View/Open - University of Zululand Institutional Repository

(i) Lack of security
[99]
If a child is not offered a guarantee of security by his educators, he is exposed to
danger and no longer exists in close connection with the adults with whom he should
have been allied by the shared goal of his own adulthood (Lubbers 1971:55).
(ii) Obscured future perspective
If the future is obscured in the child's view, there is little to look forward to or to
expect and there are no plans or tasks, however small, waiting to be fulfilled (Ter
Horst 1973: 97).
(iii) Affective or emotional neglect
The unfavourable course that education may run, always implies that the educational
relationships are likewise being inadequately realised (Van Niekerk 1987 : 15). A child
may consequently experience little or no sense in relationships. This results in his
being "unwilling" to risk total involvement with any educator. A lack of mutual trust,
understanding and sympathetic authoritative guidance always implies that the child
must suffer neglect in respect of not only his affective, but also his intellectual and
moral development. He will consequently explore the educational contents
inadequately, so that the educational encounter is likewise inadequately preformed by
his pre-eognitive (intuitive) reconnaissance. Destabilised trust and confidence then
indeed lead to half-heartedness by suppressing the urge to explore.
When the educational encounter is lukewarm or is based on uncertainty, it cannot
come to fruition. When the educator fails to grant the child the opportunity to
experience trust and faith, he actually becomes a threat to the child. A child who lacks
trust and confidence is labile or even impulsive in his emotional life. Whenever it is
impossible for a child to trust and to have faith in his educators, the relationship of
understanding is also bound to fail because such educators do not really understand
the child or what is happening to him. They especially have little insight into the full