*
16 November 2018
Revised 20 November 2018
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
Some
professional child experts (3)
Lars Smith,
professor emeritus of psychology
Translations
from Norwegians are mine.
MHS
Lars Smith has worked in the Department of
Psychology at the University of
Oslo.
In August 2015 he wrote on the University of Oslo's web
pages that developmental psychology was his special
interest, and said:
"Jeg arbeider for tiden særlig med studien Liten i
Norge, som er en prospektiv longitudinell studie av mental
helse og differensiell sårbarhet hos barn i sped- og
småbarnsalder."
(At the moment,
I am working especially with the study Liten i Norge (Small
in Norway), which is a prospective longitudinal study of
mental health and differential vulnerability in children of
baby age and as small children.)
Lars Smith is known to defend energetically the child
protection service (CPS) Barnevernet and the activities of
psychologists in Barnevernet. Particularly well-known is
the following statement:
"Dersom
vi mener at barnevernet skal basere sitt arbeid på
grunnregelen om barnets beste, bør det lages en forskrift
etter mønster av ovennevnte juridiske prinsipp: det er
bedre at ti uskyldige foreldre utsettes for omsorgsvedtak
enn at ett lite barn må vokse opp med vold, rus eller
overgrep."
(If we think
that Barnevernet should base its work on the fundamental
rule of the child's best interest, then a rule should be
passed on the pattern of the above-mentioned judicial
principle: it is better that ten innocent parents are
subject to a decision of taking the children into care than
that one small child has to grow up with violence,
substance abuse/alcohol, or abuse.)
Lars Smith:
Barnevernets feil
(The
mistakes of Barnevernet)
Morgenbladet,
19 June 2015
*
His reasoning was sharply countered here:
Fridtjof P. Gundersen:
Reinspikka ideologi fra Lars
Smith
(Sheer ideology
from Lars Smith)
Morgenbladet,
26 June 2015
Gundersen says:
"Utsagnet,
som får de fleste av oss til å blekne, har gjort
professoren til helt på sosiale medier blant
barnevernansatte, psykologer og statsansatte i
barneforvaltningen."
(The statement,
which makes most of us pale, has given the professor the
status of hero on social media among CPS workers,
psychologists and state employees in the 'child
administration'.)
"I
dagens Norge er barneverntjenestene og deres sakkyndige i
urovekkende grad opptatt av å mikroanalysere samspillet
mellom barn og foreldre for å finne holdepunkter for at god
nok omsorg ikke foreligger. Hva som er god nok
(følelsesmessig) omsorg er høyst uklart. Kriteriene for
vurdering er utilgjengelige, og det finnes ingen felles
vedtatt eller akseptert standard. Det eneste som er klart,
er at det ikke skal mye til for å gripe inn."
(In
today'sNorway, the CPS and their experts are to a
disquieting degree concerned with micro-analysing
interaction between children and parents in order to find
indications which can justify the conclusion that
sufficiently good care is not present. What constitutes
sufficiently good (emotional) care is extremely unclear.
The criteria for assessment are inaccessible, and no
common, decided or accepted standard exists. All that is
clear is that it does not take much for the CPS to
intervene.)
"Nylig opplevde jeg en fylkesnemndsleder som ble rasende
fordi faglig skolerte vitner kritiserte de sakkyndiges
rapport."
(I recently had
the experience of a county board leader being furious
because qualified expert witnesses criticised the report of
the appointed experts.)
"Smith er en størrelse innen norsk barnepsykologi, hans
bøker om tilknytning har preget pensumlistene. I kronikken
hans skinner det ideologiske grunnlaget igjennom, og jeg
mistenker at denne ideologien har vært med på å forme
barnevernets skjevutvikling.
Professorens inngrepsiver har klare
paralleller til idéen om at samfunnet bør ta seg av
barneoppdragelsen, en idé som ble lansert av Marx’ parhest
Friedrich Engels, som ville forvandle privathusholdningen
til en samfunnsmessig industri og derved skape likhet og
klasseløshet."
