Are you a problem parent?
By Kuldip Dhiman

AFTER being beaten mercilessly with a leather belt, the eight-year-old boy was dragged out of his house by his father. He was then stripped off his clothes and tied to a street pole. As he hung his head in shame and tried to avoid the penetrating gaze of children and grown-ups who had gathered to watch the spectacle, his father shaved off the helpless boy’s head with a razor blade. What had the little boy done to deserve such a barbaric punishment? The father had found a couple of cigarette butts in his son’s pocket. By punishing him in this manner, the father hoped that his son would never smoke a cigarette again in his life.

However, the fact is that the boy did not give up smoking. On the contrary, he started smoking more after this ghastly incident. The only difference was that he was more careful the next time. He even started taking drugs, was unable to go through college, and later found it difficult to establish relationships with other people.

The question is who is the problem here: the child or the parent?

The children known as ‘battered babies’ are kicked, beaten, strangled, physically and mentally tortured and quite often abused sexually by their own parents. Those who survive such brutal treatment suffer irreparable mental, physical and emotional damage that haunts them all their lives.

Problem children or problem parents?

Who are the parents who abuse their own children, and why do they do so? Contrary to the general belief that they belong to the poorer sections of society, they actually come from all segments of the population, from all income levels, all ranges of intelligence, and all cultural, religious and racial groups. Abusing parents are emotional cripples who, ironically, love their children in their own pathetic way. Typically, they themselves were often beaten as children and were emotionally deprived or exploited so that they never developed the ‘basic trust’ that is essential for a meaningful relationship. Because their emotional needs were never fulfilled by their parents and life-partners, they often turn to their children. And when they feel that their children are not reciprocating the way they would like them to, these parents unleash a reign of terror on them. Able to think only of their own needs, they virtually reverse the parent-child relationship, and are unrealistic in their expectations. They try to fulfil their unrealised desires through their children. For example, a mother who failed to become a scientist, might force her daughter to become one, irrespective of the little girl’s talents or personal desires. Unfortunately, the cycle continues because children of such parents often grow up to be abusive parents themselves.

What children expect from their parents

Commenting on the touchy issue of parent-child relationship, Dr Vidhu Mohan, professor of psychology at Panjab University, says. "I would like to use the term problem parents rather than problem children. It is faulty parenting that creates problematic children. From my studies of middle class parents and children that I have been conducting in this region since the 1980s, I realised that it was actually parents’ attitude and inadequate or wrong child-rearing practice that was responsible for this pathetic situation. Parents use the trial and error method." Elaborating further on why some children become ‘difficult’, she says, "There are multiple factors, sometimes there can be genetic reasons, at other times domestic and social environment can play a role. There may be physical retardation or a handicap that might create problems for the child. Since the formative years of a child are spent at home with its parents and siblings, the problems usually start at home and might later get accentuated in other walks of life. For instance, parents often think that all children are alike; they expect all children to function according to set norms and preconceived notions. You must remember that each child is unique, and has to be treated according to its temperament".

Allaying fears about individualised treatment might lead to jealousy among siblings, she says, "I am not suggesting preferential treatment. I am talking about individualised child-rearing. One child might be extrovert, fun-loving, the other might be introvert, shy, and highly sensitive, you can’t treat both in the same way. Even identical twins do not have identical personalities. How can you, then, treat all children the same way? To make matters worse, parents usually start comparing one child with another. ‘Look, your younger brother is so well-behaved, gets good marks, and you are such an idiot’, That is where the problems begin."

To learn more about child-rearing practices in India, Dr Vidhu Mohan decided to see the problem from the child’s point of view. "In order to find out how children perceived their parents, I made a scale with ten sub areas: academic, social, recreation, economic independence, nutrition, clothing, sex education, demonstration of love, personality development, and health. In the academic area, I found that most parents were taking a lot of interest in their children’s studies and career. In fact they were overdoing it. Regarding their child’s social sphere, most of them did not even know who their child’s friends were. Very few parents invited their children’s friends to lunch or tea so that their children got the satisfaction that party is for them and their friends. Recreation meant just TV and films. Very few took their children for a picnic, or took them to a park. Parents felt that they were doing enough, but the children felt they were not.

