South Africa can break its cycles of gender-based violence (GBV) by investing in supporting children and caregivers. This is according to a social worker Mzoli Mavimbela, who says curbing violence against women and children begins at home.
According to Mavimbela, children as young as eight years old can be exposed to life-changing events that can influence the kind of men they would grow into.
“Assertiveness is the key to conquering negative teachings. A mother’s role is simply to advise her sons to behave well at initiation school and to resist negative peer pressure.”
From one single mother to another
Vuyokazi Ngemntu is an artist and mother of three boys from Philippi in Cape Town. She says that through raising pre-teen sons, she has learned to have frank, open conversations about sex. This way, she’s able to establish a foreground of the terrain they’re about to step into and affirm that the changes they’re going through are normal.
“The opportunities to broach the subject formally arrive in seemingly insignificant moments when they narrate their day at school, where perhaps one friend was mean or someone else expected them to rally behind cruel actions. I’d say get them to understand that their feelings and perspective are valid and that they don’t need to follow the crowd.”
She believes any child, whether a boy or a girl, deserves blunt discussions around hygiene, safe sex, GBV, sexuality, abuse, rape, and all these pressing issues we see in the media daily. She adds that it will never be enough to let schools and media do the teaching without you. As a parent, it’s up to you to instill values.
Future father, husband and leader
If you are raising a son, you need to understand that they you raising somebody’s future husband, someone’s future father and future leaders; therefore, they need to be groomed correctly.
“Casual and laid-back is probably best. No ‘we need to talk’ theatrics. Finding them chilling in their room is a good opportunity to walk in with a snack, plonk yourself on the bed next to them, and start a casual conversation that gets them to open up.
The focus should be on it being non-threatening, not a Spanish inquisition. They’ll probably be amused or cautious at first, but as soon as they get the hang of it and see that there’s no shame attached to the subject, the awkwardness will subside and make way for openness.”
Dear absent dads…
According to Thembinkosi Matika, an international registered NLP life coach, absent fathers leave a hole in raising a boy child.
“The idea of violence doesn’t just come when someone is upset. It’s something males learn growing up, maybe something they see happening with the neighbours or in their homes.”
When boys grow, they experience the puberty stage which symbolises a time of transition, both physically and emotionally. At that point, they may feel bewildered if there was no father figure to converse with. Therefore, society and street advice will always be there, something teenagers adapt to, he xplains.
“This is where the male figure comes in, to teach them how to behave and use their energy in a positive way.”
Calling a spade a spade
Matika says that ever since he started his boy’s camp initiative, he doesn’t sugar-coat anything, and if the topic is about sex and genitals, he needs to call a spade a spade because usually boys ask things. They know how to test your truth and knowledge about these things.
“If I do not have the answers, I tell them unapologetically while searching for the essential expertise around that.”
He adds that boys need to be taught values as early as possible, the appropriate way to carry themselves around the world, and that the energy they have is not to fall into the GBV trap or beat their mates. They need to be considerate and taught how to be a man during the initiation of school and thereafter within society, Matika advises.
“Unfortunately, some are not lucky enough when they attend the initiation school. They got caught up with initiation guards who are abusers themselves and impart that to the young men.”
He says that parents must be able to tell the difference between a real man and someone who has only been initiated; there will always be a difference and you can spot a real man by his behaviour and actions.
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