Jo Caruana
It’s never too late to be a more positive parent
Ruth Sciberras. Photo: Alan Carville
With 100 new cases of child abuse reported every month, Appoġġ has recognised the importance of educating parents on the alternatives to violence. Jo Caruana speaks to Ruth Sciberras about the vital role of positive parenting.
It’s 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening and Tina* is feeling frustrated, angry and overwhelmed. Her seven-year-old son, Darren*, is acting up by shouting, being rude and generally proving too boisterous to handle.
Tina snaps. She lashes out violently, hitting Darren hard across the face and head, unable to hold back for a minute longer.
This isn’t unusual – in fact, it has been happening more and more lately; she doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t know what else to do.
For a moment it is quiet, as Darren recoils in horror, not believing his mother could hit him yet again.
But it doesn’t last and, before anyone knows it, he is back to his old ways, and Tina’s rage begins to bubble again.
Where will it end?
“Unfortunately, this sort of scenario isn’t unusual,” explains Ruth Sciberras, Appoġġ’s children’s services manager. There’s a story behind it, of course. In this particular case, Tina was battling her own resentment towards Darren’s father, who had been very violent towards her in the past.
It’s not Darren’s fault that all his mother can see when she looks at him is his father’s horrific actions, but that is the sad fact. It was our job to step in and try to explore how Tina and Darren can build on, and improve, their relationship – which is exactly where the Positive Parenting Campaign comes in.
Launched last year, the movement was inspired by the Blue Ribbon Campaign in the US, which saw a bereaved grandmother striving to raise awareness in memory of the grandson she’d lost to domestic violence.
“Around 100 new cases of child abuse are referred to Appoġġ every month,” continues Sciberras. “Physical abuse is the most common. When a child’s school notices bruising or other injuries, and informs us, we investigate each case in as much detail as possible, and work towards a resolution that protects all those involved.”
But Appoġġ found telling parents not to hit their children was not enough; they needed to provide them with a more tangible solution.
Thus, their social workers have since been receiving training in positive parenting, and have been given the skills to educate parents on how best to deal with their children’s behaviour.
Put simply, positive parenting involves relaying parenting techniques that are based on love, encouragement, discipline, care and a positive environment. Appoġġ works directly with parents to inspire other methods of discipline that will have far more positive results than violence.
“It is a type of parenting that is free from abuse or violence that leads children to grow up secure, disciplined and confident,” she continues. “We encourage parents to stop criticising when possible, and to learn to reinforce positive behaviour instead.”
For instance, instead of saying how annoyed they are that the child keeps their bedroom messy, they should turn the situation on its head and, when it is the case, praise them for being neat. It is simple changes such as these that can really make a difference.
The good news is that is never too late to start employing positive parenting techniques. As Sciberras explains, it will take more energy and effort as children get older, but one should still try it.
“Of course, there are going to be moments when everyone is overwhelmed and struggling to cope, but if you all pull the same rope, you’ll become stronger together. We feel it is a very important message to impart, and we’re going to work very hard at getting it across.”
As a result, the campaign is now very much up and running and those involved believe regular education and awareness will help make all the difference to children living in abusive situations.
Meanwhile, Appoġġ is asking anyone who suspects a case of child abuse to call the helpline on 179 and report it.
“You can remain anonymous,” explains Sciberras, “but do give as many details as possible. The sooner something is brought to our attention, the sooner we can investigate it and get the ball rolling towards improving life for both their children involved and their families.”
*Names have been changed.
Positive parenting – Tips to make it work
• Listen to your children and establish a routine. If children have a structured life, they tend to feel more secure as they know what is going to happen next.
Of course, life needs to be flexible, but knowing that, for instance, on a Monday they go to grandma’s after school, helps them cope – and makes them less likely to get anxious and act out.
• Be consistent. If you are going to set a rule, make it clear and simple, especially if your children are still young.
It’s better to follow through on a punishment that states they cannot watch television for 15 minutes because they were naughty, than one that bans television for a week.
Choose your punishment, stick to it and follow it through, as this will help you to gain your children’s respect.
• Criticise their behaviour, not them. Instead of telling your child you hate them when they make a mess, tell them you hate the mess. Show them that it’s their actions, not them, that have made you upset.
• Children crave attention, so don’t only show it to them when they are misbehaving.
If a child knows you will show him attention when he’s naughty, then you’re sending a clear message that that’s what he has to do at all costs. Shower praise and attention for good behaviour instead.
• Make it clear that actions have consequences, right from when they are young. If they want to hit their brother or sister, then they are going to have to deal with the fact they will be punished.
Tell them they will have to stop or be sent to their room. By offering clear choices you encourage your children to make mature decisions.
Have your say
If you wish to contribute an article or would like a particular subject tackled in the Education section, call Davinia Hamilton on 2559 4513 or e-mail dhamilton@timesofmalta.com.
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Mr Carmel Pule'
Jun 12th 2011, 21:29
My opinion as a parent. We live in modern times and we have to bring our children in a manner where sooner rather than later they have to strengthen their wings and fly hopefully not too far away. Our children do not really belong to us and we are mere assistants to their welfare. One thing I realised since young is that the child’s mind is a delicate instrument and it is not an empty space to be filled with knowledge. It is a processor and it needs to be trained to process, and not to memorise knowledge. We should never form our children into books. With this in mind, it our duty to know more about children many years before they are born by first educating ourselves.
