Harry's resilience (was Re: Harry-James-Lily relationship, posth umous (was: Harry's lack of curiosity))

[meboriqua at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17772


> Way way back in September, there was a discussion about abuse and 
resiliant
> children - the concept of a resiliant child is one who has multiple 
and
> severe risks in their lives but can nonetheless develop into 
"confident,
> competent, and caring" teens and adults. 
> Resiliant children have certain characteristics/outside support 
factors (see
> the bottom of this post).
> 
> The presence of at least one caring person--someone who conveys an 
attitude
> of compassion, who understands that no matter how awful a child's 
behavior,
> the child is doing the best he or she can given his or her
> experience--provides support for healthy development and learning. 
This
> person can be a parent who was in a child's life at one point, but 
later was
> separated from the child. Even a permannent separation at a young 
age
> (between twelve and 18 months) can provide this "caring person" 
support
> factor, because the toddler has memories of the parent and the 
loving
> environment, which stay in the child's subconscious, and even in the
> conscious mind, longer than a lay adult would suspect. Studies show 
that
> three and four year olds can remember being a year old, and the 
things they
> did or played with, or the people they knew. Even if a six or seven 
year old
> cannot concretely remember actions and playmates from when they were 
five
> years younger, those memories have become part of their 
subconscious. 
> 
> As I wrote back in Septepmerb, I assume that for his first 15 
months, Harry
> had a terrificly stable upbringing, great, loving parents (ok, maybe 
James
> spent time away from home on anti-voldemort things...) and a lot of 
love at
> home.
> 
> Then, boom, things go wrong.
> 
> We next see him almost ten years later, sleeping in a cuboard, but 
able to
> visit the rest of the house.
> 
> And he's not horrible. Why?

Hello - 
I think one of the other reasons that Harry is not developing into an 
insecure git is because as he was growing up with the dreadful 
Dursleys, he disliked them as much as they disliked him.  Why is that 
important?  Well, Harry was able to comfort himself by remembering 
that he was different from them (they never let him forget that).  He 
seems to me to be the kind of person who can take a step back and be 
objective about other people, and he sees the Dursleys for what they 
are.  Had the Dursleys taken him in as a baby and lavished their 
affections (and money) on him, he'd probably be spoiled like Dudley 
and wouldn't necessary have hoped to have been rescued from them like 
he hoped for in the beginning of SS.

When you are able to take a step back from a situation you don't like, 
you can then say to yourself "I don't want to be like that".  My 
boyfriend did that as a child when he had a stuttering problem which 
prevented him from being able to communicate with his abusive mother.  
He instead was able to think about his family and watch them closely 
and realize that he did not have to turn out the same way.  I think 
Harry is like that.  Since he was left alone so often and ignored when 
he was with the Dursleys, all he could do was watch, learn and think 
"I'm not like them and I don't want to be".  He became what they are  
not - polite, generous, open-minded, and empathic.

Did that make sense?

--jenny from ravenclaw*****