BEATING A FLOWER: Resolving Violence in Children

She, a child of around seven years sat with me on a bus. We were on a holiday. At the last tourist spot, I had bought her a small handbag with a little rose and two leaves pasted on it.

Curious, as every child is, she had dissected the bag and the flower had almost come out. The flower started dangling like the tail of a weaver bird's nest. This was bothering her and she was repeatedly trying to stick it back. This attempt gradually became violent. She harshly started to beat the flower with her water bottle. She was hitting the flower as if she was nailing something into a hard wall. It was that hard and violent!

I looked at her. I wondered why is she expressing so much violence on a plastic rose flower.

"What are you doing Asha (named changed)," my voice calmed her violently hitting hand. "It's a small flower. Can you stick it back by hitting at it?" Her face suddenly regained sense. It was as if she understood what she was doing. Till then her violence was driven by some unconscious, invisible factor.

When I calmly talked to her she regained sense. "You can go home and stick it with a strong glue or with a needle and thread," I said.

The violence and anxiety flew off from the child immediately and in no time she forgot what she was doing. A little later she opened up about everything she was facing at home. I hadn't impelled her to do so. I was awe stuck that a child is  capable of such complex thoughts and observes the adult world so closely.

Children are impacted by the negative and the positive around. Education and educators have to make children aware of their true selves. This case illustrates how simple it can be to do so.

When negativity goes unresolved it becomes fear and violence. Fear and violence breads more fear and violence until resolved.

Irrationality is an unresolved sentiment. We carry such unresolved sentiments from our experiences of childhood.

I want to leave two message here for parents and teachers.

First: There's no better therapy than compassionate behaviour.

Second: You can't be a parent by just giving birth. Parenting is not living social fancies. Learn about parenting the way you learned to be good doctors and engineers!

--
Venus Upadhayaya