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Violence and Communication

There is never a hard and fast rule about bringing up children. It is all boils down to communication, how we communicate with a developing mind. It all has to do with love, care, attention and discipline we give to our children.

Being born is a violent experience. One should consider oneself lucky to be born alive and healthy. It is all about survival and learning afterwards. Remember a child is not born knowledgeable; it has to be taught social values. Parents and also our teachers therefore, have a great responsibility of training and teaching a child how to communicate and relate with the outside world.

This necessarily involves social conditioning. If the parents and teachers do not teach a child how to be responsible for its action and how to be considerate and respect other members of the family and society, we have a recipe for a social disaster.

There is not a day that goes by without some news on unruly youth behaviour and violence. Youth violence is found not only amongst themselves in the form of bullying and physical punch ups but also directed towards other members of society in the form of vandalism and criminal behaviour.

It has reached a stage in society where even the police today are finding it hard to cope. They have to use violence to control them. How did we get to this state? Where have we gone wrong?

Clearly the lack of discipline and training at home is the main cause of our problem. It is negatively influencing our children. Abdication of parental responsibilities by doting parents in this consumer age cannot possibly help this situation where they will side with the child rather than the teacher in matters of discipline. Then with the laws we have, preventing parents and teachers to discipline any child under any circumstance, further compounds the problem by giving these children the impression that the world owes them a living.

Now if parents cannot discipline their children at home and teachers cannot discipline them at school, who is going to teach them any social values? Is it not farcical to note that it is illegal to use ‘violence’ against children at home and school for disciplinary purposes yet we are forced to use violence against them when they are out of control as teenagers? This is like trying to shut the gate after the horse has bolted. Has this measure achieved any reduction in any violence of any type to date?

I assume that the reason for not using ‘violence’ against children, besides feeling good about ourselves, was to show the world that we are a civilised society that could raise children without exposing them to violence, and these children who were unexposed to violence would then grow into less violent citizens. Well by abandoning discipline in the home and in the classroom we have really thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

Just look at the cases of domestic violence and abuse increasing in society. Surely with the laws we have with no ‘violence’ (discipline) against any child, this problem should be decreasing. Don’t you think this is directly related to the way we bring up our children without any discipline or consideration for other people?

Whether we like it or not, violence is in our blood and is derived from our territorial and survival instinct. We hate, we fear, so we cannot eliminate violence by just philosophising or legislating against it. It is a form of communication as a last resort, otherwise why do we have to fight wars?

Senseless violence occurs when there is no insight or self-discipline in a person’s behaviour. There is no sense of responsibility towards oneself or society. Clearly our law makers have failed us in their duty of care towards parents, teachers and society by formulating laws that encourage irresponsible behaviour.

Consumerism panders to the desires of the individual ego. This leads to distorted perceptions. Distorted perceptions lead to mental ill health and also anti-social behaviour. We constantly see parents lamenting over losing their children in tragic circumstances where foolish decisions and choices are involved. Only sweet things are said to console ourselves and feel good about ourselves. Nothing is said about how we are raising our children and whether we are teaching them any sense of responsibility.

Politicians make laws and when the courts become lenient in their sentences, we blame the judges. Should we not blame the politicians for making such laws? Society is going to the pot and no one is even looking at the fundamentals. Should we not bring back discipline in the home and in the classroom? If the fundamentals are ignored, then please be prepared for more heartache and chaos in society.

Negative action produces negative results; positive action will produce positive results. At present we are getting negative results in human behaviour. It means our input in training these young minds is negative. One does not have to be a prophet to predict the future. The future is already here.

You were born an original, don’t die a copy – Anonymous. In fact most people do. Read “The Enchanted Time Traveller – A Book of Self-Knowledge and the Subconscious Mind “by Dr Mal Mohanlal and learn how to find your original self. Be a true scientist, not a pseudo-scientist.