Relationships between Parents and Their Children - Personal Statement Example

Critical Reflection Piece Ordinarily, parenting is both a biological and social process (Lerner, Noh & Wilson, 1998). I have always believed that parents are the key determinants of a children’s wellbeing as they bear them, raise them and spend a significant portion of their time with them. I have also held the belief that love starts from the family – that parents, as the carers of their children, will always love the children and protect them from any kind of harm. After all, since a family is made of parents and children, I have always expected the components of the family to be one. However, as I came to realise from my work experience, this is not always true. I worked for 10 years in child protection with the Department of Community Services. One of my main roles as a child protection case worker was to assess risk of harm to children or young people. It is here that I learned that not all parents may be adequately playing their parenting role, and that in fact some parents abuse their own children to the extent that they hurt them. In this paper, I describe an event that made me question the role of parents with respect to parenting. Further, while children and parents are supposed to stay as a unit, I found myself playing a role of protecting two children from their own parents, which should not be the case, as parents are actually supposed to the protectors on their children. In the case, I experienced a situation whereby both parents were drug addicts and rarely came home sober. At home, the parents were abusive as they would let their children, aged 8 and 12 years, to carry out all household chores. If the children failed to carry out any activity, they would be beaten thoroughly by their father, and their mother would also scorn them. To make matters worse, the relationship the two parents deteriorated as they continued venturing in drug abuse. The children’s performance at school started declining as they did not have time to do their homework, and they could not report to school in time for early morning classes. The children’s trauma was exposed when one morning the elder child arrived at school with blood stains on his shirt. His teacher intervened and that is how the case was reported to us, with the children revealing that they had undergone abuse for as long as they could remember. In this case, the child’s father had struck him using a belt, and the injury was so serious that it required the police to intervene and charge the man for assault against his own child. The incident is critical in my life because when my department swung into action, we had to do what was ethically right for the children. This would ultimately mean separating the children from their parents, and even having the father sentenced for assault. On the other hand, the parents argued that as the parents of the children, they had the right to determine what was good for them, and even to punish them to take the right course. So which way was the best to solve the case? I would ask myself. According to Kowalczyk and Gotwald (2010), parenting methods, or the intentional ways of influence on children, are very important during the child rearing process. Their selection portrays more general and cultural processes, as well as accepted type of rationality, thus perceiving the child as the subject or as the subject which can be influenced during the child rearing process. Kowalczyk and Gotwald (2010) also note that child rearing as submission justifies the use of compulsion or even violence which may also lead to severe punishment. On the other hand, child rearing as supporting the child replaces severe punishment with the strategy of solving conflicts and rewarding. I have never subscribed to the former thought, and even my job required me to ensure that parents supported their children as part of the child rearing process, hence reinforcing the latter thought by Kowalczyk and Gotwald (2010). As a protector of children’s rights, I had to ensure that the children were safe to facilitate their successful completion of school and that they would live their life freely from their aggressors. Yet these aggressors were the children’s own parents! How could I promote the separation of children from their parents yet I believed that children were supposed to live with their parents to enjoy their love and care? I must have held the same opinion as Western social scientists who for decades opined that parental love is essential to the healthy social emotional development of children (Rohner, Khaleque & Cournoyer, 2007). In deed, as Newman and Newman (2011) note, children’s cognitive, social and emotional development are fostered through the loving care of mothers, fathers, other family members, as well as community caregivers who are able to create supportive relationships with one another and with the children. The key words in Newman and Newman’s (2011) statement above are that children can only benefit from their parents if the parents play a supportive role towards them. Therefore, the incident changed my opinion towards children and parents in the family. I suddenly realised that not all parents play a supportive role to their children. Because of personality differences, I noted that parents treat their children differently. This can be attributed to the parental acceptance-rejection theory (also referred to as PARTheory) which is an evidence-based theory of lifespan development and socialisation that seeks to predict and explain major causes, corollaries and other correlates of parental acceptance and rejection worldwide (Rohner, Khaleque & Cournoyer, 2007). The theory is divided into three distinct sub theories (1) personality sub theory which attempts to envisage and elucidate major personality or psychological implications of perceived parental acceptance and rejection in childhood and adulthood; (2) coping sub theory that deals with factors associated with the fact that some