Boys are more likely to show aggressive behaviour. - File
PARENTS AND other caregivers who inflict harsh punishment on male children hardly ever see their action as abuse. Neither do they intend to scar them permanently, either emotionally or physically, social workers are reporting. Instead, it is the result of our culture which dictates that 'tough treatment' is required by boys, and by extension, all children who are 'hard of hearing'.
A female guidance counsellor at a Kingston high school, who did not wish to be named, said that, "in my experience I find that they treat boys harsher because they think they are tougher."
Recent surveys also show that in 90 per cent of cases where both boys and girls were physically abused or injured, the physical reprimand was not accompanied by the intent to ill-treat.
Quoting this statistic, Dr. Ganesh Shettey, psychiatrist at the child guidance clinic at the Bustamante Children's Hospital, said: "There is hope. If we can sensitise parents in new ways to manage behaviour and ways to mange their own feelings and frustrations..." we might see a change in the levels of abuse.
EMOTIONAL IMPAIRMENT
Unfortunately, Dr. Shettey also notes, the consequence of boxing, hitting, kicking and chopping children is emotional impairment, frequently for life, especially where this abuse occurs early and persistently in their lives.
The problem is a pervasive one.
"My experience in Jamaica is that hitting with belt and sticks is omnipresent. There is also pushing, with children being flung bodily into furniture," Dr. Shettey said.
The psychiatrist states that boys are more physically abused generally, percentage wise, with more harsher physical reprimands. If the child is less than five years old, the structure of the brain will be affected, as will be the mental schemas around which he perceives the world. Abuse becomes a part of life, both to be experienced and to be meted out. Such a child will resort to solving conflict at home and school with fighting. This has implications for crime, the psychiatrist said. It also has implications for their relationships as they grow older.
"They perceive the world and the way to interact as 'might is right'. The quality of their relationships is also superficial and poor. Abused boys may also align themselves with other aggressive children, leading to gang involvement.
POOR SOCIAL SKILLS
"They do not do well in school and have poor social skills. Aligning themselves to other troubled children, they may also get involved in substance abuse.
Senior social worker attached to the Child Development Agency, Alma-Bailey Morris, stated that boys are also generally more neglected than girls.
"Our socialisation is to pamper and protect girls. A mother who is migrating will ask for help for her daughter, but she will be more inclined to leave the boy on his own to fend for himself.
Boys, she said, are also more likely to be abandoned, citing the street-boy trend and also one case in St. Thomas in 2003 where an eight-year-old boy was found living on his own in a dilapidated wooden building, surviving on odd jobs. His mother was living in a common-law-relationship where the man did not want the young boy.
Generally, in homes, boys are reared in a way which is expected to make them tough, she added. While little girls who fall are quickly taken up, hushed and kissed, a boy who falls and cries is more likely to be ignored, even if he hurts himself. Harsh physical discipline is an extension of this parental attitude.
"No child needs physical abuse," said the guidance counsellor from the high school in Kingston. "There are ways and means to discipline a child without inflicting pain and injury." But parents, she said, resorted to physical abuse, as they are not exposed to proper methods of parenting. "They do not know better."
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