FORMER CHAIRMAN of the Child Care Board, George Griffith agrees wholeheartedly with the recent decision to charge a father for slapping his teen daughter in the face.
And applauding the girl for being brave enough to make the initial complaint to law enforcement, Griffith suggested that children must not be afraid to report cases of abuse
Griffith told the DAILY NATION that rather than parents using their positions for dominance, they should instead devote more time and energy to establishing the kind of rapport with their children to get the child to understand when a particular behaviour is or isn’t approved.
“I believe that if a parent has to slap a child in its face at age 14 then he has no control over that child, he has lost it already. If the relationship between father and child was what it ought to be, if the father has been engaging in proper parental care, control and discipline, he would not have to slap the face, neither would the child have to suck her teeth and walk away from him.
“The relationship would have been different [and] there would be mutual respect from both sides,” the former head of the Barbados Family Planning Association said.
(SDB Media)
