I know childhood is not the idyllic thing that reminiscing parents think it is.  I remember being afraid I could not open the lock to my gym locker unaided in grade seven.  I remember fearing the other girls would think I was too fat or too weird.   I think I worried about everything except not being smart enough.  I was lucky I had that one nailed.

If I work really hard and think back farther, I can remember being afraid of the dark.  I got a teddy bear and a prayer book to deal with that one.

My mother spanked me exactly once, when I plucked a flower from a neighbor’s yard.  It was wrong, and she explained to me why I got spanked.  She never had to spank me again, as I was a rule respecting child.

I cannot remember and can barely understand, even now with my aggressive use of energy psychology, what it is like for a child to be a victim of assault or sexual or physical abuse, or even to live in fear of such abuse.  It takes all my empathy to deal with such children as adults.
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