Sustainable Family Values as a Means to Create a Stable and

Prosperous Society and Nation

UN Headquarters, Geneva June 30 to July 1, 2014

Lynn Walsh, Universal Peace Federation

Failure to Achieve the MDGs:Can we exclude the family if the heart of the human problem is the

human heart?

The Foundation: Life, Love and Purpose

Building peace through inter-religious and international collaborations and education to support universal values and spiritual principles in order to resolve conflict and reconcile the divided human family. A core principle is that marriage, parenting and the family are the foundations of sustainable human development and the very cells for building society.

Decline of Youth Well-being• One of every four adolescents in the U.S. is currently at serious

risk of not achieving productive adulthood

• 21 percent of U.S. children ages nine to 17 have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder associated with at least minimum impairment

• Current generation of young people is more likely to be depressed and anxious than was its parent’s generation

• Twenty percent of students report having seriously considered suicide in the past year

Commission for Children at Risk

Global Youth Violence Rises

Worldwide some 250,000 homicides occur among youth 10-29 years of age each year – 41% of the annual total number of homicides globally. For each young person killed, 20-40 more sustain injuries requiring hospital treatment. Youth violence has a serious, often lifelong, impact on a person's psychological and social functioning.

WHO report 2014

Crisis in Mental Health in Youth

Data shows in the midst of unprecedented material

affluence, deteriorating mental and behavioral health of

U.S. children, high and rising rates of depression, anxiety,

attention deficit, conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide,

and other serious mental, emotional, and behavioral

problems among U.S. children and adolescentsCommission for Children at Risk, a panel of 33 leading children’s doctors, neuroscientists,

research scholars, and youth service professionals

Main Risk Factors for Youth Violence are Instability in the Home Environment

• Low level of attachment between parents & children• Poor supervision of children by parents • Harsh physical punishment to discipline children• Parental conflict in early childhood• Mother who had her first child at an early age• Experiencing parental separation or divorce at a young

age• Low level of family cohesion• Low socioeconomic status of the family.

World Health Organization report

WHO: Evaluation of Solutions

“Parent and family-based interventions are among the most promising strategies for producing long-term reductions in youth violence. ..counseling and gang prevention programs have been ineffective.” WHO

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/global_campaign/en/youthviolencefacts.pdf

Parents: Hardwired to Attach and Care, Marriage Solidifies the Stability

Oxytocin and prolactin in pregnancy, birth and breast feeding enhance maternal bonding but also residing fathers bond due to mother’s pheromones decrease in

testosterone and Increase in oxytocin. (Wilcox and Kline, 2013)

Child Benefits: Married ParentsChildren raised in intact married families are more likely to attend college, are physically and emotionally healthier, are less likely to be physically or sexually abused, less likely to use drugs or alcohol and to commit delinquent behaviors, have a decreased risk of divorcing when they get married, are less likely to become pregnant/impregnate someone as a teenager, and are less likely to be raised in poverty. ("Why Marriage Matters: 26 Conclusions from the Social Sciences," Bradford Wilcox, Institute for American Values, www.americanvalues.org/html/r-wmm.html)

Benefit of Complementarities of Mothers and Fathers

Children receive gender specific support from having a mother and a father. …particular roles of mothers (e.g., to nurture) and fathers (e.g., to discipline), as well as complex biologically rooted interactions, are important for the development of boys and girls. "Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles," 2006, www.princetonprinciples.org

Humans Continually Require Stable Attachment

Secure attachment predicts emotional makeup, the ability to trust, learn and develop healthy relationships throughout life.

Adolescents seek attachment & learn who they are as individuals through their relationships. Without close relationship with parents, teens will instead attach to peers who naturally lack maturity, do not give good guidance and do not care about their long term well-being.

Sexual Relations Create Attachment even when Immature

Nearly half (47%) of all high school students report ever having had sexual intercourse in 2011.

