A BLUEPRINT FOR EVERY CHILD

Philip G. Ney, 24/11/2014

THE CREATION OF PEOPLE

1. Conception and Preconception

God created a vast number of precise, unique, individual designs, one for every living organism. The most complicated design is for humans. A copy of this design is encoded in a huge “blueprint” folder, stored in God’s vast “computer”, or in His mind. Amazingly, God knows every detail for every person that has been or ever will be. The other copy is given to the person, and is encoded (genetically, psychologically, and spiritually) in the sum of that person’s total parts squared (the person).

Each person is also given the capacity to read their blueprint. This knowledge, plus God’s spirit in them is what should and would guide them in a perfect world, into becoming the Person I Should Have Become (PISHB). Since God designs the person and creates their blueprint, that blueprint will last forever.

The blueprint can be known in a person’s self-awareness indicating with precision who he or she is designed to be. The awareness of who they presently are and who they should become is the sentient aspect which makes humans very different from animals. With their ability to scan and understand the blueprint of whom they are intended to be, children can begin searching their environment for the materials and experiences that they need to make that blueprint unfold. It is the child’s intuitive awareness of their blueprint that tells them what they need and when they need it. Experts may know what children need in general, but we recognize that only each child knows what activities, experiences, people, knowledge, food, rest, etc. he or she needs to become the person God intends him or her to be.

Children are genetically, psychologically and spiritually endowed with:

1)      A persistent drive to develop according to their blueprint.

2)      The basic building blocks required for that development.

3)      God’s incredibly precise, absolutely unique, indestructible design of the person they should become in order to fit God’s desire for their eternal life.

4)      Persistent spiritual, parental, environmental reminders of the discrepancies between who they are and who they should be at any moment.

5)      A perception of their blueprint (an intuitive awareness of their potential) which tells them who they should become. Therefore the building blocks, material and experiences they need, and at what stage in their development they need it is shaped by parents and the child themselves into becoming who they should be.

2. Building Material Suppliers

A child, like a builder, is given a blueprint and a contract to build the beautiful castle of who they are. Joyfully he or she sets out to find a building supplier. The closest, best stocked building supplier should be his parents. Others are too far away, or have too much difficulty reading his blueprint.

Each child intuitively goes to his parents and attempts to obtain all the materials he needs to construct this beautiful building. Ideally, his mother and father should welcome him at the door, carefully unfold, read and analyze his blueprint, and provide him feedback on whether the materials really do fit correctly. With agreement his parents will quickly find the correct building materials and supply them in the right sequence and in the right amounts as the child builds. They will also encourage his/her building efforts and help correct any mistakes. If the parents detect something that the child is building doesn’t fit his blueprint or is made of the wrong materials, they should point out the discrepancy and help correct it. They can only do that if they are quite sure of their reading of his/her blueprint.

Children who are neglected usually realize the supplier (their parents) cannot or will not give them what they need. Deficient or immature building materials suppliers react one of three ways:

1)      “Go away, we do not have any materials. We cannot welcome you or give you what you need.”

2)      “We have the materials but we will not give them to you unless you do exactly what we say and become the person we want you to be.”

3)      “You have misread your blueprint. What you need are 2”x6”, not 2”x8”.”

Too often the child is convinced the parents do have everything he needs somewhere in the back of the store, but because he is an immature little contractor, or has a bad reputation or bad credit (an unlovable child) they will not give the material to him. Thus the child tries to make himself more pleasing. He/she begins to elaborate a false faces as a Dancer and Urchin. (Ney, PG. Deeply Damaged p 123).

Parents may have most of the child’s building material, but use everything in pursuing their own interests, e.g. a holiday cottage or boat. OR, they may realize they have insufficient resources but do not try to obtain these from other suppliers or are too lazy or too selfish or too proud to look for materials they do not have. If they cannot welcome the child into their supply warehouse, they may insist that the child be forcibly removed, i.e. abortion. OR, realizing they are not good suppliers they send the child to some government warehouse (day care) where they believe the staff can better look after the child’s needs.

