Dear Editor,
As the society goes through various Child Month observances, we reflect on the joy that children bring and the excitement in contemplating what they could become.
By our laws, and in partnership with international conventions, Jamaica has made commitments to their survival, to their healthy growth and development. Therefore, as we celebrate children this May, let us also consider the children in our society who have been called 'uncontrollable'. Then, let's ask ourselves, what are the realities that might be at the root of their distressing behaviours?
Children who have been abused physically, sexually, emotionally, or who have been neglected, tend to be more aggressive than their peers. They have trouble forming and maintaining friendships, and they don't learn as they are expected to.
They may have serious problems with anger, states of panic, depression, and have thoughts about harming themselves, than children in the general population.
The brain has an important role to play in how we express our emotions. Decades of studies of the brains of children who have been abused, show changes in the size, shape and function of certain regions in the brain. When a child's brain has been altered by abuse, he/she can experience very great difficulty in controlling and expressing their emotions.
What we see and call uncontrollable behaviour is really a reflection of how, at the level of the unconscious, they have had to make adaptations in order to cope, and for which they don't have words.
Uncontrollable children are telling us something -- who is listening?
Rose Robinson-Hall
Assistant lecturer
Department of Community Health and Psychiatry
University of the West Indies, UWI
Mona
Spare a thought for so-called 'uncontrollable' children
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As the society goes through various Child Month observances, we reflect on the joy that children bring and the excitement in contemplating what they could become.
By our laws, and in partnership with international conventions, Jamaica has made commitments to their survival, to their healthy growth and development. Therefore, as we celebrate children this May, let us also consider the children in our society who have been called 'uncontrollable'. Then, let's ask ourselves, what are the realities that might be at the root of their distressing behaviours?
Children who have been abused physically, sexually, emotionally, or who have been neglected, tend to be more aggressive than their peers. They have trouble forming and maintaining friendships, and they don't learn as they are expected to.
They may have serious problems with anger, states of panic, depression, and have thoughts about harming themselves, than children in the general population.
The brain has an important role to play in how we express our emotions. Decades of studies of the brains of children who have been abused, show changes in the size, shape and function of certain regions in the brain. When a child's brain has been altered by abuse, he/she can experience very great difficulty in controlling and expressing their emotions.
What we see and call uncontrollable behaviour is really a reflection of how, at the level of the unconscious, they have had to make adaptations in order to cope, and for which they don't have words.
Uncontrollable children are telling us something -- who is listening?
Rose Robinson-Hall
Assistant lecturer
Department of Community Health and Psychiatry
University of the West Indies, UWI
Mona
Spare a thought for so-called 'uncontrollable' children
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