that do not have a torrent of obscenity coming out of the mouth of every character. Another good Disney film without swearing is National Treasure, a somewhat far fetched treasure hunting story with the ubiquitous Nicholas Cage. My soon to be eight-year-old son, Tomaso, and I enjoyed it together. Unlike the new Harry Potter film, which I not only did not like, I actually dropped off to sleep no fewer than four times during the film. Anyway, I liked Kurt Russell's speech as the coach of the "miracle" hockey team before their moment of glory. You can see a video of just the speech at:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmiracle3.html

This site also includes the full text of the speech, which is so memorable that I record it here, too.

"Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here, tonight.
"One game.
"If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with 'em. Tonight, we stay with 'em, and we shut them down because we can! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world.
"You were born to be hockey players -- every one of ya. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time -- it is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearin' about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em! This is your time!
"Now go out there and take it!"

Looking back, it is too bad that only that group of hockey players heard that hockey coach's speech at the time. For it is absolutely a fact, great moments are born out of crisis, and crisis spells opportunity. The current climate crisis we should see as an opportunity. We should strain with all our might to see it that way.

With the present levels of greenhouse gasses in the air, no matter what we do it is very likely that sealevel is going to jump five metres over the next couple of decades. What does that mean? The New Scientist Blog explains the latest estimate of the implications. Read it, but do not forget what I just said about confidence. We must be realistic about what is going to happen, and stay confident and wash ourselves of evil, and if we work together with determination, we can overcome the effects of the collected sins of this generation.

If sea level rises by 5 metres...
Viewed from space, Earth will not look that different: there will be surprisingly little loss of land. The trouble is, there are an awful lot of people on the land that will go. While a mere 2 per cent of the world's land is less than 10 metres above the mid-tide sea level, it is home to 10 per cent of the world's population - 630 million and counting - and much valuable property and vital infrastructure.
Without mega-engineering projects to protect them, a 5-metre rise would inundate large parts of many cities - including New York, London, Sydney, Vancouver, Mumbai and Tokyo - and leave surrounding areas vulnerable to storm surges. In Florida, Louisiana, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and elsewhere, whole regions and cities may vanish. China's economic powerhouse, Shanghai, has an average elevation of just 4 metres.
The Stern report prepared for the UK government last year warned that climate change could bring about economic and social disruption on the scale of the 1930s depression and the world wars, with up to a fifth of global wealth lost. A 5-metre rise in sea level would make the impact far greater. Worst of all, the sea may keep rising.
"Huge sea level rises are coming unless we act now" By James Hansen and Michael Le Page, New Scientist 25 July 2007

The following article I think is very telling. The shrink who wrote it is reacting to the understandable rise in fear among children. If you think about what is coming, adults are scared to death so it is perfectly understandable that little children should fear. She wants to explain the astonishing rise in prescriptions for ADHD and other symptoms of fear. Her theory is that doctors are looking only at the kids, not at the caregivers who may in fact be abusing the children.

Even if caregivers are saints, the fact is that if you leave the news on too loud on television, you are going to scare them. As mentioned, I find that it is impossible to watch a film I like without exposing them to, at the very least, way too much violence and profanity. We need to wash everything out with soap, we need to record the soothing, comforting talks of the Master, and listen them, one every day, and that will get rid of the ubiquitous fear that is crushing the hearts of our little ones.

Children are not mad or bad, they are just scared
by Dorothy Rowe, New Scientist, 16 June 2007, p. 24
YOU are at home awaiting the arrival of the person on whom you feel your life depends. The person is very late. You try to watch TV but can't concentrate. You move from chair to window, from window to door. You make phone calls, check diaries, traffic news. A friend phones to chat, and you rudely tell them to hang up. The line must be kept clear.
You are exhibiting hyperactivity, impulsiveness, distractability and emotional lability (instability and changeability). A psychiatrist with no context for your behaviour might say you have been stricken with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, because the symptoms of ADHD look the same as the symptoms of fear. You, on the other hand, just feel afraid. Fortunately, as an adult, you articulate the reasons for your fear, and if the psychiatrist has any sense she or he abandons the diagnosis and pours you a stiff drink.
ADHD is not a diagnosis most mature adults face. Children, on the other hand, are being diagnosed with it in their millions. In the US nearly 4 million people, mostly children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetamine-like drugs for ADHD (New Scientist, 1 April 2006, p 8). The number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has also risen astronomically, according to child psychiatrist Gabrielle Carlson and colleague Joseph Blader at Stony Brook University, New York. They say that while in 1996 just 13 out of every 100,000 children in the US were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, by 2004 the figure had leapt more than fivefold to 73 in 100,000. They also showed that of children diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in 1996, 1 in 10 were bipolar, compared with 4 out of 10 in 2004 (New Scientist, 19 May, p 6).
Now here's a thing. Among the symptoms of bipolar disorder are hyperactivity, irritability (not getting your own way), psychosis (grandiosity/inflated self-esteem), sleep (lack of), elation (expansive mood) and rapid speech. These symptoms are an exaggeration of ADHD. The young patients are very afraid.
In dealing with fear, we tend to follow one of two patterns. Some of us go quiet: we try to keep emotions under control, to think about what's happening and form a plan for dealing with the fear. That plan might not be realistic or sensible, but it's a way of trying to control things. The rest of us use action to deal with our fear.
Movie and TV duos often feature a thinker and an action man - say, Spock and Captain Kirk - who work effectively together. When the fear becomes serious, Spock retreats into his private world, while Kirk becomes increasingly and less usefully active. Spock might not always approve of his thoughts and feelings, but he is not afraid to go into this inner world. Kirk claims to value his emotions, but in fact is only prepared to acknowledge those he finds admirable. He denies fears, hatreds, jealousies, resentments because he fears them. He tries to outrun his inner world by being busier and busier, but of course he fails.
Few of the psychiatrists who hand out diagnoses of ADHD or bipolar have had long, detailed conversations with the children. More likely, their decisions were based on the children's behaviour in the consulting room, or described by parents and teachers.
There is another reason why doctors fail to see that these are the symptoms of great fear. Like adults, children fear many things, but one thing all children fear is adults. There is a vast body of literature on the effects of adults on children for good or ill: it is summarised in Psychopathology and the Family, edited by Jennifer Hudson, and Ron Rapee of Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia.
We all have the power to hurt a child, and many of us do. Even loving parents and kind teachers know they may inadvertently frighten a child. If a child continues being afraid, she or he won't function normally, learn, or be happy. The people responsible for that child's welfare won't be doing their job properly if they don't reassure them.
Even loving parents and kind teachers know they may inadvertently frighten a child
In saying this I have broken a powerful rule: namely, that parents and those in loco parentis must not be criticised. If a child behaves badly, the child is at fault. If she or he can't be regarded as naughty and be punished, she or he must be mad, and the madness treated with drugs, the effects of which on the developing brain are still largely unknown. Blaming and punishing the child is also a ubiquitous cultural practice. In her book Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, the psychoanalyst Alice Miller noted that the Bible has stories of children sacrificing themselves for their parents, but none of parents sacrificing themselves for their child.
Diagnosing children with ADHD or bipolar disorder requires collusion. Parents and doctors must agree the fault is in the child. So parents fail to mention their own economic, social or personal problems, or underplay them, while doctors don't ask because they lack the skills and resources to help the parents. Thus parents can go on believing they are good parents faced with an inherently flawed child, and doctors that they are good doctors. The child continues to be afraid.
Dorothy Rowe is a psychologist and writer. Her book Beyond Fear is published by HarperCollins