It is easier for the child to believe that the parents have materials and will not give these to him because he is bad or deficient in some way, than to believe the parents just do not have the materials or don’t care if children get what they need of not. If the child believes that he is bad, he can vainly hope that if he works hard at rectifying his deficiencies and becomes a really good child, he will get what his parents have available for him. Paradoxically, when children are neglected, their hope increases. Yet they soon realize this is a vain hope. It is their hope that helps them persist in seeking when after repeated disappointments and even when the chances of finding what they need are so slim.

3. Identity Confusion.

Children become confused about who they are and who they are to become when parents:

1. Repeatedly misread their blueprint because of their own (parents) childhood mistreatment or because of their selfishness.
2. Insist their children try to construct the person according to their own (parents) preconception, usually a remnant of their own hope to become the person God designed them to be.
3. Try to build a house (person) that they always wanted to build for themselves.

Sometimes the supplier is almost sold (worn) out. Sometimes suppliers are keeping the building materials for themselves or later children and resent rather than welcome every new customer.

A child may give up attempting to understand his or her own blueprint in favour of accepting his parents’ preconception of who he should be. But usually he retains a glimmer of his blueprint tucked deep into the back of his mind. He avoids scanning this very often because as he becomes older it becomes increasingly obvious that he is not being built according to his blueprint, and that it is likely not to happen. The greater the discrepancy between the blueprint and the Person I Am (PIA), the harder it is to look at the blueprint and the fainter in his mind the blueprint becomes.

Many people, particularly abortion survivors, have never properly examined their blueprint. They fear that to do so would plunge them into despair. They do not want to know who they could have become. It gives them an existential and ontological guilt.

Some building suppliers (parents) not only do not supply the right materials, but now and then, try to destroy the child’s building when it is less than half completed. They do so with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Verbal abuse is particularly devastating because it makes the little builder very critical of his own work. It makes him hesitate to continue building, or try for a reconstruction. So often a verbally abused child is like a builder who has all sorts of material lying around that he could use, but he will not try to build because he is afraid of his own building capacity, or is afraid to make mistakes.

Children lose the ability to know who they should become because:

• Their parents through ignorance or indolence misread their blueprint yet insist they are right.
• They cannot obtain the right materials no matter how hard they try pleasing their parents.
• The media lies about what are really good materials through seductive advertising or false claims of making the child healthier. The ads show child behaviour that is unlike anything the child is designed to perform.
• They are so desperately coping just to survive and thus develop with deliberate slowness.
• Their perception of the blueprint is twisted by having their desires for the right material changed to a hunger for harmful material like pornography.
• Their parents force their own blueprint on the child, e.g. “Be like me, as I am or should have become.”
• They feel so guilty about existing, they cannot think of becoming themselves.
• They have been so neglected that they have no experience of having needs met and without that experience they cannot have realistic hope.
• They cannot believe they deserve good things so they refuse many resources.
• Their self-esteem has been so denigrated by poverty they cannot believe they deserve any good thing.
• They will not listen to God who is trying to tell them who they really are.

Children must remain hopeful in order to keep trying to get what they need. For this reason they tend to see their parents and the world at large as inherently good and helpful or innocent. They believe someday, somehow someone will give them what they need, even after repeated hurts and disappointments. They hope against all odds it will eventually happen if they just keep hoping and trying. It’s amazing to see how often a dog will return to its master wagging its tail, hoping to get a pat when so often it has been beaten. Children are even more persistent. If they give up hoping they tend to become persistently cynical and manipulative.

It would be much healthier for the child’s self-esteem to get angry at the negligent parent, e.g. “You have what I need, I know you have it. You’re just keeping it for yourself,” OR “You don’t have all of my requirements. Why do you not face that fact, take a course on parenting or get some counselling, or let me live with someone who is a good parent.” Usually children get angry at themselves, rather than their parent. They think, “I’m no good, that is why they do not give me what I need. I’ll first try harder to please them (Dancing) and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try eliciting their pity by being persistently sick or injured (Urching).

When children do not get the right building materials or the right experiences at the right time, in the right quantity and quality, in the right order, they tend to fantasize an ideal parent and family. The more deprivation children experience, the greater their fantasies can become. When they cannot elaborate their own fantasies, they are easily hooked into some other kind of fantasy, in video games, TV, etc. This is one of the reasons why they deserve Hope Alive counselling.

