Don't be a monster parent, warn experts

NEW DELHI: Saddam Hussein has been competing with Madelyn Toogood as America’s national hate figure recently.
Young Toogood did not live up to her name when she was captured by surveillance videos slapping and punching her four-year-old daughter, Martha, who opened up packages and dropped things while shopping in a department store. America calls this young woman Monster Mom, but look into our Indian homes and the line between disciplining and child abuse looks blurred.
Given that over one million children run away from Indian homes every year, — the figure is arrived at by experts from extrapolating the number of homeless children in the major cities in India which ranges from two to three lakh each — Indian parents should watch it.
Don’t be surprised — beating up children has traditionally been seen as a parental right in India. Even today, dad beats up mom, mom beats up child and child beats up Teddy. But experts say it is NOT OK to beat up children.
Why do parents use physical means and why is it counter- productive?
* Parents beat up children to discipline and teach them lessons. But according to Vatsala Sivasubramanian, a counsellor with Mira Nursery School, ‘‘learning never takes place in a situation of fear.’’ Story-telling and increasing communication works.
* Parents spank children to give vent to their own frustration, anger and tiredness. Says Rajat Mitra, a clinical psychologist: ‘‘Deal with your own anger.’’ Working with hardened criminals, Mitra has found most of them have witnessed or faced severe violence as children.
* Some parents become violent with their children to settle scores with their partners, according to Jitender Nagpal of VIMHANS Hospital. ‘‘The message that the child gets is — it is alright to beat up someone when you are angry with them,’’ says Sivasubramanian.
* Parents use physical force to gain control over children. ‘‘Many children seek thrill and excitement by subjugating other children,’’ says Mitra.
Alice Miller, a German psychologist raised a controversy in the 80s stating — 75 per cent of violent parents were unseen in Western societies. Mitra feels that the study applies in today’s Indian context, to nuclear families and stressful lives. ‘‘The notion of motherhood is far too elevated in India,’’ he says. ‘‘Because of the expectations from an Indian mother, many women often end up playing a role,’’ he adds.
Experts say that often damaged eardrums and injuries are the less harmful symptoms in children who face physical violence at home. Emotional scars last life-long. Also, witnessing violence is nearly as damaging as facing it as a child’s threat-perception is greatly heightened when another person is being abused in front of them.
However, parents sometimes try hard and fail which is when they loose it. As Nagpal points out, 40 to 60 per cent teachers and parents in a recent school mental health research reflected that ‘‘there was an emerging trend of defiance and oppositional behaviour, with shades of hostility amongst 5 to 12 year-olds. More and more children manipulated their parents and played them off against one another.’’
The answer, experts say, lies in talking to children more, use story telling as a method of teaching and forming support groups with other parents. If nothing works go back to the basics — use common sense!