"Parents lead a busy life and might plead that they don’t have enough time to spend with their children. Let me emphasise that it is not how much time you spend with your child that matters, it is how well you spend that time. Then coming to economic independence — earlier there was no concept of pocket money. Pocket money does not mean you have to dole out thousands of rupees to the child: no, you will spoil the child. Pocket money means you give enough to the child on the basis of its needs every month. Open a savings account in the name of your child, let the child manage its own budget. This way it will be more responsible and feel proud of its savings.

"About nutrition, children felt that they were being fed well, although they did not know what a healthy diet was. Most children said they like to dress well. The clothes need not be very expensive, but they should keep with current fashion trends. Regarding sex education, the communication was very, very low. Whether they were educated or uneducated, working or non-working, parents shied away from this subject and children had to grope in darkness to find solutions to their problems. Lack of education about their own bodies can lead to tremendous stress on children, and if they are unable to cope, they might resort to troublesome behaviour.

"Then most parents did not make ample demonstration of love. They did not touch enough, they did not pat or kiss their children, especially boys. It is very important that you demonstrate your love occasionally to satiate what is known as ‘skin hunger’ of the child. Just feeding them and providing them with basic comforts is not enough. This was illustrated beautifully by an experiment conducted by Harlow and Zimmerman in 1959. Baby monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth and reared by surrogate mothers made of terry cloth and wire mesh. The terry cloth mother was warm like a soft toy but did not have a milk bottle attached to it; the wire mesh mother, on the other hand, had a milk bottle but as the name suggests, she was made of steel wires. It was observed that when the baby monkeys were hungry they went to the wire-mesh mother, but after satisfying their hunger they immediately returned and hugged the terry-cloth mother. Contact comfort, not feeding, was shown to be a central component of dependency behaviour. So, it is a must to give enough warmth and love to your child."

Nature vs nurture

In spite of the advances made in child-rearing techniques, it is very difficult to give a guideline to parents because child development is not an even process. There are periods of rapid changes, and then there may be a sort of plateau during which the child may not make much progress. A boy who is growing rapidly may not be growing at the same rate emotionally or intellectually, and later his physical growth may slow down and his emotional growth may speed up. Another child may be very advanced intellectually but continue to behave in the manner of children two or three years younger. In a year or two, the relative level of development may be the same or may reverse itself. The child who used to be the tallest in his class might find himself dwarfed by his classmates, and the child who shone intellectually may be surpassed by a relatively average child. Then there are some children who develop quite uniformly in all areas. Parents should make allowances for this unevenness of development.

Although genetic factors influence the future of a child to a great extent, environment at home and outside also play a major role. In another famous experiment two groups of baby monkeys were separated from their mothers had reared in two different isolated environments. Group A was brought up in room that had brightly coloured walls, a lot of swings, slides, and other play equipment that we see in a children’s park. Group B was given the basic food and comforts, but their room was painted dull-white with no decoration of any sort. They were given no toys or swings or any other thing to play with. As time passed, it was observed that the monkeys of Group A grew up to be very active, very outgoing, and very intelligent. The second group became very quiet, shy, and withdrawn, and were not interested in their surroundings. After a considerable period, the two sets of monkeys were combined and put into an entirely different and strange environment. Researchers were not so surprised to learn that the monkeys of Group A adapted to the new surroundings within minutes. They were not afraid to explore the new environment, new toys and other apparatus. And they in no way felt threatened by the monkeys of Group B. The monkeys of Group B, on the other hand, were so afraid of the new set-up and companions that they were trembling with fear and tended to cling to one another. They were afraid to touch simple toys, and showed no inclination to learn new things. Utterly confused and scared, they withdrew to a safe corner of the room.

