We adults are often rightly amazed! How can our children be so unhappy and grumpy when they have more things in life than we could ever have in two life-times? This popular way of evaluating childhood, youth and happiness has never yielded any good and never will do.
There are many implicit assumptions guiding adults. The first is that children and youth should be happy and they don't have anything to be unhappy about. This assumption is obviously wrong. Children worry as much as adults do and can be as sad as adults. While the reasons for their unhappiness are often underplayed by adults who think this way, it is nonetheless important to understand that it is imperative to appreciate the reasons children provide for their unhappiness.
The second assumption is that happiness is the result of material possession. You got it all wrong here. It is often exactly the opposite, and if that is your recipe for your children you will soon find out the results for yourself. This assumption is often the product of other assumptions, one of which is that children should always come first. This is again completely false, resulting in increasing marital unhappiness and separation.
But everyone seems to want to believe that we should put our children first. Perhaps because it is convenient. It is convenient for parents' sense of self and the forceful cultural ideas about being good parents. As if good parenting means being able to provide children with everything they want. What if parents cannot afford it? Aren't they good parents then? The problem is that those who can't afford look to those who can as social role models. Yet, the idea of putting children first has only yielded negative results - increased drug abuse and addiction, increased binge drinking and alcoholism, increased childhood crime, increased behavioural problems, school problems, and so on. There's a strong link between these and giving children everything they ask for. One big problem children face today is an inability to wait patiently and work hard to obtain what they want. We call it instant gratification.
How can we promote healthy values in our children when the very society that is supposed to protect them and care for them is only corrupting and abusing them? Consider the contradictory values that are being transmitted by those in power. How can one say gambling is wrong and then licence tens of gambling operators to open their doors on the island? What about the disproportionate number of casinos? How can one promote the value of the family, thus healthy children and adults, when simultaneously one is promoting childcare centres to take over parenting from earlier ages?
If only we are able to look around us to learn what children are doing in other countries we will quickly learn. Research in the UK and US consistently suggest that changes to families, such as more parents working, and rising rates of divorce and single parenthood, have undermined the ability of families to effectively socialise young people. Children in those countries spend more time in the company of peers and less time with adults and parents.
How different is the scenario in Malta we don't really know, because research is scant and attempts at resolving these problems become visibly amateurish and their efficacy unfounded.
Meanwhile many parents are at a loss about how to handle their children. Local services were impetuously quick to promote and advertise confusingly about child protection without having set a context and efficient framework to support parents in delivering effective parenting. Going round schools and telling children about help-lines in case dad is violent without defining violence doesn't really work. It only frustrates parents and workers with futile alarms about which workers can do nothing at all. The aim of this remains unclear and questionable. What really works is the creation of policies, action frameworks, and services that promote healthy family life within which abuse and neglect don't occur.
But what about the other more widespread abuse children experience? What about the institutional abuse they suffer because their parents have to work longer and longer hours? What about the institutional abuse of having to be sent to school from as early as the age of one year? What about the abuse of being unscrupulously deprived of the last remaining green patches of countryside where children can play? How can we then complain that children are computer bound? Can we see this as abuse as well, alongside the physical and the sexual?
Our children are increasingly being influenced by sources outside the family. They are being constantly abused by those who are supposed to protect them. They watch TV and read through magazines full of adverts selling alcohol, parties, betting, gambling, casinos, sexually explicit material, fast junk food, mobile phones, computer games, and so on. How can we then expect children not to be influenced and remain intact? The result in fact is insecure children whose identity relies on brands from top to bottom.
Their values remain superficially fluid and uncertain as they fly from one fashion to the other depending on who they want to hang out with. They have learned to value themselves and others on what they have (including certificates) rather than on what people are. Brands have begun to dictate hierarchies among children and being "in" our "out" of a group largely depends on what school bag you carry and what jeans you wear during the weekend.
The result is simply confused children. They want to be happy but they don't know where to look for happiness. They are confused about the very essence of happiness. Like hungry bees they wander dangerously from flower to flower. They confuse love with sex, freedom with money, drugs with happiness, and so on. All they need is proper guidance from secure adults. But do we really know what we want? Are we pursuing happiness in the right direction?
