Our children, our future

Society and the innocent psychology

Amidst the obstinate continuum of socio-political woes in Pakistan, what very often gets eclipsed from notice are our children. While many a psychology is being forfeited in Pakistan, most crucial is that of our young ones.

The recent episodes of child abuse, going viral across the media and social networking websites, have sparked an interest in children to especially explore the subject. An ignorance of child abuse can be dangerous, and an exposure to it might cause unreal fears in the child. It is a ‘to be or not be’ question. Hence, the only workable panacea to this end is that children must be equipped with sufficient trust, confidence and ‘attachment’ (Bowlby, 1962), above all to their family to be able to communicate their worries and problems.

John Bowlby, a renowned psychologist, came up with an attachment theory of the child to his caregivers. These were primarily the anxious avoidant attachment, anxious resistant attachment and disorganised attachment. A due consideration to these attachment types –made easier by me for the layman to relate with – will guarantee not just the security of a child, but also that of others at the hands of the child when he grows up.

First, the anxious avoidant attachment. It is defined with the parent being emotionally unavailable to the child. When the child demands physical closeness, it is denied to him because the caregiver, a mother, for instance, is either too busy with other chores or just does not feel enough for the child’s requirements. Anxious avoidant attachment leads to children becoming passive to the mother’s presence. He cannot any longer differentiate between a stranger’s presence or his mother’s. In our society, where ends are not always so comfortably met with one parent working, the working mothers usually have to resort to developing such an avoidant attachment with the child.

Second is the anxious resistant attachment that stems from ambivalence in the caregiver’s attitude towards the child and hence it confuses the child as the caregiver would sometimes be completely apathetic towards the child’s demands, and other times, would overly exaggerate whatever the child wants. This may lead to overstimulation of unexpected outbursts of tantrums in the child. In later years this intermittent behaviour of caregiver will translate into an acute emotional and identity crisis. Low income families and the poverty stricken masses in Pakistan all exhibit this attitude where financial worries in the face of crushing inflation have all but disoriented the breadwinners.

The disorganised attachment comes third and it is at its most ruthless when it comes to the child’s overall wellbeing. It is associated with the frightening or confusing behaviour on part of parents. In this, the child may be subjected to physical or mental abuse and torture, intentional or inadvertent, by the caregivers. This may lead to serious cognitive, perceptive, physical and emotional deficits in the child. As the child sees abuse happening to him, his personal experience would justify him committing similar acts on his counterparts. This will be a socially disruptive attitude. Such children usually grow up to become wanton rebels opposing authority and control. In their later professional lives and as citizens of the Pakistani state, we can expect from such children a flagrant defiance of rules and laws. Hence, adding dry tinder to a combustible law and order scenario in the country.

It is important to note that the child will only react in the light of the way things have transpired before him or happened to him. Thereby, tilting the nature vs nurture discourse in the favor of nurture in this case. It is inevitably the result of that attention and interaction with the caregivers that the child becomes what he does at the day’s end. The child spends most of his time with the mother and hence, by ministering the child’s physical needs and the emotional requirements, the mother is the first institution of the child’s cognitive, physical, social and perceptual development. On the other hand, the disorders of an unbalanced and a lopsided attachment pattern may cause a disruption in the child’s emotions e.g., anxiety or depression; disorderly behaviour like aggression; poor physical function, for instance, psychogenic disorders; and an ambivalence in mental performance, like problems at school.

According to Eric Erikson, personality development takes place with a progressive resolution of problems distinctive of each stage and hence without the due resolution, the personality of the child may not flourish to its fullness; leading to multiple inhibitions or a mere fixation in a child’s psychology. Fixation is the ‘stuck in a stage’ phenomenon which the child cannot outgrow throughout his life. For instance, if the first stage of life, according to Ericson – ‘trust versus mistrust’ – does not get due resolution, and the child is unable to define who he can trust and who he cannot, then this ambivalence in social interaction and mal-judgment in dealing with people will last throughout his life. Thus it might come to jeopardising the child’s physical, emotional and psychological calm and security in later years.

Erikson also found that there is a constant tug of war between social requirements and the child’s personal needs. Once an imbalance occurs between the two, the child begins to suffer from many psychosocial deficits. Once any of the listed issues arise, it must ideally necessitate parents to look into the kinds of interaction and behavioural patterns which have been presented to the child in its rearing.

The problems of psychosocial nature will emerge from the environment and the child’s own cognition, and will ultimately affect the society in which the child resides. Children are our investment in the future, and for the future. We must take care of these little buds if they are to develop into responsible and conscientious citizens of a nation. Disrupting their development, owing to our neglect or abuse, can hamper the future generation from growing. And for that we will never be forgiven.

Fatima Zubair can be reached at [email protected].