(Smith is a star
in Norwegian child psychology, his books about attachment
have had great influence on the required reading lists. In
his article, his ideological basis shines through, and I
suspect this ideology of having contributed to the faulty
development of the CPS Barnevernet.
The professor's urge to intervene
has clear parallels to the idea that society should take
care of child raising, an idea launched by Marx's buddy
Friedrich Engels, who wanted to convert private households
into a societal industry and through this means create
equality and classlessness.)
"Viljen
til å la ni barn vokse opp uten sine foreldre for å redde
ett barn fra en dårlig oppvekst har ingenting med psykologi
eller barnefaglighet å gjøre. Det er reinspikka ideologi,
en ideologi som i de fleste sammenhenger setter staten over
individet og som ikke respekterer verken barna eller
familien."
(The willingness
to let nine children grow up without their parents in order
to save one child from a bad childhood has nothing to do
with psychology or expertise on children. It is sheer
ideology, an ideology which under most circumstances puts
the state above the individual and which respects neither
children nor the family.)
*
Equally clear and insightful are the comments here:
Anonymous:
Barnevernets feil: En elegant språklig
finte
(The mistakes of
Barnevernet: An elegant linguistic trick)
Om
barnevernet – Etterrettelig informasjon om
barnevernet, 22 August 2018
(About
Barnevernet – Dependable information about Barnevernet)
The fact that this writer is anonymous is something of a
weakness. However, the writer quotes directly what Smith
himself wrote, and comments on that, so that it is possible
to check his reasoning.
About the idea of the 10 innocent parents against the one
child, he says:
"Hva
med de ni uskyldige barna? Altså barna til de uskyldige
foreldrene? (Egentlig er det nok mer enn ni siden det
sikkert er søsken i disse familiene, og alle blir jo
som regel tatt.) Professoren mener at for hvert barn
som rettmessig tas, er det altså greit at 9+ uskyldige barn
gjennomgår alvorlig traumatiserende atskillelse fra
foreldrene (det er godt dokumentert at atskillelse fra
fungerende foreldre uten unntak er traumatiserende) og
overføres til et system som noen
ganger fungerer
tilfredsstillende men hvor det er solid dokumentasjon for
at det som oftest gjør det stikk motsatte.
Skal virkelig samfunnet akseptere
at de 9+ uskyldige barna risikerer å bli gjort til
glassjenter og -gutter? Til drapsmaskiner og dophuer? At de
får dårlig skolegang og dårlig helse?
Dokumentasjonen på at risikoen for dette er betydelig
større i barnevernet enn utenfor, er formidabel og solid
som granitt."
(What about the
nine innocent children? That is: the children of the
innocent parents? (Really there are probably more than
nine, since there are sure to be siblings in these
families, and all of them are normally taken.) The
professor thinks that for each child taken justifiably, it
is all right that 9+ innocent children are put through
seriously traumatising separation from their parents
(separation from functioning parents is well documented to
be traumatising, without exception) and are transferred to
a system which sometimes
functions
adequately but which has been solidly documented to usually
do the opposite.
Is society really to accept that
the 9+ innocent children risk being turned into glass girls
and glass boys? Into killing machines and drug addicts?
Accept that they will have a poor education and poor
health? The documentation is formidable of the risk of this
being considerably greater within Barnevernet than outside
– formidable and solid as granite.)
('The case of the Glass Girl'
is a horrendous
instance of long, atrocious treatment of a young girl in
institutions, exposed in a series of articles in
Stavanger Aftenblad as this treatment was still going on
in 2016.)
About Smith's way of expressing himself:
"De
som leser kronikken vil kanskje, når de ser nærmere etter,
også legge merke til hans gjennomgående devaluering av
andres synspunkter og utsagn: «Det
finnes
foreldre som mener…», «det
finnes
foreldre som anklager…», den ene samfunnsdebattanten
«mener» og den andre «hevder», til og med Aftenposten
«hevder» og «det
skal være
overlevert en bekymringsmelding».
(Readers of the
article will maybe, when they look closely, also notice his
pervasive devaluation of the points of view and opinions of
others: «There
are parents who
think...», «there
are parents who
accuse...», one debater of social issues «thinks» and
another «claims», even Aftenposten «claims» and «a message
of concern
is said to have been delivered».)
