Train Up a Child
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
This week we will turn our attention to some of our more vulnerable students and show you the place that Springs of Hope plays in their life and that of their family. We have many families with complicated issues that are beyond our control and jurisdiction.
One of the fallouts of August 3, 2014 was that many normal fathers, loving, gentle, working, became either schizophrenic or bipolar within a short space of time as they witnessed atrocities being done to their wives and daughters. It took a while for them to receive a formal diagnosis.
They have never recovered. So frequently the woman becomes the centre of attention, the one who receives the most psychosocial care, the men being considered to be strong and psychological support definitely not for them.
Today our teacher Kajen turns our attention to twin students, their family background and the struggles that she, as teacher, faces.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
In Yezidi culture when we think about family our thoughts turn to our children who are the focus of our lives. The normative Yezidi focus however is not on their future, what they will become and how to help them to realise their dreams and their strengths. We think about food, and playtime outside.
The role of the mother is frequently minimised to that of a reproductive machine, expected to give birth, preferably to male children. With that her role stops; she is not involved in education or the training of a child. (This is a great difference to the Syrian mothers who are one hundred percent involved and deeply invested in every stage of education).
Bafre is such a mother. She has five children, two of whom are defined as having special needs. She is 30 years old and has five children. She once told me that I got married too late; she considered me to be old. I asked her how old she was when she married, 19, which in her opinion was old. She firmly believes that her destiny in life is to bring children into the world and to feed them.
Consequently her children appear to be lost, without a sense of belonging or being loved. They have no anchor or homeland in life. Home is a tent where they get hit, cursed and fed.
When the family decided to send their twins, age 5, to our kindergarten, they were out of their depth, having had no background of being mentored or even prepared for the world of education. The children were rightly fearful as they had no idea of what to anticipate; the unknown loomed in front of them. The parents used physical violence to force them to stay with us.
Their father is one of the many Yezidi men who suffer psychological problems since the 2014 genocide. He barely communicates, is disconnected from his children, and although he has five he has no idea how to raise them, let alone connect and mentor them. Part of our role is to gently educate such parents to help improve the quality and content of family life in general. Others in surrounding tents have told him that education is the path to success, yet he has no clue what that means.
I remember one day three months ago he brought the children to our gate. They refused to go inside. Without a second thought he began to beat his children. He lost control and just went for them. We all rushed to the children, separated between them and their father. Our male staff took him aside and asked him why he beat them (please note that there is no official system of children’s rights or protection here). His answer was direct: “I hit them because they did not listen.”
We were shocked. I told him clearly that he had no right to hit his children, especially in our centre and in front of other children. I told him that we forbade any form of violence against our students, whether physical, verbal or emotional. We have resolved the issue of his violence if and when he comes to the centre; at home in his tent we doubt that we have made any impact.
When the twins first began their journey with us, they had no experience of even sitting on a chair. They did not know what a chair was or its purpose. They were vacant, almost absent. Simple things such as paper, colours, drawing were strange and unknown to them. One of them did not know his real name. His mother had given him a nickname so when asked he would use this nickname. I began with the basics, every day asking them their names until they replied giving their birth names.
They began to look forward to sitting on our chairs. The chairs represented a different world, one of promise, one different to their tent home. The chair represented hope, future, respect, curiosity, the freedom to think and ask questions, the security to just sit without being punished. The day when they chose to hold a pen was amazing; it was the day when they realised that their future began with that simple pen.
The flip side was that as they had not received any guidelines or boundaries at home, they would not accept our rules. If I asked them to do something, to give respect, they would run away. I would run after them trying to reason with them, trying to bring them back, also to ensure that they ran to their tent.
As the days and early weeks passed they realised that no other child would run away, so they would remain content for half an hour, and then as if an alarm bell had been hit, they would cry inconsolably until it was time to go home. It would have been easier for one of our team to escort them home at that point, but we were fearful of the punishment that they would receive and preferred to keep them close to us even though they were upset.
I would make extra breaks. Amal, our house mother, would make special popcorn and serve additional treats, comfort food. We would eat and play games to let the children know that they were loved and safe.
I learned that it was better to separate them both in class and in our outside activities, placing them next to other children in order for them to begin to make friends. It has been a slow process of retraining their young minds that have been so deeply impacted by their home environment.
Then came the day that I had been waiting, hoping and praying for. They walked through our blue gates together. No parental escort. Quietly, confident, smiling, and took their places on their chairs in class.
I believe that with the help of God and continued gentle instruction, they will be ready for school next year. I regularly visit the family to encourage the parents in their role as mentors and in the success of their children.
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