Red Thread Organisation submission to outlaw beating of children

[this is reposted here 

The Clerk of the Committee

Special Select Committee On Guyana’s Commitment To The United Nations Human Rights Council With Regard To The Abolition Of Corporal Punishment In The Schools, The Abolition Of The Death Penalty And The Decriminalization Of Consensual Adult Same Sex Relations And Discrimination Against Lesbians, Gays, Bi-Sexual And Transgender Persons (Resolution No. 23 Of 2012)

Committees Division

Parliament Office

Public Buildings

Georgetown

 Dear Sir/Madam

Re : Submission on the attitude of Guyanese, especially parents and children, to corporal punishment and its possible abolition;

As an organization committed to the welfare of women and children in particular, Red Thread stands against violence in all its forms. We fully support this piece by Bonita Harris, submitted previously in 2007. It addresses corporal punishment both in the home and the school. Please note that the reason it quotes only the Christian bible is that the Bible is most often (mis)quoted to justify beating children.

There is a belief abroad in Guyana that child abuse is what depraved men and women do to children, usually to other people’s children. “Other people’s children” often include children who live in the home but who are not biologically related to the abuser. Some of these “other people’s children” also include children formally or informally adopted. Guyanese families have a long tradition of helping out by taking in other people’s children.

There is also the view that “abuse” is nasty, disgusting, excessive behaviour of an adult to a child. In such behaviour body parts of the child are touched, subjected to “feeling up” or injured. The word “violated” often used by professionals is a good word because it shares the same root as the words “violent” and “violence”

The word “violate” means to break and to break in upon, to transgress, to disregard, to harm, to profane, to desecrate, to disturb rudely or improperly, and to rape.

The term abuse means:

• to use wrongly or improperly,
• to harm,
• to misuse,
• to mistreat,
• to hurt or to injure by maltreatment,
• to attack with coarse or insulting words.

I trust it is not necessary to explain the word “child.” But I will say a few things. One, that the small human beings we call children, not only have the same human rights as other human beings, but because they are truly powerless, we, the bigger ones, have a duty and responsibility to ensure that these rights are not violated. And our human rights are derived from our being human; they are not the result of international conventions, agreements, legislation or treaties.

However, this intervention is not about the sickening-to-the-stomach forms of child abuse all too common in our country.

It is about the daily abuse mothers and fathers do to their biological offspring, some without giving it a second thought. It is about the daily abuse teachers mete out to children in their care.

In the daily abuse against our children, the body part that is almost always involved is the skin. The skin is the largest organ of the body. It is perhaps the most vital organ because it encases and protects all other organs and body parts. It is the organ most vulnerable to abuse from the outside world. It is the organ that connects our outer and inner worlds. It is the organ most closely connected to our sense of feeling and touch.

Why children become victims of assault from parents and teachers

(Or why we hit children … with some reflections.)

[This list, not exhaustive, covers many things adults also do and don’t get beat for!]

