Salmon

The third instalment in our series from the book, Parenting a Child's Perspective, written by Dr Jaslin Salmon, moves to the parents. Watch for the following themes: illness and death, siblings and parent-child relationship.

I told you a lot about myself. But it will be more fun to tell you about my parents - and even more fun to tell you how children see each other's parents.

Parents are nice people. They give presents at christmas and on birthdays. But some parents are too mean. Yesterday, I heard my next-door neighbour scream at her daughter so loudly that her daughter got scared and began to cry.

My parents are usually nice to my sister and me. We love them very much. Sometimes they punish us and then we don't love them. But if we tell them this, we get more punishment for being rude.

I don't understand. Do they expect us to feel the same no matter what they do to us? That doesn't seem fair. And something else seems unfair too. Whenever one of my parents spanks my sister or me, it hurts very much. But if we cry, they tell us to stop the crying or get more spanking. Sometimes they punish us, though, and we don't cry. We laugh, because we find something funny about it. I bet you know what happens then. They think we're being 'smart', and they get even angrier. And we get punished for laughing. Sometimes I think a child can't ever win with parents. There are many things I don't understand about parents.

Precious

My pet rabbit's name is Precious. When we let her out of her cage, she goes to the bathroom under my bed, runs all over the house and makes sounds like a monster. Sometimes, I get annoyed with her, so I spank her, then my parents get mad and say I'm mean. I don't know why. They spank me when they feel like it, and they don't think they are being mean. And if they spank me, spanking must be a good way to fix problems. That's why I spank my rabbit.

I'm glad my parents are who they are. I would hate to have my friend's parents, for parents. One day we went to visit them and I became scared. I was afraid they'd treat me like they treated their own children.

Questions

Here's what happened. Jerry, their three-year-old boy, likes to ask questions. This upsets his parents a lot - mostly when they don't have an answer. He asked another and they told him to shut up. Their voices were angry. His parents told him to put away his blocks, he told them to shut up. Then his mother hit him in his face with the back of her hand. I don't know exactly what happened after that, but Jerry fell down crying, blood was coming from his mouth. Now, you see why I said I was scared. His parents picked him up and took him to the bathroom, but that didn't help. The next thing they did was take him to the hospital.

Another day, my parents took my sister and me to visit different friends of theirs. I was sad to see how mean they were to their little girl, Amanda. Amanda is two. She loves to play. She likes to go into closets, cupboards, and drawers. My parents tell me that children learn by exploring, so it's good. Amanda's daddy doesn't think that way. That day, he got up to serve each of my parents a drink and then Amanda sat where her father had sat. When he returned to the room, he saw her there. He grabbed her by her arm and put her on the floor.

"I've told you not to sit on the table," he said. Then he hit her on her bottom and she cried. I was angry and sad for her. Sad, because she seemed so hurt. And angry, because her father sat there first. It wasn't fair that she copied him and got in trouble.

I don't want you to believe that all parents are like this to their children. So, I'll tell what my parents do. Like when I bother things I'm supposed to leave alone.

My Mom has many purses. There are lipsticks and mirrors and tissues in each of them. They're like a toy box. I used to have lots of fun with them; but when I was finished, Mom's pretty things were scattered all over the house. Mom would get mad. She would yell and say I mustn't do that again. But I liked her purses and I looked for them the next day. They were gone! It seemed that Mom knew I couldn't stop myself yet. She wanted to help me obey, so she moved her purses. I felt tricked a little bit-but I'm glad I didn't get in trouble for bothering them.

Please don't think I am bad. I don't bother everything I'm supposed to leave alone, but somethings are just too hard to ignore!

POSITIVE Parenting

NEXT WEEK: They never say 'please'.

Dr. Jaslin Salmon is a professor of sociology and is also trained in counselling and psychotherapy. He is currently president/CEO of the International Institute for Social, Political and Economic Change (IISPEC) in Kingston, Jamaica (www.iispec.org). The book can be purchased at Sangster's Book Stores, Kingston Bookshop, amazon.com and Trafford.com/07-1449.