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.
There are many implicit assumptions guiding adults. The first is that children and youth should be happy and they don't have anything to be unhappy about. This assumption is obviously wrong. Children worry as much as adults do and can be as sad as adults. While the reasons for their unhappiness are often underplayed by adults who think this way, it is nonetheless important to understand that it is imperative to appreciate the reasons children provide for their unhappiness.
The second assumption is that happiness is the result of material possession. You got it all wrong here. It is often exactly the opposite, and if that is your recipe for your children you will soon find out the results for yourself. This assumption is often the product of other assumptions, one of which is that children should always come first. This is again completely false, resulting in increasing marital unhappiness and separation.
But everyone seems to want to believe that we should put our children first. Perhaps because it is convenient. It is convenient for parents' sense of self and the forceful cultural ideas about being good parents. As if good parenting means being able to provide children with everything they want. What if parents cannot afford it? Aren't they good parents then? The problem is that those who can't afford look to those who can as social role models. Yet, the idea of putting children first has only yielded negative results - increased drug abuse and addiction, increased binge drinking and alcoholism, increased childhood crime, increased behavioural problems, school problems, and so on. There's a strong link between these and giving children everything they ask for. One big problem children face today is an inability to wait patiently and work hard to obtain what they want. We call it instant gratification.
How can we promote healthy values in our children when the very society that is supposed to protect them and care for them is only corrupting and abusing them? Consider the contradictory values that are being transmitted by those in power. How can one say gambling is wrong and then licence tens of gambling operators to open their doors on the island? What about the disproportionate number of casinos? How can one promote the value of the family, thus healthy children and adults, when simultaneously one is promoting childcare centres to take over parenting from earlier ages?
If only we are able to look around us to learn what children are doing in other countries we will quickly learn. Research in the UK and US consistently suggest that changes to families, such as more parents working, and rising rates of divorce and single parenthood, have undermined the ability of families to effectively socialise young people. Children in those countries spend more time in the company of peers and less time with adults and parents.
How different is the scenario in Malta we don't really know, because research is scant and attempts at resolving these problems become visibly amateurish and their efficacy unfounded.
Meanwhile many parents are at a loss about how to handle their children. Local services were impetuously quick to promote and advertise confusingly about child protection without having set a context and efficient framework to support parents in delivering effective parenting. Going round schools and telling children about help-lines in case dad is violent without defining violence doesn't really work. It only frustrates parents and workers with futile alarms about which workers can do nothing at all. The aim of this remains unclear and questionable. What really works is the creation of policies, action frameworks, and services that promote healthy family life within which abuse and neglect don't occur.
But what about the other more widespread abuse children experience? What about the institutional abuse they suffer because their parents have to work longer and longer hours? What about the institutional abuse of having to be sent to school from as early as the age of one year? What about the abuse of being unscrupulously deprived of the last remaining green patches of countryside where children can play? How can we then complain that children are computer bound? Can we see this as abuse as well, alongside the physical and the sexual?
Our children are increasingly being influenced by sources outside the family. They are being constantly abused by those who are supposed to protect them. They watch TV and read through magazines full of adverts selling alcohol, parties, betting, gambling, casinos, sexually explicit material, fast junk food, mobile phones, computer games, and so on. How can we then expect children not to be influenced and remain intact? The result in fact is insecure children whose identity relies on brands from top to bottom.
Their values remain superficially fluid and uncertain as they fly from one fashion to the other depending on who they want to hang out with. They have learned to value themselves and others on what they have (including certificates) rather than on what people are. Brands have begun to dictate hierarchies among children and being "in" our "out" of a group largely depends on what school bag you carry and what jeans you wear during the weekend.
The result is simply confused children. They want to be happy but they don't know where to look for happiness. They are confused about the very essence of happiness. Like hungry bees they wander dangerously from flower to flower. They confuse love with sex, freedom with money, drugs with happiness, and so on. All they need is proper guidance from secure adults. But do we really know what we want? Are we pursuing happiness in the right direction?
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.