Safety Rules

"We are responsible not only for the wrongs we do to others, we are also responsible for the good we do not do" (Hannah Arendt).

We have to take precautions for protecting children as some parents refuse to their child the right to heal because either

1°) they think their child is incurable because of biological or hereditary impairments

2°) or they are unable to see that their child is suffering

3°) or they need to have endlessly a dependent child to satisfy their neurotic trends of dominating someone helpless.

Therefore when in milieu therapy with us, children are not forced

- to meet with anyone wishing to visit them

- to spend overnight, week-end or vacation with anyone they don't want to :

parents, relatives, friends

this for their respect, protection and recovery of their mental and physical health.

We nevertheless guarantee that we will continue contact with such persons and refusal from a child to meet them does not mean that the child will always refuse them. We understand that being refused by one's child can be very painful but we have to take into consideration the children' s needs first before anybody else, as this is a must to provide the best chances for a successful cure.

Treating fully the children as persons means that they must not be subjected to some adults' will because that would mean that children belong to a sub-status with no will by themselves, which is contrary to being somebody with a good mental health.

When children are not forced to be again with people they don't want to be, this can help disclose abuse without having to fear retaliation from the abuser(s). After disclosure, the children can fully face the consequences that these crimes have on their personality, their health and their life, because they feel it is safe to do so.

We have to be careful because sometimes the best looking and nicest parents can behave quite differently in the privacy of their home : a study in moral matters found that "people' s verbal moral values about honesty have nothing to do with how they act. Example : people who cheat express as much or more moral disapproval of cheating as those who do not cheat" (L. Kohlberg and Turiel).

Therefore, we can not take for mere truth all what the parents say, we have rather to exert our own judgement and consider first how the relevant child feels as it is a clear indicator of the situation. Some parents may be particularly clever in making believe others that they sincerely love their child and wish only to do good to ce : we can see if acts match words, especially as mystification may be part of some parents' neurosis.

rev. 2013