With my husband’s permission I am sharing part of the story of his childhood. He was raised by authoritarian parents, where insulting language and physical punishment was the norm. Children opinions were not considered. He and his siblings were often called stupid. Being beaten with hands, as well as, wooden spoons or belts was common. As the boys got older the violence could escalate to actual fist fights with their dad. My husband and his brothers became known as the terrors of the neighborhood often bulling others and getting into fights in school.
Becoming a bully I believe, was actually a coping mechanism for them. My husband was not allowed to express his anger at home or try to defend himself with words so he took it out on others that were defenseless against him. He is not proud of this and has shared his story with our children. Other ways my husband coped was to be very careful not to break the rules and to spend as much time out of the house as possible.
When it came to raising our children, my husband knew he did not want to repeat what his parents had done to him so he said I was in charge of all parenting decisions. Working together I explained my reasons for using more authoritative approach. Teaching him what our children were actually capable of understanding as developmentally. We did not use any type of physical punishment, just lots of redirection and a system of natural and logical consequences.
My husband has had to do much work to learn to control his anger. He sought counseling and became very involved in his faith and our church. Inanimate objects are still in danger of being thrown if he is having a particularly tough day. Most of our friends and his colleges would be shocked to find out that he struggles with self-esteem issues on occasion. Because my husband was strong enough to recognize his emotional challenges and was willing to work on the issues they created, he is a fabulous father with children who turn to him and are willing to discuss anything with him. He has healed some of his relationship with his father; our son was a conduit for that. His father is a completely different man with our son, who spends a part of his summer visiting his grandfather several states away each year.
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A 2008 article published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, showed the results of a study conducted in Brazil on the effects of severe physical punishment. The study states that many stressors can affect a child’s mental health and severe physical punishment is one of them. The other main factor was maternal anxiety and depression. The behaviors children in this study exhibited showing external signs of mental health issues were aggression, as well as, vandalism and robbery. Internalized signs were symptoms of depression. The researchers see these as modifiable risk factors and believe intervention and parent education could help parents modify their behavior and adopt healthier parenting techniques.
In doing this research I also found an organization called the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children. There are quotes from children who have participated in research studies around the world. The quotes from some Brazilian children included: from 10-12 year olds “Hitting is useless, it should be talking” & “I think it is very ugly to be beaten” A 13 year old girl said “My father hits for nothing, he hits to see his child cry” and a 14 year old boy “My mother hits me, but not to hurt me, just so that I’ll be a real man when I grow-up”. I found these and other quotes very telling of how children see corporal punishment.
In June 2007, a campaign was launched in Brazil to prohibit corporal punishment by Educate do not Punish, which is a network of institutions that works as a social movement trying to stop all types of corporal punishment. The have a website where scholarly papers and articles on the effects of corporal punishment can be found. In addition there are manuals for parents. This group establishes trainings for parents and educators. In 2010, a Bill was sent by Brazilian President Lula to congress to establish the rights of children to be educated and cared for without the use of corporal punishment.
References
Azevedo, M. A. & Azevedo Guerra, V. N., (2001) Hitting Mania: Domestic corporal punishment of children and adolescents in Brazil, Sao Paulo: IGLU Editoria. Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children. Retrieved from http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/frame.html
Bordin, I. A., Duarte, C. S., Peres, C. A., Nascimento, R., Curto, B. M., & Paula, C.S. (2008, August). Severe physical punishment: risk of mental health problems for poor urban children in Brazil. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/5/07-043125/en/
Educate do not Punish. Retrieved from http://www.naobataeduque.org.br/site/reforma_legal/brasil.php
Wow! Thanks for sharing Michelle. I believe this is prevalent in so many households. My fiance' and I always reflect on how our parents and our parent's parents and their parent's parents were not exposed to wealth of information that is now available on parenting, parent education and child development. I believe it is great that your husband made a decision to break the cycle, so to speak. Thanks for sharing...
ReplyDeleteMichele, it's great that your husband was able to learn from his situation. It's sad that even today there are parents that still believe in the "I'm big, you're little. I'm right, you're wrong" method of raising children. This was a line from a favorite movie, Matilda, that I'll never forget and I use it to educate the parents I work with.
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