In Children’s Hope Alive (See Children’s Hope Alive International, CHAI) children are enabled to discern their blueprint and grieve the person they should have become (PISHB). They must be able to say goodbye to the parents they should have had. If they can do that, it will allow them to better appreciate the parents they have. Then they will be more thankful for the little they get. Consequently their parents will feel motivated by their children’s gratitude to try harder to provide what they need.

A child too often has to learn to try and impress the supplier, “Look mom, no hands!” or grovel, “Mom, you are so pretty, I know I don’t deserve your love,” to get the things that should come to them joyfully and freely. Children should be able to stand in front of their building supplier and have the building supplier say, “Back up your truck, I know exactly what you need now that I’ve read your blueprint, and I have plenty of it. When you are finished constructing this part of your house, come back for more and we will go over your blueprint together”.

Part of the reason for the elaboration of false faces is an effort to protect and retain the Pilgrim and the blueprint, and part is to regain an innocent view of the world. There are many ways in which one could help people regain some perception of their blueprint. One way is to ask them what they will do when they get to heaven, a place where they have plenty of time and all the building materials in order to become the person they were designed to become. The blueprint shows the original plan. The original plan depicts all those God-given attributes the person will have when there is an opportunity to develop all of one’s potential throughout eternity. God as father of all and of every individual will be on hand to guide that development and there is plenty of time and building material.

Children who are naturally conceived and welcomed live their first nine months in the beautifully nurturing environment of their mother’s womb. All the child’s earliest development takes place rapidly and almost automatically, because the child usually gets all she needs in the womb. Because the baby has almost all that is needed, her development unfolds beautifully, especially if her mother is reasonably well fed, well supported by her spouse, not exposed to undue stress or anxiety producing situations, not smoking or drinking or taking drugs, is talked to, played with and prayed for while in the womb. Once the child is born, however, she immediately requires a good deal of conscious need meeting by her intuitively wise parents’ nurture, guidance and protection.

The child’s nurture by parents produces the energy that sustains her development. To the degree she is has her individual needs met her hope is sustained and made more durable. If a child is neglected her hope for the right encouragement and building materials falters. The secure building environment and the parental affirmation of who she is, also helps her keep her blueprint clear. With a clear vision of his blueprint a child is better able to focus on gaining the right experiences and thus more rapidly develops. Parents observing his rapid development should relax and trust his intuition more readily. Thus the accurate meeting of any child’s needs makes later parenting easier. If the overly ambitious or anxious controlling parent tries to hurry the child’s development faster than the child desires, the child to please his parents will try harder but disaster is waiting around the corner.

The building blocks of a child’s development are supplied by nutrition, experiences and appropriate gentle instruction that help shape the blocks. Once the child is born, she becomes a ‘co-creator’ with God in fashioning the Person I Should Become. This implies a real freedom of choice and real options in determining whom we become.

No parent is perfect, therefore no child has the optimal environment in which to develop. Yet most children are given enough of what they need so there is a continued unfolding of their development. This maintains the hope they need to propel them through disappointments. In spite of hardships and reverses such as major moves and family tragedies, welcome, well-loved children will continue to grow and be loved. Even under harsh conditions of deprivation and personal injury, their personality holds together. They can endure and even benefit from life’s trauma. However her development is hampered if she is exposed to persistent neglect or abuse, or a combination thereof. Her blueprint may stay reasonably clear, so she will continue to search for what she needs but this results in even greater pain. “I can so clearly see who I was to become but unless something wonderful changes my family, I can see I will never become that person.” She becomes a rusty, crusty, self-neglecting, humorless almost unreadable older person. And yet if anyone discerns her blueprint and gives her a little of the unique requirements of that person, you will see her old, tired eyes glitter.

Sexual abuse and/or physical abuse is/are often written about. There are also less obvious forms. Verbal abuse is usually more damaging. Many forms of mistreatment are subtle and subconscious. Not being known and understood is a severe form of neglect. Being a post abortion surviving child may be the most damaging. Sometimes the impoverished environment makes it impossible for even the best parents to meet their child’s needs. Sometimes the government interferes by apprehending the child. Sometimes war or disaster so traumatizes the parents that they lose sight of how important it is to raise a healthy child.

