Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Vani Sar aswathi times forgetting to give them praise. TV our children watch, in the world we
Treats,
Then when our children misbehave we live in children over three are aware of
W
hen was the last time you go in guns blazing. This leads children things that are going on but sometimes
smirked at a mother strug- to believe that to get the attention they do not understand and we must try and
gling with a child throwing require they have to be naughty to get it. explain this our children in a way they
a tantrum in the middle of the super- Parents these days feel more isolated and understand. It seems that some children
Tantrums and
market aisle? And then turned around there isn’t the family network there used do not have much of a childhood and we
to watch your little angel pulling down to be, they spend a lot of time on their should let them behave like children.
canned food from the shelves? own with their children as families are
When parents can’t handle their kids, not what they used to be. Is the shrinking of extended families
Tormented Parents
what is the solution? One expert child responsible for lack of respect for
psychologist argues that it is the parents, Are parents losing control over their elders?
not the children, who have to change. children? Condoning indiscipline In some cases as there are more divorces
This tough-talking woman – Dr Tanya under the pretext of allowing the child these days and parents may find it hard
Byron – puts her theory to the test to develop and explore? to put issues to one side. The shrinking
with real families and their nightmare Often we treat our children as a lot older of extended families means that there
offspring. Hidden cameras, CCTV, ob- than they are, due to television children’s is not as much support and network as
servational filming and ‘parent cams’ all speech is a lot more progressed at earlier there may have been years ago but by
capture the horror of families with child ages. Therefore we tend to have big being around adults whether family
trouble. The parents are guided through conversations with children under 3 and friends or families children will learn
tough, trying moments by the psycholo- therefore feel as though they should be to respect elders. However I must say
gist, who, using earpieces, microphones less inclined to misbehave as we feel they that there is a lot of good parenting and
and monitors, talks them through new are more developed than they actually happy children out there. The cases that
ways of dealing with their children. But are. Under 3 years olds have limited we look at on TV are the severe cases of
will it work? Will violent five year-old attention and if they misbehave it’s families and upbringing as this is what
Matthew, about to be excluded from sometimes not enough to talk to them, makes television.
school for assaulting his dinner lady, be in these cases actions speak louder than
brought back from the brink? And will words. We should have control over the What kind of responsibility should
the mother of the three Barton brothers, the school/teachers take in a child’s
who never stop fighting, find a new way upbringing? Does the onus lie exclu-
to bring her boys into line? sively on the parent?
Dr Byron, a Consultant Clinical Children spend a lot of time at school so
psychologist, is currently filming the teachers should take some responsibil-
second series of Little Angels for BBC ity. Teachers feel frustrated sometimes
Three, which is available on Showtime in due to restrictions that have been put
the region. in place on the way they manage the
She speaks exclusively to Woman children.
Today on child challenges. Often parents may push responsibility
A still from Little Angels on the teachers but this should not be
Are children becoming more difficult
to handle, or is it just a perception.
Having worked in the fields of health psychology (in areas including AIDS/HIV,
Are they really no different from the drug misuse and sexual health) and women’s mental health, Dr Byron specialised in
parents or grandparents at that age? child and adolescent mental health where she treats young children with behav-
This is a complicated question, children ioural issues, such as problems with aggression, sleeping or eating. More recently
are supposed to be naughty and as our she has worked with adolescents with a variety of emotional and behavioural
job as parents we are there to help them difficulties including depression, self harm, eating disorders, psychiatric problems
communicate and learn the tools they and suicidal behaviour. She has also worked with children who have been sexually,
need for life. These days we live in such a physically and emotionally abused; and for six years was the consultant clinical
psychologist at an in-patient unit for 12- to 16-year-olds.
busy world with a lot of stress and some-
Tanya teaches a variety of psychological subjects to all health staff and, in particu-
times we do not set aside the time our lar, runs a Department of Health ‘beacon’ awarded training course in the manage-
children need. Or we are too tired and ment and de-escalation of violence and aggression. She also writes for consumer
do not have the energy. When children and professional magazines. Tanya is married with two young children and lives in
are behaving we are happy to leave them London.
Dr Tanya Byron with Matt
playing and getting on with it, some-
january 2006 42 january 2006 43
FilialFix FilialFix
the parent, teacher and psychologist and
a lot of disciplines and assessments must
be put in place. If a child is active at
home and then in the classroom is able
to sit still, learn and concentrate then
this is an active child. However if a child
in the classroom where rules and bound-
aries are set and still cannot focus then
this child would have to be investigated
further to see what problems the child
may have and how they can be helped.