Children Learn ...
by How They Live.
I’ll admit, sometimes I find it hard to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself when I see a child being mistreated or abused by a parent in a public place. It makes me question, if the parent does that in public, they must be doing the same, or even worse, at home.
It wasn’t all-out abuse. The mother wasn’t beating the child, but it was a little girl with her hair in braids. The child was crying and the mother was angrily walking her toward the restroom by pulling her braids. “Damn it. I told you to go before we left the house! Now move!”
Children are born vulnerable, innocent and trusting. They want so much to please those they love. This mother was teaching the little girl that it was okay to treat children this way. This perpetuates the behavior to future generations of children.
Children aren’t born automatically knowing. As parents, we’re their first teachers. They learn by what they live. It’s up to us to teach our children by our example how to be caring, honest, loving and how to behave so society will accept them.
I’ve heard it said that like begets like.
If we want to raise a child who can’t be trusted or truthful —lie to them.
If we want to raise a controlling child who bullies other children —ignore them and rob them of their dignity and sense of self worth.
If we want to raise a mean and hurtful child —abuse and mistreat them.
To be slapped for something so minor as a ‘bad look’, or mistreated for having to go potty at the mall, teaches distrust and the worst kind of fear —a fear of those they love most.
When we reach out to brush a lock of hair from a child’s forehead, do we want them to recoil in fear?
A hand that reaches out to a child from a parent should be filled with only love and good intentions …
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My grandmother loved her only son (2 daughters) until he hit puberty. When he became too much like a man and not so much like an adorable little cherub anymore she turned on him viciously. As a result, he started hanging out with older guys and gambling at a very early age. He was an addicted life-long gambler and died with $36 in his coat pocket, his entire "life savings." Luckily for him, he was handsome and charming and never had trouble finding a woman to "take care" of him. My mother divorced him when I was 6 and I didn't really see much of him after that. Ironically, his mother, my grandmother, was always very kind, loving, and supportive of me. Go figure.
What you said about a child recoiling when a hand is reached toward them to brush a wisp of hair from their forehead--that is exactly what happened to my aunt, my father's sister, who had a very miserable and borderline abusive mother--well maybe a little more than borderline. When she got her first job after junior college working at a local factory, one day the foreman came walking toward her with his hand outstretched and she instinctively winced, raised her shoulders, and backed away--just momentarily, but he noticed. He have her a very sad look and said, "Norma, what's wrong? Did you think I was going to strike you? I would never do anything like that to you or anyone!" That was the first time, after a lifetime of being "broadsided" unawares by her angry mother, that she realized that it wasn't normal or appropriate or in any way acceptable to treat a child or anyone else that way. It was the first time she ever questioned the assumed infallibility of her mother, and it changed her life in many ways, especially as a future mother of two daughters. If only the right people, ripe for such a message, will read what you've written.