World Children’s Day: “I thought I was the perfect mom, but I wasn’t”

Many children are exposed to violence by people they trust, such as their parents, guardians, teachers, peers and neighbors, which exposes them to serious dangers that can follow them throughout their lives.

Yasmina felt frustrated, scared and ashamed at the same time when she received a call from a social worker who asked her to make an appointment to visit her to discuss what she described as “the abuse of her child”.

Yasmina says: “I used to think that I was an ideal and modern mother, and I offer my daughter, who suffers from learning difficulties, what no other mother does, because out of my love and concern for her future, I provide her with everything related with her well-being, including healthy food, games, outings and private lessons in music, sports and drama.” Which costs me large sums of money, skimping on expenses and neglecting my own needs for their benefit.

But Yasmina now realizes that she is “not perfect”, and that one of the reasons for her daughter’s violent behavior is her ignorance of some important subtleties that she must follow with her child.

Standards for the welfare and appropriate education of children vary depending on the beliefs of the societies, cultures and countries to which the parents belong, and the availability and effectiveness of childcare services.

For example, in Eastern and Arab societies, customs, traditions and education based on religious foundations and traditions that are passed down through generations prevail, in addition to frequent reproaches, unfavorable descriptions and inappropriate words used to describe a child.

In developed countries, civil and social institutions and organizations play an important role in passing laws on child rearing and adolescent care, defining acts that fall within the scope of violence against children and punishing perpetrators.

And there are children who have aggressive and violent behavior that is much more dangerous than what we may know, so it is very important to know the reasons that make some children behave aggressively and to treat them, instead of punishing them for wrongdoing and violence in a way that only creates more violence.

It is important to know that violent behavior in children does not come from a vacuum and no child is born with violent behavior. Knowing and understanding the reasons that force a child to aggressive and violent behavior leads us to the right solutions.

Some of the reasons are psychological and emotional, which the child receives from parents, relatives and the environment. Children are the mirror of adults.

Some of them can be caused by medical reasons, such as autism, but the disease is not diagnosed and the parents are not aware of it, so they treat the child strictly and violently, thinking that the child is aggressive, not realizing that there is a flaw in the way of dealing with the child, and not in the child itself. .

dr. and psychotherapist Sahar Talaat says: “A child expresses his independence in the early stages of his life by screaming and showing feelings of anger and rebellion when he is prevented from doing something. Therefore, it is very necessary to understand the child’s psychological needs, including accepting his opinions and feelings, and not trying to suppression or alteration.” By force”.

And he adds: “Children are very sensitive. They understand, get angry and learn from situations. If parents control the child’s anger and know how to deal with it in every situation without intimidating, intimidating or suppressing their feelings, the child will only learn from experience, but that it does not mean that the parents give in to everything the child asks for and give him what he wants, so the child learns from that that he can get everything just by screaming or showing anger.”

Balance is an important thing in the relationship between parents and children, neither strictness nor excessive flexibility will give good results.

Before holding children accountable or punishing them for bad behavior, “parents must monitor themselves and look for mistakes in their upbringing, because they are role models for their children,” says Talaat.

Going back to Yasmina and asking her if she is familiar with the way of raising her daughter or not, she says, “I know that I have to deal with her in the way of explaining, persuading and being patient, but I’m human too. The social worker would send a baby trainer to my house to spend some time with us and guide me on how to deal with my daughter’s behavior.”

In Arab societies, early diagnosis of autism and learning disabilities is not common, so people think that a child born with learning disabilities is stupid or mentally retarded, and this is what worsens the child’s condition.

Joanna, 39, has a daughter who was born with autism and was diagnosed when she was one.

Joanna says she is lucky to live in a European country and her daughter was diagnosed with the disease at an early age.

“My brother has the same disease, but we didn’t know or hear about a disease called learning disabilities. When we were in Syria, everyone, including my parents, thought that our younger brother was stupid and lazy, but now I feel I blame him, because I know my brother wasn’t stupid or anything like that.” Something like that, but he had special needs, and that’s our fault because we didn’t recognize that he had special needs and we didn’t treat him fairly.”

She adds: “I told all my brothers and sisters about my brother’s situation, because his behavior is very similar to my daughter’s behavior, so that they stop blaming him or holding him responsible for the mistakes he makes, because his understanding and assessment of events and the solutions he finds for himself are completely are different from our method.”

Children with ADHD suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders, which lead to distractibility and a lack of control over their behavior or impulsivity that can have serious consequences, and they have difficulty with self-control when asked to be quiet.

And if the parents are not familiar with this disease, its symptoms and ways to deal with it, they will act harshly and violently to control the child, which leads to the opposite reaction and the child becomes more aggressive and violent.

says Fatima (41), an Iraqi woman living in Bristol : “Her child, who is almost five years old and has ADHD, has had almost unbelievable accidents.”

She told me about one of the accidents he had when he was three years old, when he jumped out of his bedroom window on the third floor, and fortunately, as you say, he landed on the only tree that was in front of the entrance. to the building, and a police car saw him when he fell, so they immediately took him to the hospital.

Fatima, who is now assisted by a child rights worker, says she does not allow her child to watch games or cartoons that contain adventure scenes, jumping, beatings or any kind of violence, as her son imitates in all his movements and actions without understanding the seriousness of his actions, which sometimes harms himself and sometimes his friends.

However, even if the child does not suffer from any disorder or disease, healthy children watching violent films provoke aggressive behavior in them, even at a temporary stage of life.

Therefore, the American Academy of Child Psychiatry recommends that children monitor what they see on electronic screens, which contain many scenes of violence, especially when they notice any change in their usual behavior.

A child suffers from emotional trauma when he is exposed to sexual or physical abuse, which means that a parent or family member treats him violently with a lot of physical punishment and threats that put him in constant fear.

For example, a father’s harsh treatment of children or mothers, i.e. insulting, loudly shouting at them and describing them with rude words that degrade their dignity and affect their dignity, leads to a permanent feeling of anxiety, fear, anger, severe depression in children. , or all feelings combined at the same time.

And in response to all this, they express their feelings and themselves in the same way, be it relatives, friends or anyone they meet in life, because they want to appear strong and undefeated to compensate for their suffering at home.

It is no secret that poverty, ignorance and bullying by school friends, neighbors and the environment around children play a big role in the emergence of aggressive behavior in children. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor their behavior and notice any change that may occur in them, and to investigate the causes and solve them by asking questions in a way that provides a lot of security to the child.

But the main problem is that in Eastern, Arab and other poor societies, many parents do not pay attention to the details or changes that occur in the behavior of their children, due to the lack of a culture of positive education and its modern methods and a lack of a culture of reading, research and reading in terms of building a family and raising children. Not to mention some other reasons beyond the will of the parents and children, such as the fact that the children lived through the war, lived through its horrors and saw before their eyes all kinds of atrocities by the warring parties, such as killing, weapons, crimes, hunger, displacement. , destruction and other tragedies.

And the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, said in her report earlier: “There are no words strong enough to describe the horrific conditions children have endured in armed conflict.”

Gamba emphasized that survivors will carry deep physical and emotional scars with them for life.

She noted that the report is a call to action to improve the protection of children in areas of armed conflict and to ensure that they are given the right opportunity to recover and thrive.

Therefore, for the sake of healthy children who are psychologically and mentally healthy, parents are advised to monitor their children’s behavior, exchange respect with them, spend pleasant moments with them, be good role models for them and be flexible in talking and accepting disagreements. Most of all, they show unconditional love for their children.