«Det
er
sannsynligvis
riktig at noen psykologer har for tette bånd til
barnevernstjenesten» – dokumentasjonen på dette levner
ingen tvil. Det er ikke sannsynligvis riktig, det er
riktig.
«at
mange barn som blir omsorgsovertatt ikke
alltid
får tiltak som holder mål» – når bare 63% av de
foreldrene som KUN har fått hjelpetiltak er fornøyde med
tiltakene, har nok barnevernet en vei å gå der også.
«Hvis
det nå skapes et generelt inntrykk at vi har å gjøre med en
offentlig forvaltning som griper urettmessig inn i
menneskers privatsfære, vil man lett komme til å fremme det
som er i foreldres interesse på bekostning av prinsippet om
barnets beste«. Man trenger ikke
skape
dette inntrykket, det er i henhold til de faktiske
forhold. Det er faktisk slik. Fremmer man med
det
foreldrenes
interesse på bekostning av prinsippet om barnas beste?"
(«It is
probably correct that
some psychologists are too closely associated with the CPS»
– the documentation of this leaves no doubt. It is not
probably correct, it is correct.
«that many children who are taken
into care do not
always receive measures
which are up to scratch» – when only 63% of the parents who
have
only been given help
measures are satisfied with the measures, Barnevernet
probably has some way to go there too.
«If a general impression is now
created of a public administration which intervenes
unjustifiably in people's private sphere, one will easily
slip into furthering the interests of parents at the
expense of the principle of the child's best interest.» One
does not have to
create this impression,
it is in accordance with facts. It really is so. Does that
further the interests of
parents at the cost of
the principle of the child's best interest?")
*
Back to Lars Smith's article in Morgenbladet:
"Å
beskylde barnevernet for å være et autoritært og lukket
system som utsetter barn og sårbare familier for
myndighetsovergrep, er likevel ikke riktig vei å gå. Barna
er alltid den svakeste part, og trenger en offentlig
instans som anerkjennes fordi den har som mål å arbeide for
deres beste."
(To accuse
Barnevernet of being an authoritarian and closed system
which exposes children and vulnerable families to abuse on
the part of the authorities, is still not the right way to
go. The children are always the weakest party, and need a
public instance which is respected because it has as its
goal to work for their best interest.)
So Smith thinks that to declare oneself to work for
children's best interest is in itself enough to be able to
claim our respect, apparently regardless of whether good
intentions help children in actual practice or whether it
leads to the opposite result.
Gundersen:
"Kjeden
av et barnevern som mangler kompetanse til å vurdere
tilknytning, uklare og ikke-overprøvbare inngrepskriterier,
reelt sett inhabile sakkyndige, og dommere uten barnefaglig
kompetanse skaper vår tids største rettssikkerhetsproblem.
Det dreier seg om et system av feil. Systemet rammer den
mest sårbare av alle situasjoner i forholdet mellom stat og
individ, å fjerne et barn fra
foreldrene."
(The
chain of a child protection service lacking competence to
assess attachment, unclear and non-negotiable criteria for
intervention, actually prejudiced experts, and judges with
no expertise on children create our times' largest problem
of lack of security under the law. We are up against a
system of faults. The system hits the most vulnerable of
all situations in the relationship between state and
individual, that of removing a child from its parents.)
*
Again and again in his article, Lars Smith presents himself
as a thoroughgoing believer in attachment theory. (Cf
related articles below.) This is a theory which by
differently oriented, scientific psychology is not judged
to have much support through validly conducted research at
all. Smith, on the other hand, maintains that the theory
possesses diagnostic tools giving reliable conclusions, and
that it should of course be practiced in child protection.
He is blind to the fact that attachment between children
and their own parents consists of a love and a feeling of
togetherness which is independent of the special 'signs'
Smith believes to be symptoms of different types of
attachment. He also trivialises – as is usual in the child
protection sector – the long term importance for a child of
growing up with its own parents. Centrally in Smith's view
is that he does not understand that to hinder and damage
parents in their parenthood also damages the children.
