The ‘mind object’ and ‘dream consciousness’: A Winnicottian and a Steinerean rationale for avoiding the premature ‘adultifying’ of children
Richard House
April 17, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9780429472862-10 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that treating children as "mini-adults" and emphasizing the feeling realm or mind during the first seven years interferes with development, producing imbalance and commonly lifelong emotional and "psycho-somatic" health problems; contends that mainstream teaching prematurely awakens children into self-consciousness before they have recapitulated earlier stages of humanity's evolving consciousness. |
Abstract
This chapter draws on the inspiringly insightful writings of D. W. Winnicott to show how modern culture&s;s uncritical treating of children as if they are &s;mini-adults&s; may well be perpetrating untold harm on children&s;s development. Rudolf Steiner&s;s model of child development has many similarities to a Winnicottian view. In his archetypal developmental cosmology, and similarly to Winnicott, Steiner argued that if the feeling realm or the mind are unduly emphasized in this first 7-year period for any reason, then the child&s;s development is interfered with, and becomes unbalanced—and this in turn commonly leads to life-long health problems, both emotional and &s;psycho-somatic&s;. The young child needs to negotiate experientially, through recapitulation, the previous stages of humankind&s;s evolving consciousness before he is able and ready to develop his own self-consciousness. Through conventional mainstream teaching approaches to instruction and direction, children are seen to be prematurely and inappropriately awakened into self-consciousness.