Grown Ups Are Really Stupid

How to heal the psychological wounds of an abused child? How can we restore security to a neglected child? How can we help a child and his parents create an emotional bond? How can an adopted child reconcile his or her successive lives? Confronted with parents who are unaffectionate, depressive, absent or excluded, a child can become withdrawn, panic-stricken by fear of abandonment, violent or unable to express him/herself in words or actions. In France, over 300,000 children are under protective care. Dr. Daniel Rousseau, who has worked in a nursery run by the French child welfare agency (Aide sociale à l’enfance), uses case studies to explain how these abused children invent solutions to survive and grow up, sometimes even without their parents. A child psychiatrist for 25 years, Dr Daniel Rousseau has been working at the Maine-et-Loire children’s home for 20 years. He has received three awards from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, the Fondation de France and the Observatoire National de l’Enfance en Danger for his research on children in the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance system.