Therapist warns against taking kids to Burnaby Mountain protests
Posted November 24, 2014 12:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A child psychologist is warning some parents protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on Burnaby Mountain that they’re wading into dangerous territory.
Over the weekend, kids were seen willing to be arrested for the cause; others watched their parents being led away in handcuffs.
Therapist Alyson Jones says teaching kids about causes you’re passionate about as a parent is one thing, but it shouldn’t be done through encouraging them to defy a court order.
“We want to be careful as parents that we’re not just taking our own agenda and putting it on the children. What we really should be [thinking is], ‘How do I develop critical thinking in my child?'” she tells us.
“We really need to look closely when we are involving underage children in actions that are considered against the law and are police actions,” adds Jones.
Not only has there been violence on the mountain, it’s also been extremely cold and wet.
“To put them in a traumatic situation like that, where they are actually seeing their parents being taken away by police and being left in the care of police, puts the child in a very potentially emotionally harmful situation. Just seeing your parent being taken away by the police is hard, secondly you’re in the middle of it.”
Dozens of people have been arrested at Burnaby Mountain since Thursday.