Hormones released during sex are

Intended to bond partners. Early multiple partners can “wear out “ the natural bonding of sexual relations, disconnecting relations & sex from higher purpose. CDC. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System: US, 2011. MMWR, 61(-4). 2012

Fundamentally Relational and Naturally Seek Meaning and Purpose

“Children are biologically "hardwired" for enduring attachments to other people and for moral and spiritual meaning. Meeting children's needs for enduring attachments and for moral and spiritual meaning is the best way to ensure their healthy development.” Commission on Children at Risk

Human Attachment and Moral Development

The beginning of morality is primed in close genuine relationships with one’s parents

– the essential foundation for the emergence of conscience and of moral meaning

– the human child is talked into talking and loved into loving

Primary nurturing relationships influence early spiritual development “The child spontaneously attributes to his parents

the perfections and abilities which he will later transfer to God if his religious education gives him the possibility.”

Jean Piaget

© IEF 18

© IEF 18

FSL 5.2.3sFSL 5.2.3s

The natural order of the family teaches natural social order

and living for a higher purpose.

Adults Need Genuine AttachmentMarriages do not need more excitement, activity, glitz

but they yearn for depth in connection.

Doha International Family Institute IYF Conference on Empowering Families: A

Pathway to DevelopmentDoha, Qatar April 16-17, 2014

UPF Secretary General, Taj Hamad

UPF Partnership in Sydney Conference and Co-sponsorship in UN NY

NGO Collaboration: Getting Family in the SDGs

Family Watch International,

Sharon Slater

Statement Submissions, Open Working Group, ECOSOC Meetings

CoNGO MembershipCo-chair of NGO Committee on the Family

http://ngofamily-ny.org

Parents Advantage

The mechanisms of attachment…– oxytocin, and vasopressin

• social bonding manifests itself biochemically in the reward circuitry located deep in the cortex of the brain

– hormones in the human bonding process• including dopamine, prolactin, endogenous opioid peptides, and steroid

hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone

• help to trigger parental care, which in turn helps to trigger the release of more attachment hormones

ITALY: An interreligious program in Bergamo on “Faith in the Family”

NIGERIA: A conference in Uyo, Awka Ibom State

CZECH REPUBLIC: A conference in the Parliament

Programs organized inAustriaIndiaPeruUSA

March for Marriage, June 19, 2014 https://www.nationformarriage.org/

NOM Dinner Public Square Leadership Award to

Ryan Anderson and Marriage Champion Award to

Dr. Ben CarsonIntroduced by Prof. Robert George,

Princeton University

(Co-authored George, Anderson and Sherif Girgis)

Youth Risk Increasing

• Since the 1950s, death rates among U.S. young people due to unintentional injuries, cancer, and heart disease have all fallen by about 50 percent

• death rates overall have dropped by about 53 percent

– homicide death rates among U.S. youth rose by more than 130 percent

– Suicide rates (the third leading cause of death among U.S. young people) rose by nearly 140 percent

Our Intellectual Models are Inadequate…• The Pharmacological Model

– enormous benefits for millions of suffering patients

– mental illness is still under-treated in the U.S.– current lack of resources to treat children with

major mental illness is a serious problem – significant progress in many areas of individual

treatment, especially those using psychotropic drugs and specific psychotherapies

– but collectively regressing in the area of prevention

UNIVERSAL PEACE FEDERATION

Albania, Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Cambodia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Ecuador,

Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand,

Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Switzerland, UK, USA, Zambia

CSD February 2014 “Family as Social Driver” with Ambassadors from El Salvador, Qatar, Romania,

Nigeria and IFFD, Howard Institute, Family Watch International

The Family and the MDGS: Using Family Capital to Achieve the 8 Millennium Development Goals

Published by the Doha International Family Institute Our contribution, Chapter 3 on MDG 3: Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

Parenting Differences

Human Beings are Relational Beings.Need Secure Bonding to Thrive