1. Lying: This must first be distinguished from making up stories and other works of the imagination quite common with young children. Children are naturally truth-tellers, until adults teach them to lie, or punish them for speaking frankly or honestly. Real lying is such a serious problem that its reasons must be searched for and the problem that led to the lies dealt with.
2. Stealing: Where stealing is concerned teachers, parents and other caregivers have to get to the root of the matter. [For example, when a plant is not growing well, we try to find out what the problem is – too much water or too little, too much sun or not enough, state of the soil and nutrition, insect infestation, and so on. No one shouts at, beats or boxes up a plant that is not growing well; we handle it gently until we can find and correct what is not right. Children deserve better treatment than plants] We would also do well to consider how our children are being shaped by the lying, stealing, and other forms of dishonesty and lack of accountability currently prevalent in our society.
3. Not helping around the home. Many adults, including men, do not like doing housework. Everyone needs to get involved in keeping their immediate environment clean. It is also not a good idea to use work as a punishment – children might get the idea that women in the household must have been very bad to be sentenced to a lifetime of housework. The physical and verbal violence we assault children with in connection with not doing cleaning chores is not helpful, especially when it is the first thing we greet them with, instead of hugs and kisses, when we return home.
4. Messing up the place. Children can be messy; but so are many male adults, especially those who have their personal slaves walking behind them picking up. Assign age-appropriate home care tasks and responsibilities to girls and boys. Praise the child when she does not make a mess. Praise the child when he does clean up after – in other words, notice the good, not only the bad.
5. Playing is children’s work. This is how they learn. Adults, especially women, need to make time for play as well.
6. Not eating. Children should never be forced to eat. Give them choices wherever possible. Like you, they have likes and dislikes. Eating should be a pleasure, not a punishment! Children are not likely to starve or be malnourished in the presence of food. Make sure that mealtimes are enjoyable, and not stressful.
7. Being disrespectful. Children who are treated respectfully at all times, and who grow up in an environment where adults display self-respect and where there is mutual respect, are hardly likely to be disrespectful. Teachers, parents and other adults in the home: Do you say and mean excuse me, please, thank you, sorry, pardon me?
8. Cursing or using bad words. Again, check yourself and other adults in the home environment to find out what examples are being set. Find out where the child is learning the words. The child may be testing you or looking for a response. Use the opportunity for teaching, language development, moral and spiritual guidance.
9. Fighting. When violence is used against children who are fighting, the message they get is that violence is okay when big people do it. They see teachers and parents using violence to solve problems. This is the main reason why violence in the home and in the school system is wrong. It teaches children that violence is not only acceptable, but is the right thing to do. It teaches children that this is how problems are solved. Genuine dialogue which involves all parties to a dispute listening to one another, reflecting on what is said and not said, responding and acting with compassion and respect, has to be consistently modeled by adults – especially those in teaching roles. The cycle of violence will only begin to end when parents and teachers and other adults stop practising violence against children.
10. Not doing as they are told. Childhood is the time for learning, so keep teaching and modeling the attitudes and behaviours you want to see in children. Remember that adults (teachers and parents) often do not do what they are told or asked to do. Bear in mind that we don’t want to raise children to be slaves or indentured labourers. We want to raise free, independent, responsible and self-respecting human beings. Insistence on ‘obedience’ is typical of dictatorships and other forms of authoritarian states. Schools should be training grounds for a democratic state. Homes should be training grounds for independent and interdependent development.
11. Doing what they were told not to do. Children naturally test limits, seeing how much they can get away with doing and not doing. Childhood is the time for teaching boundaries, respect, citizenship, values, right from wrong, building character. And don’t forget how many things adults do that they know they should not be doing!
12. “Spoil the rod and spare the child.” This is not a biblical quote, but a saying founded on Proverbs 13:24. The “rod” and “staff” were agricultural implements used by shepherds [and other livestock rearers] to guide their flock in the right direction (the rod) or rescue members of the flock when they fell into a ditch. (The staff with the hooked end became the model for the wild cane in colonial times.)

• Persons should be aware of the biblical use of metaphors, similes, parables and other forms of figurative language for teaching purposes.
• Rods and staffs, which became symbols of compassionate and right leadership, were not meant to hurt, bruise, draw blood, or punish. Consider the line from the well known psalm, “thy rod and thy staff shall comfort me,” and enquire why this is never quoted with respect to disciplining children.
• Christians, as followers of Christ, are enjoined to follow his behaviour towards children. Ask Christians to think about their reliance on “Before Christ” scriptures rather than on Christ’s New Testament/New Covenant guidance on child care.
• The stories and writings and accounts in scripture did not descend from heaven as from a fax machine! They were written, mainly by educated men in the languages of the time, and translated, rendered and re-rendered by other educated church people, again mainly men, into English and other modern languages. God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson is a useful and enlightening text. (See below for an excerpt.)

