Reports of extreme violence against children, at home and at school, are increasingly in the headlines. So too are reports of youngsters turning to psychiatrists and social workers for the support they do not get from families or teachers.
Doubtless, many older people will say that violence against children is nothing new, that they and their fathers before them were whipped for domestic misdemeanors, that there were teachers who were sadists, that the only thing that is new is that today there are newspapers and television stations to report it all. They have a point. But a limited one. Instances of students assaulting their teachers are also increasingly common; that did not happen 30 or 40 years ago, or even 15.
There is a breakdown in communication between parents and children, which is why some children are turning elsewhere for help. This dysfunctionality goes beyond bad parents or bad teachers.
We live in a society undergoing tremendous change, not just material and technological, but social as well. People have moved from the extended family, which provided backup and support, into small houses and apartments designed for the nuclear family. There is a breakdown in the traditional norms of family hierarchy and authority. Add to this today’s rampant materialism, with TV commercials and advertising hoardings telling us that the world is our oyster provided we have the cash. Add to that children believing that everything is theirs to be had, and we have a crisis. Fathers are transformed from being the ever-present, guiding head of the household into the often-absent but always expected constant provider of instant cash; mothers are left without backup; and children who always want the same thing as, or something better than, their school friends incessantly demand this or that. The result is parents who cannot cope, who buy off their responsibilities to their offspring with toys, mobile phones, the latest fashionable clothes, laptops and, as soon as they are old enough, cars -- who think, in other words, that they are being good parents by giving in to their children’s every demand.
It is no good blaming society. Not all parents, not all teachers fail. Far from it. In cases of teachers who are violent or cannot cope, the remedy is easy enough; they can be punished or replaced. Likewise, parents who are violent must also be punished and, where necessary, removed by preventing access to children and quick divorces; the police and legal establishment certainly need to have the power to act far more responsively.
But parents who cannot cope or are irresponsible are another matter. They cannot be replaced like teachers. One way forward might be something that has proved successful in other parts of the world: Courses in parenting. Parents need, if necessary, to learn to be responsible for their children, to guide them and provide them with the moral and social parameters that will make them fit citizens for the future. Children who grow up without a strong identity as a member of a loving, caring and protecting family are themselves unlikely to become responsible parents.
