Author Archives: helenbonnick

“A parent’s worst nightmare” is a phrase which seems to come up all too often these days, and leaves me wondering how many worst nightmares there could be, as it is used in relation to children who are the victims of bullying, predatory abuse, abduction, drug addiction, suicide  … the list is seemingly endless. This is not to belittle the experiences of these parents. For each individual parent experiencing one of these events it will indeed seem like their worst nightmare, just as will the reality of being abused by your own child. But perhaps we need to move away from hyperbole towards a calmer rendering of events. As we talk about our passions and commitment to our work we can believe that descriptions of the extreme will further our cause as they “whip up” emotional responses and “convert” people to our way of thinking and understanding. That can happen, but there can also be interesting and unexpected side effects, not least in the unconscious ways we come to construct our own belief systems through the words and phrases we repeat. Continue reading →