• And be reminded that the word discipline comes from the word disciple. The founders of all the world’s great faiths developed discipline and self-discipline among their disciples by using two methods: (1) leading and leadership by example, and (2) teaching and teaching and teaching and teaching and teaching …
  
  

  Many scholars interpret “He that spareth his rod hateth his son” [Proverbs 13:24] through its apparent superficial meaning, as advocating the use of physical punishment  for a child. But they do not pay attention to the important continuation  of the precept in which its principal meaning is contained:

  “But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” [Proverbs 13:24].
  The main object is not to punish – but to educate!
  The rod (Hebrew shevet) is not necessarily the whip (Hebrew shavat),
  But rather ‘shevet’ – staff or sceptre, that is, reproving, instruction.
   Or, as the Sages explain, sharp words which descend to the depth of the soul. In general, the Bible stresses that the acquisition of wisdom and knowledge must be combined with ethical training.
   [Rabbi Shmuel Avidor-Hacohen, from The Child in the Bible]
  
  Note: Early Hebrew writing did not have vowels, so both shevet (rod) and shavat (whip)  would have been written by the speaker as ‘shvt.’ A translator would therefore have had to guess what was exactly meant, to decide whether to put an ‘e’ or an ‘a’ before and after the ‘v’.

  
  
  
  “THE FIVE (5) REAL REASONS WHY WE HIT CHILDREN”
  
  
• Power (Adults hit, box, slap, cane, cuff and beat children because they have the power to do so. Adults do not assault other adults who commit the same ‘offences’ as children – either because they can’t and/or because there are laws, police and jails for adults who assault other adults.)
  
• Training (Adults hit children because they were trained to do so. Most adults were themselves hit as children and have been trained to use violence against children. Hitting boy children trains them to ‘share blows’ when they get the power to do so and hitting girl children trains them to ‘take blows.’)
• Society (Society, the Ministries of Education and Home Affairs, the laws of the country, the police – do not treat violence against children as a crime. School regulations even spell out the conditions under which beating children should take place. Not only is it not illegal or unlawful to assault children, but it is enshrined in our statutes and is often recommended by the well meaning and others who were trained in this manner. Teachers and parents who do not hit their children are often told, “What that child needs is a good slap or a good cut-tail!” And members of the ‘better-for-having-been-beaten brigade’ are quick to testify how they were made “good” or “better” by the various forms of punishment and humiliation they experienced.)
• Lack of parenting skills and teaching skills. (Adults don’t know better, have not learned how to train children to become self-disciplined and take responsibility for their actions. Adults do not understand that parenting work is teaching work. Teachers lack effective pedagogical skills and do not understand that children learn by example. Adults react out of anger and frustration, rather than act with thoughtfulness and knowledge. They don’t stop and think about what they are doing – the same thing children are often accused of doing.)
• Lack of healthy coping skills by adults (teachers and parents) to handle the frustration and stress they daily face

All hitting of children is damaging, but hitting during early childhood years is much, much worse because these are the years when children’s minds, spirits and bodies are shaped by what parents, caregivers and teachers do to it. Hitting does not only affect the child psychologically, but biologically. The brain cell network is shaped by all of the information that children receive through their five senses. Repeated violence to the cells of the largest organ of the body (the skin) and the messages these cells send to the brain still in the process of growing information receivers, transmitters and networks shapes the brain forever.

Finally, we know that people say that the whippings they got as children did them good or that only licks, the threat of licks or the fear of licks works with their children. Our whole society knows that violence, the threat of violence, and the fear of violence brings results. (Think of bandits entering a home and confronting the man of the house with a cutlass or gun, threatening violence against the women and girls, looking at the girls and babies in a manner that makes the parents fearful. Think of how the police rely on violence, the threat of violence and the fear of violence for ‘effective’ police work.) Is this what we want to play a part in producing?

SOME OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

(Apart from the international conventions on the rights of children Guyana has signed.)

Greeting his pupils, the teacher asked, “What would you learn of me?”

and the reply came:

“How shall we care for our bodies?”

“How shall we rear our children?”

“How shall we work together?”

“How shall we live with other beings?”

“How shall we play?”

“For what ends shall we live?”

And the teacher pondered these words,

and sorrow was in his heart,

for his own learning touched not these things.

The deeper problems of primary education cannot be solved in the schools.

They are the problems of communities.

This means planning for education around the lives of parents as well as children.

[from The Lives of Children, George Dennison]

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