Over-protection of children can have dangerous consequences

Oct 11, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
We observed “Child Protection Week 2017”from the 24th-30th of September, 2017 under the theme” Partnering With Families and Communities For Positive Outcomes For Children.” Some parents have been quite too much over protective of their children which can definitely lead to doing more harm than good to their child’s welfare and wellbeing.
A closer look at what a child may experience at their early stage in life is the exploration stage where they seek freedom to receive answers to their questions; and they develop a sense of initiative, but if they are held back or punished, they develop a guilt about their desires and suppress their basic curiosity.
Children also experience a sense of pride in being able to master certain tasks and reach their goals, so as to develop what is called industry. If they fail repeatedly or do not receive encouragement and support from their parents for trying, they develop a feeling of guilt and inferiority.
Also, children identify themselves with what they do, “if I do good, I am good, or if I do bad, I feel bad.” One of the most critical periods in a child’s life is at their adolescence stage where some parents do not possess the parental skills to bring their children through this critical stage.
As a result, they leave their children in a dilemma, where they are unable to establish a personal identity and in a real struggle of confusion as to what really are their gender roles.
This period can be filled with conflict, turmoil and anxiety, where children become vulnerable to homosexuality, where they have submitted to authority and were prevented from discovering who they really were and what they really wanted to be.
However, young people who have passed successfully through these early stages are prepared to take the emotional risks involved in establishing intimate relationships. But those who have often feel vulnerable to homosexuality are afraid to get close to the opposite sex, hence the issue during early adulthood becomes one of intimacy versus isolation.
I have witnessed in some instances where mothers behaved in a manner of desperate possessiveness for her children which amounts to them being treated like objects rather than children. From the psychological battering received they submitted to the rules laid out in the home, where compensation was also used as a form of tactic to keep these children from stepping out of their confined boundaries. The result today is not distant from the truth where parents can also destroy their own children for being too over-protected.
The power and control wheel of domestic abuse which includes physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse maybe is taking toll on our children’s gender roles in today’s society and it is time for the churches in our neighbourhood to take some responsibility in counseling families to seek professional help if needed, but rather than allowing them to go around in communities supporting potential abusers that would one day prey on our children.
Mark Anthony Rodrigues,
Region 9

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