Breaking the Spell
Kids always provoke parents by doing the very thing that irritates, infuriates, and undoes them. In normal families, this is an everyday, though annoying occurrence, but in troubled families, the interaction becomes a malignant experience around which the parent and child torture each other and drag the family down.
"The unfamiliar and the strange - these are the domain of all children and scientists."
- James Gleick, Genius
"Kids engage the world actively, passionately, and purposefully from the day they are born."
"They conduct wild, uncontrolled, dangerous experiments."
"In addition to being poor scientists, children are heroic altruists..."
"...it is as if a 'spell' gets cast. Everyone's worst fears seem so real. Your kids feel you hate them... You believe your kids are out to get you... The child may eventually play the role of the 'bad kid' who is fundamentally evil and can never change."
