"Love made me do it."

What's been happening?

It feels like this week has been quite a week. Something has been in the air.

I've been listening to Leo Babauta this week and last.

He has been encouraging me to feel my "tender heart",  and to become aware of my own "goodness." This "goodness" he describes as lying underneath the tender heart. This is maybe what some theories call the "basic human needs" that each and every one of us seeks to meet. The need to be loved, to feel joy, to be liked, to be safe and to feel you belong. Have I missed anything?

It's hard to comprehend what a different world we may see if all children were nurtured and supported in loving and understanding their basic goodness; and is their basic psychological needs were met in healthy positive ways by the adults around them.

We would see more compassion and understanding, in our societies, I'm sure of that.

I don't often discuss my work here, but this week I was trying to understand what a 9 year old was telling me, when he said that his Mother had told him, in response to an objection he made to her behaviour, that "Love made me do it."

To help me, I went back to Leo's words, and the understanding that alll human behaviour(good or bad),  every action we do; all behaviour, has a basic goodness underneath. In taking certain actions we are trying to meet some basic need, to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves safe or to look after ourself in some other way.

I suggested to this little one that his Mother may have been trying to protect him by saying no to something that wasn't good for him. He told me it wasn't quite like this at all. She was explaining to him a behaviour of her's that annoyed him. He couldn't really explain this to me, and didn't need me to help him understand. I left it at that but came away with the theory that it was love for herself she was talking about.She was meeting some need, and understood her behaviour as being motivated by this basic goodness to take care of herself.

So anyway, this week. Trying to understand human behaviour....what a week it has been.

A family member needed emotional support on Monday when her life was turned upside down unexpectedly by someone else.

Also on Monday a man who murdered children died in prison. The internet has been trying to avoid giving him publicity. They have instead named the children who were killed.This is Keith Bennett who was 12 years old when he was killed and his Mother Winnie Johnson who died in 2012, without ever knowing where her son's body was burried.

Keith Bennett

Winnie Johnson

Between Tuesday and Thursday the BBC were showing a fact based "drama" called Three girls. This warrents a whole blog post or more to itself there is so much anger, sorrow and confusion about the events documented by the programme. As someone who works with vulerable children and their families, I was left reeling from seeing these issues portrayed in a docu-drama. There has been a report, prior to this, about what happened to these and other girls, but watching this over the three nights I could not comprehend how services failed to act to protect them. Moreover, how services treated them in the period up to and beyond the trial of the men who abused them.

Actor  Maxine Peake who plays the sexual  health worker Sara Rowbottom

There have been calls on the internet for Sarah Rowbottom to receive the highest award possible in this country for her actions to try to protect and seek justice for the children who were being abused. To put an end to the horror and ensure that no other children suffer abuse like this under plain sight of services and communities. She was penalised by her employer for whistle blowing. I am sure she would not want an award and would say that "Love made me do it." Love and courage and a belief in the goodness and worth of all children.