In the nature vs nurture debate, it is unfortunate that people choose to hold extreme views. Dr John B. Watson (1878-1958), the father of modern behaviourism, believed that human beings were illimitably trainable. He declared: "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own special world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select — doctor, lawyer, artist,merchant, and yes, even beggar and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors." A very impressive statement that might be lapped up by any ambitious parent, but life is not so elementary. If his hypothesis was right, then why couldn’t Dr Watson mass produce Shakespeares, Freuds or Darwins? In fact, he failed to produce even one. If a child whose vocal cords do not function properly is forced to become a singer, life will be an unbearable torture for him. Another child who has no liking for mechanical contraptions might become an engineer, if forced, but he will definitely make a bad engineer. Similarly, not all children take to crime in spite of having gone through a deprived and abused childhood in the mean streets of a metropolis; nor do all children, who grow up in a religious shrine, become saints.

Environment, no doubt, plays a vital role in a child’s upbringing, but you cannot mould a child to factory specifications. The fact that every child comes into this world with its own unique genetic make-up and temperament cannot be over stressed. Now psychologists believe that only a bi-directional relationship between temperamental and environmental factors can explain healthy or maladaptive development of a particular individual. Psychologists Thomas and Chess propose a ‘goodness-of-fit’ model to explain how temperamental style and environmental influences act in concert to determine the course of later development. The model states that when children’s style of behaving and environmental influences are in harmony or achieve ‘good-fit’ with one another, optimum development results. When there is dissonance or a ‘poor fit’ between temperamental dispositions and environmental demands, the outcome is maladaptive functioning and distorted development.

"The goodness-of-fit model helps explain why children with difficult temperaments are at risk for later psychological disturbance," says child development psychologist Laura E. Berk. "Such children... frequently experience child-rearing environments that fit poorly with their behavioural styles. Many studies indicate that babies identified as having a difficult temperament experience less responsive caregiving and stimulating contact with their mothers in infancy. By the second year of life, mothers of difficult children are likely to use more intrusive and punitive discipline. In response, temperamentally difficult children react with recalcitrance and disobedience, and then their mothers often behave inconsistently, rewarding the child’s non-compliant behaviour by giving in to it, although initially resisting it. The difficult child’s temperament combined with the mother’s intrusive and inconsistent child-rearing techniques form a ‘poor-fit’ that serves to maintain and even increase the child’s irritable, reactive, conflict-ridden style."

What you can do

Parents worried about the problem behaviour of their child should first of all distinguish between occasional problem behaviour and persistent behaviour. Then they should consider whether the child is acting in a way that is appropriate to the age and circumstances that it finds itself in. And, finally, whether its behaviour is in keeping with its temperament. When a child misbehaves for some reason, parents should never threaten it with such words: ‘If you don’t listen to me, I will not love you’ Or don’t ever let a child know that its birth was accidental or undesired. We often hear parents who say to their daughters: "I wish I had a son instead of three daughters," or "I wish you were never born." Children need repeated assurances from their parents that no matter what happens, they will not be abandoned. The relations between parents and child should, therefore, be more than a physical bond; they should develop into a close friendship that will last for life. But if the matter is becoming serious because of either parental inadequacies or the child’s own shortcomings, parents should not shy away from consulting a child psychiatrist at the earliest. Parents can actually avoid a lot of problems if they consult a child psychologist before having children.

The important thing is to talk to your children about their problems. See their problems from their point of view, don’t go on imposing your own set of values, morals and opinions just because you were biologically responsible for bringing the child to this world. A working class father often berated his son who he felt wasn’t doing well at school: "When Abraham Lincoln was your age, he used to sell newspapers and pay for his own education, and look at yourself, you useless good-for-nothing brat." The poor child had to endure this little lecture every day. One morning, the father began as usual, "When Abraham Lincoln was your age...." The child, who was bored to death, cut him short: "Yes, dad, but by the time he was your age, he was the President of America."