Psychologist: Society needs to protect children

Suicide among children can occur when there is abuse or a sense of despair or helplessness. It can be triggered by rage, abuse, clinical depression, neglect and even the media. Clinical and community psychologist Dr Dianne Douglas said when a child took his or her life and failed to leave behind a note explaining their actions, “we will never know their reasoning.” Douglas said that T&T was not a child-friendly society, as many adults felt that children should be seen but not heard and should obey their caregivers without question. “They feel children can bounce back after treating them anyhow. As a society, we are abusive to children,” said Douglas in an interview on Wednesday.

Douglas was giving her views on why children commit suicide and how the society can prevent this from happening. Last Month, 12-year-old Everton Vasquez, a Standard Five pupil of St Joseph Government Primary School was found hanging at his Arouca home. Vasquez lived with his grandmother. Days before, the news of six-year-old Josiah Governor who was beaten by a male relative and thrown out of a window from his East Dry River, Port-of-Spain home created a public outcry. Speaking in general about abuse and suicide among children, Douglas said the issue was becoming very worrying. Though reports of physical abuse have been few and far between by the public, since people tended to look the other way rather than help, Douglas said society needed to protect and look after the younger ones.

Douglas said children needed to be given psychological assessment in primary and secondary schools, where issues affecting them either at home or in the classrooms could be pinpointed. “When they don’t get that, it is left to the teachers to motivate where they see fit.” Douglas said society’s way of motivating children often resulted in humiliation, corporal punishment and embarrassment. “We really believe that punishment is a motivation. Punishment is a consequence of a particular behaviour.”

Emotional deficit
Children, Douglas said, who failed to function properly in school was often as a result of cognitive or emotional deficit, which was often assumed as ill behaviour. She recommended one-on-one tutoring for children who were faced with emotional deficit. “This would make a world of a difference. You will see a major jump in self esteem.” Douglas was also quick to point out that today, the responsibilities of children were left up to grandparents which had resulted in several children falling through the cracks and going astray.

“There is a large minority of our population, where it is almost traditional that the grandparents pick up the slack for their children who are not doing what they are supposed to do.” Parents, Douglas said, had to become a lot more responsible in their roles. “The grandparents have been supporting their grandchildren at a macro level, the responsibility needs to be shared with the parent. They can’t do it by themselves.” Douglas said this tradition had been happening for years, which had become part and parcel of our system of family life.

Psychological assessment
Noting that some people became parents before their time as a result of sexual abuse, being unable to delay sexual gratification or as a result of unplanned pregnancies, Douglas said the Government had to recognise that after time, some of these children will go down the wrong path. Douglas appealed to the Ministry of Education to introduce psychological assessments in schools for students. “The school has to provide workers with the tools to be able to work with a child who may be struggling. As a matter of fact we don’t know if these resources are available in the schools.” Having a social worker and psychologist in every school, Douglas said should be a priority. Douglas said if a child has performed poorly in school or displays bad behaviour, the parent or grandparent should be able to go to the school to have an assessment done by the social worker or psychologist.