Ron Says…

“And you get a child who has been going along the line of shifting from one thing to the next, and you will find in each case that he has been interfered with as to his independence of action. And you as an auditor want to make sure that Johnny has reserved to him alone and exclusively, at least one sphere of action in which he is completely independent! And one which particularly includes physical skill so that the mental end of the thing is showing up. That’s very important; it wouldn’t seem to be very important at first look at it but he’s got to have someplace where he has an independent sphere and in which he himself can do some shining.
“Because as he shines, his own idea of his own importance and so forth will increase, he will be able to pull in attention units out of this wide periphery of the unknown and concentrate them on an object, so will diminish some of his fears and in this wise you can probably bring, one way or the other, Johnny into a state of sanity which he might not have very fully enjoyed before.”

L. Ron Hubbard

from lecture
“Child Dianetics—Part II”
8 Nov 1950

Ron Says…

“A two-way communication cycle breaks down when either terminal fails, in its turn, to originate communications.

We discover that the entire society has vast difficulties along this line. They are so used to “canned” entertainment and so inhibited in originating communications (by parents who couldn’t communicate and by education and other causes) that people get very low on communication origin. Communication origin is necessary to start a communication in the first place. Thus we find people talking mainly about things which are forced upon them by exterior causes. They see an accident, they discuss it. They see a movie, they discuss it. They wait for an exterior source to give them the occasion for a conversation.”

L. Ron Hubbard

Dianetics 55
page 137

Ron Says…

“But start looking over the semantics. Find out when he first had defined for him the word so-and-so. When did he first have defined for him the word so-and-so? What does this word mean? What does that word mean? Put him through—general semantics people would love this, but it’s very efficacious—put him through a little quiz, not formal, but a very informal quiz.

“You’ll discover that where he has improper definition, he—very far from always, but commonly—has emotional stress. There is emotion, emotional upset or disturbance in the area where that word was poorly defined. And although the word was defined improperly at the—when the child was two, and defined properly for him at the age of five, he will compute basically upon the definition he received at two.”

L. Ron Hubbard

from lecture
“Processing Children”
15 July 1950

Ron Says…

“Well now, an individual who has been moved around a great deal has gone through a dwindling spiral of space. So the space of his chldhood is fairly large and the space of his adulthood is quite compressed. But the space of his babyhood is very compressed.

from 8th American Advanced Clinical Course lecture
“Spotting Spots”
13 Oct 1954

Ron Says…

“…because we discover that when a calm, permissive attitude is taken around a child who has been in bad condition—who has been upset, nervous, and so forth—calm, that doesn’t mean no control. You people who have inherited from psychology the idea that the modern way to do with a child is just to leave them alone and let them run—no, that’s not the way you raise children. You have to put a little bit of control on them, otherwise they get sick. You have to control them with certainty and good 8-C* or they get sick. Remember that.

“And we take this child who has been nervous and upset, and we give this child a little bit greater freedom, a little more participation in the game. We consult with the child as to whether or not it’s all right to go to the show. And sure enough, the child is liable to get kind of discombobulated for a few days, wonder what on earth is going to happen. Something is wrong, see? And they’ll rattle around and then all of a sudden they’ll say, ‘You know, there’s—there’s a little reality about this. They really do want my opinion as to whether or not to go to a show.’ And all of a sudden the kid settles down and becomes a civilized person.”

L. Ron Hubbard

from Anatomy of the Spirit of Man Congress lecture
“The Game Called Man”
6 June 1955

*8-C—the name of a process. Also used to mean good control.
(Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary)

Ron Says…

“And I’ve known kids in this society (in strange homes, it’s true) who grew up with a very great concept of their own personal worth and a feeling of great dignity. And I’ve run back—interested, very interested in this—on the time track and have found when dignity first starts to come in. And I have found dignity very much present in a two-months-old child, taking a person back down the time track.

“Somebody comes in and says, ‘Kitchy-kitchy-coo,’ and the kid says ‘Who the hell is this!’ But he can’t express it in words. So we take this child that’s normal, whose parents are worried about the child, the child gets a cold, has asthma, is sick. The parents say ‘We’ve done everything in the world that you could for this child.’ You echo to yourself, ‘And probably everything in the world that you could do to it.’ And we will carry this thing along. And what do we do with this child, you as an auditor? This child is sick.

“Well, the first thing you can try to do is to take the child by itself, no parents. Get them very definitely off the scene. You try to examine a child around his parents and you will find that he is falsely valuing everything. He is still a bit squirrelly and you find out that the bulk of children, if you talk to them on a rather dignified level, that you’ll find them talking to you on a rather dignified level. And you have entered the case right at that moment because this child is not spinning. The child is more in possession of self!

“Now, let’s just treat the child on an as adult a level as possible! Let’s not talk baby talk to it. And just talk to it on a very adult level and start giving the child Straightwire without saying this is Straightwire and without explaining what all this is about. And you’ll find out that you can go straight along with most cases and you can start blowing locks out very rapidly.”

L. Ron Hubbard

from lecture
“Child Dianetics—Part II”
8 November 1950