I once asked students who their role model in life was. One boy answered that his dad was his hero because he alwayssupported him in every dispute, and even fought for him!
We know of helicopter parents hovering protectively, tiger parents relentlessly prodding their children upwards, and lawn mower parents mowing down obstacles well before their children can learn to face these. But this student’s dad exemplified a different extreme model of ‘warrior parenting’ as a knight in shining armour escalating his son’s minor battles into mighty wars without any moral or ethical justification.
‘Warrior’ parents who prefer combat mode to peaceable solutions are on the rise these days. They feel justified in their militant attitude and verbal or physical assaults on anyone who thwarts or threatens their precious offspring. Frequent warrior parenting however, may cause long term damage.
On an ‘anger scale’ of zero to ten points, a warrior parent flares instantly to ten with furious and indiscriminate words and actions at the slightest provocation. When anger cools, it is often too late to regret the words uttered in haste or sudden blow struck in anger. As the poet Rahimsang, a broken necklace can be rejoined only with a knot; and likewise, a mended relationship will forever retain the memory of discord.
An even worse and long-term outcome of adult anger is that young children imitate these visible displays of rage around them. The habit firms through repetition and observation, especially of their parental role model who prefers fighting to discussion. Unable to acquire problem-solving strategies or coping mechanisms, these children lash out at life’s challenges in incoherent outbursts and infantile tantrums.
As these children enter teenage, an already mentally challenging phase roiling with self-doubt and angst, anger makes their mind toxic. Serious damage may be inflicted by such teens, for instance, in social media sites where self-control and accountability are at their lowest ebb. Bullying may be the outcome of repressed and inverted anger. Anger becomes a ready escape gateway, blaming others for every perceived harm to oneself.
Warrior parents may appear as knights in shining armour to theirchildren, but in truth, they only model psychologically weak, self-indulgent, unstable and ultimately self-destructive frames of mind. Children become defensive or aggressive. They never learn to discriminate between right and wrong or between petty conflicts and important issues. They remain insensitive to others while always expecting the world to empathise with them. Consequently, in adulthood they are unable to face failure and rejection. At the very least, this can cause mental health issues, and at worst, lead to broken relationships and homes, familial abuse and violence, road rage, mob fury and even suicide. These traumatic experiences leave residual mental disharmony. But de-stressing through counselling and therapy fails as anger explodes into ten again with the next provocation. Thus, mental balance is shattered by recurrent bouts of fury like the blows of an axe.
At school, the workplace, home and everywhere else, the importance of cooperation and collaboration cannot be underestimated and these require give and take for success. Brainstorming with the child for solutions to problems, correcting misconduct when a child is wrong, teaching her to adjust, accommodate, or even to graciously give in, will build grit and resilience and forge the strength of mind capable of facing life’s vicissitudes.It takes ingenuity as well as divergent and creative thinking to find solutions to the unpredictable problems that we often encounter in life. A safer and wholesome parental role model finds win-win solutions to children’s problems, saving the commando action for serious threats.
Dr. Sanjukta Sivakumar
Principal