2 out of 10 Romanian parents think that children’s education is done by beating them. It is one of the conclusions of the “Child Wellbeing in Rural Environment” 2024 study, commissioned by World Vision Romania. However, psychologists believe that the traumas with which these children grow and develop will follow them for life and will also turn them into future bullies.
Children beaten by their parents, traumatized for life. Photo source: archive
More than 19% of parents surveyed believe that sometimes you need to spank your children in order to educate them better. Even worse is the fact that even the little ones think the same: 9% of the children interviewed believe that the fight really is broken from Heaven, and where the mother gives, it grows.
Why do Romanians beat their children? Because violence is in their DNA. “In the time of the Dacians, the parent who hit his child was hit by all the family members, and if the act was repeated, he was beaten by the whole state. During the communist era, beating Romanians became an absolutely natural habit and remained integrated as normal. Returning to the present, there is the so-called transgenerational effect, which helps us to store all the sins of our parents and grandparents, fears, defects, psycho-emotional disorders”. explains psychologist Radu Leca.
How do children perceive beating?
How do the little ones feel this aggression from their parents? It is a question with a very hard answer provided by the specialist. “The fact that Romanians beat their children represents the most miserable act, built on the same fundamental structure of humiliation as pedophilia. We are dealing with a balance of power that says the following: every time a child is mistreated, in his soul this beating is equal to rape or sexual perversion. The child is affected emotionally almost as much,” explains the psychologist.
There is no education through beating, there is trauma through beating and that’s it, the specialist also specified. Through physical aggression, parents’ goals might be achieved, but that is not education. It’s just terror: “Same as in the case of the Romanian Olympians who, during communism, were beaten until they won a gold medal. Likewise in this case: the child is beaten until he provides the results that the parent wants from him”.
Today’s beaten child, tomorrow’s future bully
What happens to these children over time? “Being beaten by the one who should have loved them, i.e. mom or dad, is the greatest humiliation that children can experience. And it transforms them psycho-emotionally, driving them into deep anxiety or deep depression. Along with rape by beating, or beating by rape, we are dealing with a removal of children from school, from religion. They will seek refuge from reality in social media, online gaming and drug use.” continues psychologist Radu Leca. Moreover, children mistreated by their parents today, in the bosom of the family, will take this model of education and apply it to their own children: “As in the case of children with alcoholic or drug-addicted parents, abused children come to consider beating as normal. Therefore, they will also apply it, in turn, when they become adults, they will become parents”.
Psychologist: “A bully will remain a bully for life”
All parents who beat their children fall under the influence of anger disorders, affective disorders and, obviously, psychiatric disorders, the specialist also stated: “When a parent raises their hand, we are dealing with the most important form of psycho-emotional breakdown in the presence of a psychiatric diagnosis of the parent. The parent who hits, beats, mistreats, dominates his child through violence is a parent who should always be part of the patient group of psychiatric hospitals. They are deeply sick people and should never be with those children under any circumstances.”
Can these people be treated and cured of anger and aggression? Unfortunately, no, says the psychologist, because an aggressive person will remain aggressive all his life. There are rare situations when something in this individual’s behavior can change for the better. “There are two answers here. The official and the unofficial. The official one, supported by all accredited psychologists, says this: we will always advocate that therapy with an angry parent should take priority, that he should benefit from all the understanding and help of which we are capable. The goal is to respect the child’s higher good, and the therapeutic intervention must support the integration of the parent within the family”. But there is also an unofficial answer, which specialists are afraid to talk about: “In most cases where we talk about violence within the family, the perpetrator repeats the act of violence even six, 12, 14, 24 months after the beginning of therapy. So somehow nothing works. It’s a shame and it’s in vain”, the specialist also specified.