Smith seeks to make his views impressively 'scholarly'.
Some examples:
"Emosjonell
mishandling i
sped- og småbarnsalderen er den vanligste årsaken til
desorganisert tilknytning, der barna mangler en
handlingsstrategi i tilknytningsrelevante situasjoner og
viser frykt for dem de er tilknyttet."
(Emotional abuse
at baby and small child age is the most usual cause of
disorganised attachment, in which the children lack a
strategy of action in attachment-relevant situations and
show fear of those they are attached to.)
Cocksure prognoses?:
Smith:
"Hvis
kravet til evidensbasert omsorgssvikt er strengt, innebærer
det at en del av foreldrene vil få beholde omsorgen for
barnet sitt til tross for at det har funnet sted
vanskjøtsel, mishandling eller overgrep. Barnet må i så
fall leve videre i en dysfunksjonell familie med alt det
kan medføre av atypisk tilknytning og risiko for senere
psykopatologi."
(If the demand
for evidence-based care failure is strict, this implies
that some parents will keep their child in their care
although negligence, physical abuse or sexual abuse have
taken place. If so, the child will have to continue living
in a dysfunctional family with all that can lead to of
untypical attachment and risk of later psychopathology.)
"Hvis
kravet til evidens
er noe mindre strengt, øker sannsynligheten for at det blir
iverksatt en eller annen form for barnevernstiltak. Flere
barn vil da kunne få muligheten til å vokse opp i tryggere
og mer utviklingsfremmende miljøer. Bare på den måten kan
den vonde lenken av elendighet på tvers av generasjoner ha
mulighet for å bli brutt."
(If the demand
for evidence is relaxed, the likelihood increases of some
kind of CPS action being put in place. More children will
then have the possibility of growing up in safer and more
development-enhancing environments. Only in this way can
the hurtful chain of miserable conditions across
generations have a possibility of being broken.)
So
Smith recommends that no very clear demands should be
placed on proving that the parents have neglected or abused
the child. He holds that when the CPS & co 'think' that
the family is 'dysfunctional' (how realistic is their
judgment on this in the complicated world of reality?),
then the CPS should pull the child out and 're-plant' it
regardless, cf
"Sosial arv" er en fiksjon
("Social
inheritance" is fiction).
The reigning philosophy could not
have been expressed more clearly, the ideology of how
children and parents are to be handled 'by those who know
better'. This is pure cultural / environmental determinism,
with quite one-sidedly materialistic conceptions of what in
the 'environment' is of importantce, and Smith recommends
that it is implemented by force. Cf The Raundal Committee's
'development-enhancing principle': How Norwegian experts came to reject
biological kinship as relevant in child welfare
policy. Perhaps I may be allowed
to repeat, once again: Child protection workers,
caught in their own belief in the importance of the
environment, the milieu, are blind towards the
importance of growing up in one's
own biological milieu.
The psychopathology which will
according to Smith come in 'dysfunctional families', in
fact turns up in quite another place: among children
growing up in foster care and institutions. There, the
statistics are frightening. They turn up in many contexts.
Quite impressive are differences in health and death, such
as shown for Norway in
Lars B. Kristofersen:
Barnevernbarnas helse. Uførhet og
dødelighet i perioden 1990-2002
(The health
of child protection children. Disability and morbidity
in the period 1990-2002), (English summary pp
15-19)
NIBR-report
2005:12
Kristofersen reports, among other things, 8 times as many
suicides among foster children, in relation to the total
number of foster children, as in the general child
population.
A number of different research projects, Nordic and from
other countries, are described in sections 8.2.0 - 8.2.4
'The evidence of scientific studies'
here. Some contexts showing
marked differences between individuals growing up away
from their families and comparably placed groups but
living at home are mentioned in points (a) – (n)
here, and relevant examples are
also mentioned here:
Marianne Haslev SKånland:
Educating the young – better through
cooperation with the child protection agency
(CPS)?