After much neglect, a child begins to despair, and sometimes becomes so despairing they can only think that heaven is a place where they should be and so they desire to die. However, before she gives up searching for a good home or the things she needs, she will attempt a major defensive adaptation. Under conditions of neglect or repeated abuse, a child automatically produces “False Faces”, the Dancer and the Urchin. If the child is severely neglected, she does not have the normal necessary building blocks for her mental, physical and spiritual development. She may despair and let people mistreat or use her in order to get a crust of bread or a plastic container of polluted water.

Children who watch television while both parents are working try to recreate a proper childhood from fantasy. Without affirmation, their blueprint either begins to fade or becomes distorted from the impact of the world about them. Television and comic books tend to make them feel they could be anybody they want. This is reinforced by the usual North American cant, “If you really try hard you could become the President.” If the neglect continues, they do not have the energy that maintains the drive to promote their development.

If a child is abused, there is a repeated partial destruction of the wonderful small creature or building that she is becoming. Verbal, physical and sexual traumas tend to take apart the little castle just as it was beginning to take shape. Moreover, abuse results in self-deprecation. The mistreated child is not only traumatized by others, but he works at destroying himself especially if he is verbally abused. His lifestyle becomes one of self defeat by his own choices, or self destruction with drugs. The things that are said to and about a child are the things she will say about herself for the rest of her life. Thus verbal abuse never stops, while bruises and sexual trauma fade with time. This is one reason why verbal abuse is the most damaging form of abuse.

If there is both neglect and abuse, the child’s development is even more badly truncated and her vision of herself corroded. Our research evidence shows that when neglect precedes abuse, the child is more susceptible and more vulnerable to the effects of the abuse. Both abuse and neglect tend to create either unrealistic hopefulness or cynicism, sometimes both. Yet the blueprint never entirely fades. There is greater pain, sorrow and rage arising from neglect than from abuse because neglect creates a greater damage. Hurts can heal, but nothing can replace the loss of a childhood, or remove the scars from the wounds that neglect inflicts.

The adult mistreated as a child is plagued by sorrow that invariably arises because they may compare an image of who they are with a blueprint of who they might have become. The yearning to be better is always there, although it may be ignored or covered with an aggressive striving to promote one’s self interest. That yearning plus feelings of hopefulness creates a selfishness that is eventually self-destructive. Under these circumstances, it is not hard for a woman to abort the child in her womb. The Person I Should Have Become has already died and there is no possibility of healing and resurrecting that person. It is almost as if the woman says to herself, “I was killed, so I will kill my baby. If I can’t be what I should have become, I will destroy the baby inside me, and keep him/her from becoming anybody.”

Jesus on the cross spoke to His father, asking God to forgive those insulting and killing Him because they did not know what they were doing. They were angry, bitter, frustrated because Jesus had badly disappointed them in their hope for a new kingdom on earth for Israel, which would allow them all to become the Person I Should Have Become in a wonderful, God-regulated kingdom. They could not see His spiritual kingdom was and is everything they hoped for. To enter His kingdom His way was too simple and too painful for their pride.

Conclusion

Every person is created with God’s purpose of friendship built into their genes and chemistry. Thus each person has a unique blueprint which unfolds as they develop. Small children have an idea of who they are to become that is clearer to them than that of an adult. Hope is derived from the child’s built in determination to find the ingredients that are necessary for his/her individual flowering. Since no one has perfect parents and everyone is born into a badly twisted world, no one becomes the Person I Should Have Become; not in this life. Thus wise parents watch their children carefully and soon discover elements of a child’s blue-print. With a reasonable knowledge of who a child was designed to become, parents can provide the right materials in the right amount, at the right times, so much easier. Parents must also help the child grieve the loss of their PISHB.

The joy of parenting is to watch the amazing unfolding of the child’s blueprint. The sorrow is for parents and child is to realize that no matter how well the find basic building materials, it won’t be good enough to fashion the PISHB. So parents and children grieve together. They also turn to their Lord and Saviour for a revitalizing Spirit who is the beginning of all things new and eternal.

REFERENCE

NEY PG. Deeply Damaged (3rd Ed), Victoria: Pioneer Publishing, 1997.