Where the heart beats and
not the hand…#Iwillnot
Early Childhood Association
with First Moms Club and Born Smart recently conducted a survey on ‘spanking’
with 1790 mothers and the results were that 77% mothers spanked their children!
The study was published in Times of India and Hindustan Times on 15th
February. (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/77-of-moms-raised-hands-on-their-children-survey/articleshow/62922957.cms) (https://m.hindustantimes.com/india-news/survey-shows-77-parents-spank-children-at-home/story-zNNnm3jsFKshnpcCKPSOYO.html )
Our vision behind this
survey was to support rather
than judge parents. We know
that parenting can be both exhausting
and exhilarating. It is in the
exhausting times that a parent may lose control and resort to hitting,
spanking, or pinching their child. We are here to help you overcome the
hand that hits and help you make it the
hand that hugs. Parenting is where the ‘heart beats’ and not the ‘hand’.
Its time to practice
‘mindful parenting’.
The common reasons why
mothers said that they spanked their children are:
1. Struggling
to bring up children alone, as the father rarely participates, so overwhelmed
all the time.
2. Inability
to control her anger, irritation, and frustration.
3. Trying
to juggle home and career and ensuring that the child is well looked after, or giving up a career and finding it frustrating.
Some mothers even wrote to
us saying- “ I hit my child but it’s for
the child’s best interests and its ok for mothers to once in a while hit their
child, afterall they love them so much”.I don’t judge mothers who hit their
children but I definitely judge mothers who condone it, because there can be no
excuse to resorting to violence when it comes to children.
Don’t men who hit their
wives use the same excuse?? When did
love become violence and when did love give you the sick power to hurt,
humiliate and hit? If you really love your children then let your heart beat
for your child and not your hand!
Look at what’s happening
around you today, young teenagers are killing, hurting others, violence has
become a norm, acceptable. Children learn by imitation and when you try to
control them with violence then they learn that violence is the solution for
everything in life. And when you try to condone that violence by saying that ‘I hit you because I love you’ then you
are bringing up ‘wife beaters’ and ‘acid throwers’. Love never,
ever hurts or harms! In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “punishment hardens children” and that is exactly what we are
seeing today, children who have hardened emotions who kill, hit and harm
because empathy is dead. How did it die?
It was beaten out of the bodies of our children.
I am not going to be soft
or considerate in this blog, as it is time we as women realized that giving
excuses of frustration does not give us the right to physically harm our
children. A physical harm that scars our children for life. Come on
women..mothers…are you saying that you are so weak that you take out the frustrations
of life and husbands on your children? You are much stronger than that. You are the stronger species and that is why you
carry the child for 9 months and you are the nurturers and protectors. Don’t
give in to momentary weakness and end up hitting, pinching, and slapping your
children.
Most mothers who come to me
for counseling admit that after hitting their children they feel guilty and
then go and hug their child, say sorry and give them gifts. This teaches
children that violence is a way of showing love. What kind of husbands and
wives will these kids grow up to be? They will be husbands who beat their wives
because they ‘love’ them and they will be wives that take that beating and pass
it on to their children, because they ‘love their husbands and children.
Its
time to ensure that with our smart phones even our parenting styles are getting
smarter! Its time for ‘mindful parenting’. Mindfulness is all about realizing
when your emotions are racing ahead of you, when your emotions are taking over
you, listen to your beating heart and
control that hand that beats.
I am not going to enumerate
the negative impacts of spanking children because you don’t need a reason to
stop hitting your own child/ren, you need control, self control. So tie a red ribbon on the hand that you use
to hit your child, this will be a constant reminder that you have to control
that hand and the red will remind you that instead of seeing a red mark of a
slap on your child it would be so much more loving to see the red mark of a
kiss on your child.
If you are finding your
child stubborn, irritating, unreasonable then realize that your child was not
born that way. Remember that cherubic angel you held in your arms? When did
that angel become ‘Dennis the Menace’? Something
you did or did not do as parents led to this transformation in your child, well
then there is something that you can do as parents that can once again
transform your child, all you need is a mentor, seek one.
Promise yourself that you
will not push your child on a ‘merry go round’ of violence, because remember,
children who are beaten..beat, it’s as simple as that. Just because you are a
mother does not give you the right to beat your child and that is why in most
countries it is illegal to hit or harm your child. Its time that ‘Mother India’ also stops hitting their child and stop
making excuses like, ‘its just a small phatka’, ‘its for the child’s good’, ‘
it hit because I love my child’, etc.
Become the parent, the
mother whose heart beats for her children and not her hand. Go on your Facebook,
twitter, instagram and become an enlightened and empowered mother by posting
#Iwillnot
Come become part of this
campaign to ensure that mothers are known for nurturing and not for harming and
that mothers are stronger and can control their hand when it comes to taking
care of the heart of their lives…their children.
#Iwillnot
Dr. Swati Popat Vats
