JEDDAH, 20 July 2005 — To embarrass or beat a child in public has become a frequent affair. Every society wishes for a mentally and physically healthy young population but not all work toward its achievement. Though these incidents can be very disturbing to witness, many choose to watch in silence.
“People must take action and advise each other in order to help our children. This is essential if we want our young to acquire self-esteem and confidence,” said Dr. Malak Saber, a specialist in education and head of the Arts & Humanities Department at the College of Education for Girls in Jeddah.
Many people can narrate stories of parents mistreating their children in front of others. Reem Al-Ahmad, who works for a private company, told of an incident she witnessed when she went to a coffee shop recently.
“A woman in her late 30s was sitting at the table next to me with two children. The woman was on the phone from the time I came and until I left, swearing and using words that definitely should not be used in front of kids. Unfortunately, her eight-year-old child asked her to have an ice-cream. This made her hang up the phone and slap his and his sister’s faces for having interrupted her phone conversation.”
Khaled Rabeea, a biochemical engineer, told Arab News another example where a father publicly abused his child in a supermarket. “The six- or seven-year-old asked his mother to have two candies instead of one. The mother refused and held his little daughter’s arm in a manner which I believe could well have broken it. The parents did not care that their daughter was crying, nor that people were staring. The mother just dragged her daughter like you drag a sheep back to its herd,” he said.
Rabeea added that he was afraid to interrupt the parents because he did not want to get involved in the upbringing of someone else’s child.
Dian Fredrik, a foreigner in the Kingdom, explained that in her country such an act would not happen in public.
“Whenever this behavior occurs, people call the police or the social services to have the parents investigated. No one would watch a child get beaten without interfering,” she said.
“When you give your child love and care, he will treat you and the people in his surroundings the same way. If you ignore his needs and opinions when he is a child, you will receive the same treatment when he grows up,” said Dr. Malak.
Parents are required by Islam to teach their kids how to pray from the age of seven. If the child reaches 10 and he still has not prayed, his parents must beat him but in a harmless way only to let him know it is important.
“If beating is not mentioned in religion unless in connection to something as important as prayers, why do we hurt our children for a candy or a toy,” she asked.
She said that society must prevent humiliation and secure children’s self-confidence. Every child has needs that had to be fulfilled, but they did not know how to express them.
“As a natural consequence,” she said, “we found toddlers crying or begging for their wishes to be granted. Once we explained to the child the reasons behind our banning them from something, they would not question it as much and hopefully would not do it again. When parents use beating as a means to stop the child from doing something, the relief is only temporary. The child does not learn why he was punished and he will continue to do it again until he knows.
“Instead of refusing them a can of soda, we could tell them how bad it is for their teeth and offer fresh juice, telling them that they need these types of sweets with vitamins while they are still growing.”
Dr. Malak concluded that when childhood is soiled with humiliations, embarrassment and pain, they are inevitably affected and it will be manifested as they grow up. Parents who bring pain to their children can be held to blame if the child consequently has difficulty in adapting to society.
Parents must be educated even before marriage about weaning, early childhood, late childhood and puberty. She added that these courses are beneficial for all men and women because even if they do not become a father or a mother themselves, they will be an uncle, an aunt, a sister or a brother to a child one day. “This is how we can produce intelligent generations to come,” she concluded.
