Violence Against Children
Document Title: Violence Against Children
Document Ref No: R9009261
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer
Publication Date: September 26th 1990
Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC
"Don't take it out on the kids"
In one way or another we are all victims of child abuse. We may never recognize
it and would find it difficult to acknowledge. The most damaging child abuse
takes place between the ages of one and four. After that the unmistakable
character of the person is formed and it is molded and shaped by the conscious
or unconscious attitudes of the parents or child minders.
It is common knowledge among child care workers and psychologists that most
child abusers have themselves been abused.
The life-long legacy of child abuse is emotional pain, repressed anger and
frustration and when unresolved by psychotherapy it flares out in violence.
That violence is frequently directed against children, mostly one's own
who cannot defend themselves in any way.
Violence in adults is also traced to these early childhood experiences of
abuse. Abused children grow up and often imitate their abusers but not always.
Abusing children is a learned behavior. The child is born innocent and only
after suffering injustice learns to act unjustly.
Others overcome their pain and dedicate their lives to fight injustice,
personal and social.
The child who is seriously abused later learns to be abusive, hostile and
violent to others. This it learns from adults by observation and experience.
Abuse can be varied - emotional, physical, verbal or even sexual.
Parents or substitutes are the first human beings encountered by the child,
their knowledge of what an adult is comes from this experience. Likewise
their experience of what love is comes from what they experience with their
parents. If there is abuse the child cannot easily learn to love others
successfully.
The basic need to be loved will be unsatisfied and the demand for satisfaction
will dominate all relationships. It will be all take and no give, so to
speak. There will be constant nagging, petty demands and the person can
never be easily satisfied.
This is one of the reasons why few people can really love each other. We
can give spiritual advice until we are exhausted but if a person has been
denied love and has been abused in childhood, loving others is a struggle
indeed.
It is parent against child, child against parent, friendships seldom begin,
marriages fail and broken homes abound. Children growing up under such conditions
can frequently become harsh disciplinary and unforgiving parents themselves.
Child abuse when severe and violent distorts children and turns them into
child abusers themselves. It gives rise to people of violence - wife and
child beaters, unfaithful wives or husbands, crooks, gangsters, killers,
torturers, despots and dictators.
The influence of the parent over the child is total, absolute and complete.
The child is so dependent on its parents and so mesmerized by them that
whatever they do, cruel or unjust as it may be, is mistaken by the child
as an act of love, bizarre as that may seem.
Parents frequently justify and reinforce their 'unloving' treatment by telling
their children and anybody else who wants to listen that "It is for
the child's own good", and might add, "that's how my parents brought
me up and I am not a bad human being".
The first six to twelve months of life are the most crucial in determining
the future character and personality of the child. It is during this period
that the child internalizes through experience 'what a parent and adult
is' and models himself on it.
In later life that learning experience is hard to undo and as a grown adult
that child will in many cases treat its own children the same. Child abuse
is a vicious cycle.
Much of the abuse dished out as so called love; by parents or child minders,
is of the variety that uses rejection, threats or disapproval to train,
control, dominate and rule the child.
Fear then, subtle or direct is the fire in the oven of life where hearts
are hardened and sometimes blackened. Some parents or child-minders warn
little children "behave or the aswang or bogeyman will get you".
A crying child is silenced and dominated by a stamping foot or a harsh word,
perhaps an angry look.
Parents like these are sometimes repeating the child-rearing methods used
on them. The child's natural impulse to cry or react to discomfort, want
or need can be cut off by any of the above methods. The effects are psychologically
damaging.
The feelings, of anger, sadness, rage or disappointment are buried within
the inner heart and if they cannot be released they burden and cripple the
individual throughout life.
The reason that all of this happens is that the child is totally defenseless.
He or she cannot protest, fight back, or do anything to defend his or herself.
It is a setting where dominating and even cruel impulses in the parents
or the child-minder have full reign. They can do anything they like with
impunity.
For the parents, might is right, because there is no one to challenge or
question their behavior towards the child.
When a child learns that all feelings and expressions of pain, hurt or discomfort
will not be tolerated and he risks more rejection and punishment if he tries
to express feelings, he soon clams up and grows silent, much to the satisfaction
of the parent or child-minder.
They have achieved their goal, they are master over the child but cannot
see or anticipate the disastrous consequences of what they have done. People
who treat their children in this way, and there are many, neither recognize
or admit that the child has the very same rights as an adult and even more
because it is weak,defenseless and vulnerable.
The right most frequently violated it seems is the right to be protected
from emotional or physical threats and coercion.
Such abusive child-rearing attitudes create deep pools of pain in individuals
that are difficult to resolve and come to terms with as the child grows
older. There is an unconscious rebellion against parents as the child learns
to be strong. They seek new relationships outside the family and try to
forget their "problems"(or history of abuse) by using alcohol
or drugs.
At the Preda center, in Olongapo where I work we try to undo the untold
damage of childhood. Here we help the patients confront the source of their
pain and feel their way through it.
Helping drug dependents and abused children overcome these barriers to a
healthy life is just a mopping operation. Prevention is the most important.
Changing peoples attitudes, bringing them to a realization of their own
unconscious pain and helping them "not to take it out on the kids"
is the more important work.
