HOW CHILDREN TURNED INTO CRIMINALS

– Lugina Miranda

Pooja aged 14, was caught copying during her final exams. The principal and teachers were surprised to see her stationery box filled with written answers to copy. Later she was referred to me. Pooja was scared and crying bitterly. We spent some time in silence then I started the conversation. During the conversation she mentioned how her father strictly told her to score above 90% otherwise not to come home. Pooja was an average student and it was difficult for her to score 90% and above. To please her father, she decided to copy.

Varun a 12 yr old boy was brought to counselling by his parents. Their complaint was that he forged the signature of his father on the remarks book which the teacher had given him for not bringing the text book and also for telling lies these days. Varun is a bright child but is scared of his mother. She is a perfectionist and expects perfection from her son too. For any small mistake she becomes very upset, punishes him and also refuses to sign the remarks. Varun feels helpless. This time to prevent an unpleasant situation he decided to forge the signature of his parent.

A class teacher of 4th std brought her student Rohit to the principal because he changed his marks in his marks card. The principal called his parents to talk. Later they were sent to me. Rohit, who had come with his mother, said he changed his marks because of his father. His father threatened him with severe punishment if he were to bring less marks.

Tony, age 13, is an angry boy bullying others in the class. He uses bad language when the teachers correct him; back answers them and then mutters rude words. Tony says “that is what his father does to him and to his mother”. He says that he wants to kill his father.

When children bully, they often are being bullied themselves and have a need to get back at others. This is their goal of revenge.
Children were born innocent and they are always compared to be like God. But what happens to these children as they grow? Why do many children choose the wrong path?

Often the way a child behaves depends on various factors such as family, school and other environmental factors. Family factors such as poor parenting, family violence, alcoholism, death in a family, birth in the family, poverty, change of residence, illiteracy or poorly educated parents, expectations and pressure to perform well have a great influence on the children’s behaviour.

School and other Environmental factors include: crowded classrooms, faulty curriculum, wrong teaching methods, medium of instructions, transition years, busy schedule of the child, multiple tuitions, involving multi activities, child abuse, child labour, distance between home and school.

Factors within the child: the child may have a learning problem and hence behaves badly of frustration, boredom or to get attention.

Children are often called by names such as nuisance, stubborn, lazy, disobedient, liar, good for nothing, robber, thief, stupid, rebel etc., By calling name like this they get a role to play in their life. (By calling names, the child thinks ‘everyone knows what I am, so, I’ll behave like this and remain like this. Gradually they accept the names behaving like that)

Tips to Parents:
• Accept the child as he/she is. Ignore minor misbehaviours. Parents should not threaten the child.
• Stop calling names and focus on positive attitude.
• Catch the child being good by focusing on any appropriate behaviour, no matter how “small” this is. Talk about what the child has done, rather than praising the character of the child.
• Show trust and do not mention the incident in front of others or in a way that is insulting.
• Appreciate the child’s attempt to change for the better.
• Avoid punishments as this only serves to make the child believe that he is hated.
• Avoid comparisons with other children.
• Give the child choices, both options of which are acceptable to you.
• Respect a child’s feelings. Ask the child to change the behaviour without denying his/ her feelings.
• Parents must remember that children are watching us all the time and model their own behaviour based on ours. So, we must model appropriate behaviour.

In order to understand why children, do what they do., we should understand why children misbehave. Just like a good doctor tries to determine the cause for a fever before treating it, so also Parents and Teachers should know the reason for a particular misbehaviour so that they can intervene accordingly.

The child who misbehaves is often a hurting child. A child needs to be proud of himself as he is, —if not, he will probably misbehave in a great deal.