‘Let children speak freely’

Children must be able to express themselves freely. Consultant psychiatrist at the Child Guidance Clinic, Dr June Price-Humphrey, said quite often, parents stifled their children and silenced them.

“Allow children to express themselves appropriately. And that doesn’t mean rudeness, but everything that comes out of a child’s mouth doesn’t need censoring because that’s the only way you’re going to know what the child is thinking,” she said.

Her comments came after a recent interactive session organised by the Kiwanis Club of Barbados South for Class 4 students of St Giles, Belmont and George Lamming primary schools at Solidarity House.

“Adults seem to think children don’t feel the same things they feel. So for example, mummy and daddy aren’t working so they don’t have enough money, and they seem to think the child isn’t going to be affected because it is an ‘adult’ problem.

“But they know when there is no money in the house or no food in the house. So parents need to understand that children are affected by the way they behave. They know the problems that affect them and the degree to which they take it on depends on how well the parent protects or equips them to deal with the problem,” Price-Humphrey said.

She runs the clinic from at the Branford Taitt Polyclinic and said at times parents were not clear about what they wanted from children and sometimes punished them without explaining to the child how its actions were wrong. (TG)