21 December 2014
and in
– Paying out compensation while creating
the basis for more claims
24 March 2016
Sverre Kvilhaug points to further research
here.
Swedish research scholar Bo Vinnerljung, having surveyed
Nordic studies and also much international work, concludes:
(p 315 (the summary in English)):
‘Long-term
stable foster care does not see[m] to have improved outcome
in adult age compared to growing up in "insufficient"
family environments, identical to the birth homes of the
foster children’
(p 90;
transl.):
‘But one of the
basic problems of public ward is that it has difficulties
establishing permanency, both 'objectively' ..... and as a
perceived situation for the foster children.’
(p 78;
transl.):
‘All studies
show similar or poorer results for foster children when
compared to children from risk groups etc living at home.
...... In sum: some variations are found but nobody has
found that foster children do better.’
(p
116; transl.):
‘There are
several examples showing that notions about the type of
social care having compensatory power have been put to
shame through research about "results", ...’
Bo
Vinnerljung (1996): Fosterbarn
som vuxna (Foster children
as adults) (English summary pp
306-16)
Lund Studies in Social Welfare
XIII
Lund: Arkiv förlag. ISBN
91-7924-091-7
Smith comes up with allegations about proof and connections
which are hardly borne out:
Smith:
"Men
alvorlig omsorgssvikt forekommer, og finner sted i minst 5
prosent av alle småbarnsfamilier. Det er et forsiktig
anslag: epidemiologiske studier viser at om lag 15 prosent
av alle småbarn har desorganisert tilknytning, noe som er
sterkt relatert til betydelig omsorgssvikt."
(But serious
care failure exists, and occurs in at least 5 per cent of
all families with small children. This is a moderate
estimate: epidemiological studies show about 15 per cent of
all small children to have disorganised attachment,
something which is strongly related to considerable care
failure.)
Anonymous:
"«Alvorlig
omsorgssvikt forekommer i minst 5 prosent av alle
småbarnsfamilier.»
Dette er sikre kasus for omsorgsovertakelse. Minst
hvert tyvende barn skal altså rykkes opp med roten og
plasseres i en familie som har meldt seg interessert i å ta
imot et fosterbarn (-hva var motivasjonen?), eller en
institusjon. En barnevernsinstitusjon. Kanskje et
«enetiltak» slik hun som begikk drap på Sørlandssenteret
satt på.
Hvordan går det med tilknytningen
da, tro, blir den mindre desorganisert?"
(«Serious care
failure occurs in at least 5 per cent of all families with
small children.» These are sure instances for
taking-into-care. So at least one child in twenty is going
to be pulled up by its roots and be placed in a family
which has registered as interested in receiving a foster
child (– what was the motivation?), or in an institution. A
child protection institution. Perhaps «placement alone»
like the one she was subjected to, the girl who carried out
a killing at Sørlandssenteret.
What happens to the attachment
then, does it become less disorganised?)
Here is a suggested apology and a repudiation of liability
which can be utilised by Barnevernet and the county boards,
actually one frequently encountered, consisting of
dramatising how 'difficult' their work is:
Smith:
"Et
av de vanskeligste spørsmålene
som barnevernet og fylkesnemndene står overfor, er hva som
er «god nok» omsorg. Det er så store individuelle
forskjeller når det gjelder barns sårbarhet og foreldres
omsorgsutøvelse at det ikke kan gis noen oppskrift."
(One of the most
difficult questions which Barnevernet and the county boards
face is that of deciding what constitutes «good enough»
care. Indivicual differences regarding children's
vulnerability and parents' exercise of care are so great
that it is not possible to give a recipe.)
Even so, Smith presumes that people like himself possess a
professional expertise of a magnitude allowing him to come
up with cocksure prognoses and comprehensive decisions of
tearing families apart.
*
In an interview article from 2009/2012, Smith expresses
reservations against the belief that kindergarten is
advantageous for very small children:
Barnehagen: – Tilfredsstiller ikke
ettåringens behov
(The
kindergarten: – Does not serve the needs of the
one-year-olds)
The
Research magazine Apollon, University of
Oslo, 1
February 2012
A lot of what he says here sounds sensible. But his
arguments spring purely from attachment theory. That is
really not good justification or evidence.