children and adults cope emotionally with the experience of rejection more effectively than others; and (3) sociocultural systems sub theory that deals with two issues, first, why some parents why some parents are warm and loving towards their children while others are cold, aggressive and neglecting; and second, how relationships between parents and their children shape the total fabric of the society (Rohner, Khaleque & Cournoyer, 2007). Having understood that not all parents are the same, I espoused a theory in which I valued the rights of children, recognising that they are frequently in a position of disempowerment due to their young age and dependency on adults close to them as asserted by (Pockett & Giles, 2008). As part of my job, I understood that child abuse was an exploitation of children’s vulnerability and misuse of power. Thus, I knew that even if my actions would increase the divide between the children I was dealing with and their parents, that was the justifiable way to go since I had to empower the children and enable them to regain some sense of authority and control over their experiences. This encompassed investigating the matter deeply with the police to ensure that there was evidence to justify conviction of the father who assaulted his son and to seek to place the children in out-of-home care. However, I do not think my actions demonstrated my beliefs in the value of a family. Instead of focusing on the family unit, I focused on my role as a protector of children’s rights. I acted on the assumption that abused children can only do well when they are separated from their abusers and when the abusers are punished for neglecting their children. Thus, I failed to recognise the impact that separation would have on the children and their parents. According to Talley (2005), it is commonplace that children who are victims of maltreatment are often removed from their families. But this causes a major disruption in child’s life; and the child typically has only limited input into his or her placement in substitute care. In addition, even though the support staff of an emergency shelter or foster parents reassure the children that they are there to help, the child will often be very frightened. As well, parents may deny that their child was abused or neglected, often due to the guilt they feel or their fears of inadequacy (Talley, 2005). Indeed, the children were not willing to be separated from their parents in spite of the abuse that has been meted on them. The parents on the other hand held the view that the children were not abiding by their rules and were therefore the problem. But in line with my job, I was of the opinion that children had the right to live anywhere provided they received the care they deserved and got the opportunity to go to school devoid of disruptions from too many household chores and bashing from their caregivers. It took time to convince the children that they were not responsible for the abusive actions of their parents and that it was within the law to have their parents punished for their abusive actions. Similarly, as a department, we had to convince the parents to accept responsibility for their actions as this was necessary if the children were to be ever allowed to live with them again. In the end, the children were taken to a foster home where they were expected to stay as the case against their parents proceeded. Ultimately, the children’s father was jailed for three years, leaving their mother alone at home. Evidently, this family crumbled upon the revelation that the parents were abusing their children. When I think about the incident today, I realise that a family unit stands when the members, especially parents, play a supportive role. Parental support of autonomy involves allowing children to explore their own environment, initiate their own behaviour, and take an active role in solving their own problems (Elliot & Dweck, 2005). Parents may support children by attending to children’s work, while also allowing them to work on their own. But from this case it is evident that the parents adopted a neglecting and controlling approach by applying too much pressure on their children and beating them up unjustifiably. In my perspective, I believe that even though the family has to stay as a unit, its mainstay is supportive parents. Therefore, if parents fail in this respect and instead turn to abusing their children, it is only wise that they be separated. I understand that my actions in this incident caused a lot of anxiety for the children and their parents, but I am convinced that it was the best approach to protect the interests of the children. References Elliot, A.J. & Dweck, C.S. (2005). Handbook of Competence and Motivation. New York: Guilford Press. Kowalczyk, M. M. & Gotwald, B.(2010). Social Processes and Social Phenomena: The Chosen Problems. New York: Wydawnictwo Leader-Great. Lerner, R. Noh, E.R. & Wilson, C. (1998). “The Parenting of Adolescents and Adolescents as Parents: A Developmental Contextual Perspective.” Retrieved 12 March 2012, from http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Lerner/Lerner.html Newman, B. M. & Newman P. R. (2011). Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach (11th edition).New York: Cengage Learning. Pockett, R. & Giles, R. (eds) (2008). Critical reflection: Generating Theory from Practice: The Graduating Social Work Student Experience. New York: Darlington Press. Rohner, R.P., Khaleque, A. & Cournoyer, D. E. (2007). “Introduction to parental acceptance-rejection theory, methods, evidence, and implications.” Retrieved 12 March 2012, from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cts=1331553968129&ved=0CGQQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cspar.uconn.edu%2FIntroduction_to_Parental_Acceptance.pdf&ei=veVdT7KbGuiw0QWHkZHZDQ&usg=AFQjCNFwLa_kdlQxkE2vC7VtK1a8Ty8TqQ&sig2=kbRuZLjhnrMBzVdJ_N42EQ Talley, P. F. (ed) (2005). Handbook for the Treatment of Abused and Neglected Children. New York: Routledge. Read More