I myself believe that the first processing power that our children must behold is the manner in which they coordinate their minds with their limbs. We all are born with a degree of physical and mental clumsiness and education should be a means of eradicating this clumsiness from within ourselves and our children. So a child should first be given an opportunity to play and at the same time learn the importance of motion. The use of water and sand and ball motion which does not follow and retain shape as a plastic toy will make any child inquisitive about the changes that are taking place before him. To play with water and sand and a ball is always a processing procedure as first one is inquisitive about the properties of the elements being used and then one must learn how to handle them and coordinate one’s motion to deal with water sand and dynamics. Water has buoyancy, wetness, you cannot shape it, while sand could be wet and it can be shaped according to one’s wits. A ball on the other hand has a definite shape and yet its motion is not a definite shape.
I still have a swing in the doorway separating the kitchen and the entry hall at my home in which our child Sarah use to swing on at the age of two. What bewildered me is the fact that as a small child, she learnt how to swing on her own. I decided not to swing her and amazingly she started toing and frooing in a synchronised manner which caused the motion to become cumulative till she swung so liberally. She was learning the world around her on her own. Then at the age of three there was a bicycle and on the roof she managed to get a hold of that by being brave enough to swing the handlebars in the direction of the fall rather than the other side which a lot of people try to do.
Balancing on a pogo stick, a Lolo ball and somersaulting in between all the steel banisters at playgrounds gave her enough confidence to dive from high grounds into the water and swim faster than I could ever do.
While other children were memorising knowledge to obtain 98% I preferred for my daughter to play and game and to aim at 65% of any written examination thus she had ample time to play and get to know the world around her through a direct line and not through the pages of a book, a TV or a computer screen. People criticised me for my action telling me that she should aim for better examination marks. The truth of the matter was that when the class reached puberty age and the written knowledge became too vast to memorise it all, most girls in my daughter class followed their instinct in diverse manners and left schooling at 16 years old. I am not saying that schooling is better the following one’s natural instinct, but modern child preparation seems to demand a better schooling preparation for all modern young women.
Developing a child’s courage can be done in various manners and giving them freedom while retaining some security for them is a necessity. Children should be allowed to roam away from home when the time comes and learning by example is much more powerful than telling them. If one does not want a child to smoke and drink then parents should not smoke nor drink. There is absolutely no harm in taking children to Paceville and showing them what is available to them in a responsible manner. Anything that a child will eventually grow into, no parents should hide it away from them. Driving a car or a motorcycle should be encouraged at an early age and not refuted as if it is absolutely out of bounds for them. Obviously it should be done in a decent manner on private grounds.
Children should not be left out of risk taking and climbing steep rocks, abseiling, skating, skiing and doing all that which appears dangerous to parents could be natural for children. Anyway, when children are alone and they become inquisitive at taking risks they should be prepared. I always remember our daughter coming back from a trip abroad saying, I enjoyed snow and ice skating and riding in a funicular or indeed piloting a biplane upside down and winning a certificate for it. All through her life she never said, “Dad I dread examinations” as many students declared in the Times of Malta a fortnight ago under the University comments!
Well I believe as we grow older we spend more time outside class that we do in class so the majority of education must be outside the class facing reality in all its forms. Obviously there are many social talents one learns in class living with other people and this is to be carefully nurtures, this is just as important to learn as people are part of nature. Children should be trained to make up their own mind and religions and politics need a careful way to present as irrespective of one’s denomination all children must learn to respect other children with other beliefs, we all must live together in peace and though we live together we must all learn that issues of conscience and morals are not to be decided by democratic majority rule as we seem to have thought in the recent weeks.
Children’s depth of thought is not formed by learning to memorise knowledge and being obedient. A child must never be raised modelled on his parents and his teacher, a child is an individual and all that we can do is not to put into the child a little bit of us but to let the child form to develop and to retain what is his own. We must never forget that a child is not an empty vessel which we must fill by pumping knowledge I into the poor soul, I look upon a child as an empty vessel but my duty is to teach him to develop ways in which he can build his own processing power to create various types of vacuum suckers with which he/she can suck all the knowledge and all the qualities he need to develop. Never at any time must we consider our children as the blank pages of a note book in which we write our notes to produce a portfolio of knowledge. Let a child be free to be what he is meant to be, a processing mind working alone and communicating with others, all together our children do not make a library, they make nothing else but children, with a processing mind.
Every child has something to offer society and one must not inhibit the child through permitting the child to be ashamed of what he does and so to develop shyness or lack of self confidence. there are so many examinations we have to face in our life and all I can say to aprents and teachers, how the hell can we bring up Maltese children so that they will not utter what they did a fortnight ago at the University Commments list " I DREAD EXAMINATIONS" so that we will never face the fiascos we faced by not having children to grow up into managers to manage Sea Malta, AirMalta, Drydocks, The Buses, The supermarkets, The freeport, and so many others that will make Malta a trully self sufficient school to teach children.
Incidentally when our daughter was young there were a group of English Parents who kept insisting that I would put my daughter in HER ROOM to train her to be INDEPENDENT. I argued witht hese people that I shall never teach myself or my daughter to be INDEPENDENT , all my efforts was to show our child how to be self sufficient in certain ways nut never to be independent of all those she loved. The children of those people who preached INDEPENDENCE have children in AFRICA and ENTRAL LONDON as managers and executives WITH NO PARTNERS IN MARRIAGEOR OTHERWISE as they have learnt to be INDEPENDENT OF PEOPLE and had not learnt to be dependent on caring about people around then. So let us train our children to be like hegehogs, to live with others close enough to retain their warnth but not too close to hurt each other, once again self sufficient but not independent.
I enjoyed writing this off the cuff!!!
Jesmond Micallef
Jun 13th 2011, 18:59
I really enjoyed reading your piece here, Professor Pule'.
I think you are quite a cool dude ;-))