"
– Jeg kan vanskelig se at de minste barnas
tilknytningsbehov kan tilfredsstilles fullt ut i en
barnehagesituasjon, sier Lars Smith."
(It is difficult
to see that the attachment needs of the smallest children
can be satisfied fully in a kindergarten situation, says
Lars Smith.)
"Smith
viser til at studiet av barns tilknytning står helt
sentralt i utviklingspsykologien.
– Den engelske barnepsykiateren John Bowlby er
skaperen av moderne tilknytningsteori: Å knytte varige,
følelsesmessige bånd til sine nærmeste omsorgspersoner, til
noen som er større og sterkere, klokere – og samtidig
snill, er en medfødt tilbøyelighet og helt grunnleggende
for barnets utvikling. I årenes løp er det gjennomført en
lang rekke studier i mange land, og teorien er i dag blant
de aller best fundamenterte i faget, påpeker Smith, som
også er seniorforsker ved Nasjonalt kompetansenettverk for
sped- og småbarns psykiske helse."
(Smith
emphasises the absolutely central place of children's
attachment in developmental psychology.
– The English child psychiatrist John Bowlby is the
creator of modern attachment theory: To make lasting,
emotional bonds to their nearest care persons, to someone
who is larger and stronger, wiser - and at the same time
kind, is an inborn tendency and is quite fundamental for
the development of the child. Over the years a long series
of studies have been carried out in many countries, and the
theory is today among the very best supported in the
discipline, Smith points out. He is also a senior
researcher at 'Nasjonalt kompetansenettverk for sped- og
småbarns psykiske helse' (National competence network for
baby and small children's mental health).
'Nasjonalt
kompetansenettverk for sped- og småbarns psykiske helse' is
connected to Sosial- og helsedirektoratet
(the directorate
of social matters and health) and Bufdir.
"Tilknytning
er et atferdssystem; det er biologisk betinget og
evolusjonsbasert. Atferden omfatter både signaler, som
smil og gråt, og bevegelser som øker
sannsynligheten for fysisk nærhet til
tilknytningspersonen."
(Attachment is a
behavioral system; it is biologically conditioned and
evolution-based. The behaviour comprises both signals, such
as smiling and crying, and movements which increase the
probability of physical closeness to the attachment
person.)
No, attachment is hardly a behavioral system, and it is not
something which is 'made' through behaviour, arbitrarily
and without any particular foundation. It consists of the
emotional bonds between individuals who know and feel that
they belong together, bonds which do not mechanically
manifest themselves through certain types of behaviour.
Smith's belief in being able to conclude without fault
about attachment – the feeling of belonging, of longing, of
love – by ignoring
feelings and
observing behaviour (cf my remark above concerning
interpretation of 'signs'), is a dangerous, wrong track in
psychology and child protection. It is clearly a sign of
behavioristic thinking: the belief that studies of
behaviour leads to scientifically accurate knowledge about
individuals (cf again How Norwegian experts came to reject
biological kinship as relevant in child welfare
policy).
Is attachment
theory among the very best supported in developmental
psychology? More's the pity, to put it that way. What does
it lead to? – It should suffice to take the central place
of attachment theory in Barnevernet seriously, and to study
the results of Barnevern practice.
**
Some articles relating to the concept of 'attachment':
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
On attachment, eye contact and
interaction
– How Norwegian experts came to reject
biological kinship as relevant in child welfare
policy
– Is biological kinship irrelevant for the
life of human beings?
– The Child Protection Service (CPS) –
unfortunately the cause of grievous harm
2: Contant, dimensions, causes and mechanisms of CPS
activities
(The section 'Attachment theory
and other ideas')
– Sterkt knyttet til moren etter
barnevernets lange adskillelse
Fallitt for barneverns-psykologiens
'tilknytnings'fantasier
(Strongly
attached to her mother after the long separation caused by
Barnevernet
Failure of the child protection psychology's 'attachment'
fantasies)
**
Some professional child
experts
27 august
2018 –
*