A six-year old boy in Virginia, the United States, went to school as millions do every day but he was different. He had a tendency of violent behaviour. He bullied other children, picked fights, kicked others and was unruly in the classroom. This day, he reached into his backpack, took out a gun and fired three shots at his teacher. She was seriously wounded but survived.
Pedro, an 11-year old Filipino boy was sent by his impoverished, widowed mother with five children to stay with his maternal aunt and uncle. They beat and whipped him frequently. The bruises and scars on his body are evidence of that cruel abuse. He was referred to the Preda Home for Boys as a very underweight, sad, depressed and confused child. He was holding in feelings of hurt and pain, anger and resentment. He was a boy against the world.
He was stressed and tense and, at the slightest provocation by another boy, he would fly into a rage and attack this tormenter with kicks, blows, cursing and punching. The aggressive violent behaviour was shocking. At the Preda Home for Boys, he had Emotional Release Therapy and released his anger and pain in the therapy room and he recovered.
He became calm and grew in maturity and self confidence. He found the courage to file a criminal case against his aunt. The aunt was arrested and posted bail. Soon, she will be arraigned and the case will come to trial.
One thing we know for sure is that every act of sexual, physical and verbal abuse is recorded in memory, buried deep inside the person and added to the pool of pain and hurt, to be carried within for the rest of a person’s life
Maria, 15-years-old, lived with her nine brothers and sisters and a grandmother, a scavenger in extreme poverty. They lived in a cramped 15-square metre shack in a slum in Pasig. Maria went on the streets to beg for food and was sexually abused and raped by neighbourhood men. She became depressed and hopeless and turned to selling herself for money.
Maria was emotionally disturbed, wild with anger and showed extreme aggressive behaviour towards the authorities when they picked her up on the street and brought to the Preda home. She was angry at the world, hated being always hungry, and had nothing but the clothes she wore.
When Maria first arrived at the Preda Home for abused children, she was aggressive and bullied other children until staff immediately intervened. Yet, she chose to stay although free to leave. She will surely recover with the care and therapy. The source of her aggression is likely severe malnutrition from birth, lack of love, care and food and being raped by brutal adults.
But aggressive behaviour may not always arise from malnutrition, hunger and deprivation. A few months ago, a student fraternity at a Catholic college in Manila called on newly-recruited candidates for membership. One by one, the group of 12 well-off students started shouting abuse at the candidates. They humiliated and degraded them. They bullied them as if they were animals.
They selected the first student for initiation by hazing and began to kick, punch, and beat him. They used wooden paddles and beat him in a violent frenzy. They continued to beat the boy to death then buried the body. Fifty-eight students have been murdered in this way in the past years in various Philippine universities.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
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It is what we eat, or fail to eat, that causes our brains to develop or not, our heart and organs to be healthy or not. Sadly, the food industry has captured the taste of so many that junk food malnutrition will continue and there will be more aggressive and violent children, teenagers and adults. We urgently need to teach healthy food choices
Is it just an out-of-control initiation ritual to inculcate conformity, loyalty and cooperation in a group? Perhaps, it is the peer pressure to conform and belong to a select group that demands they imitate the aggressive practices of the group. It is most likely that the “bad social genes” of aggressive behaviour is carried to the next generation of the fraternity members.
In the case of Wilson, he grew up in poverty. His mother suffered from malnutrition and likely he did too. That malnutrition caused a failure of Wilson’s brain development, resulting in weak understanding and an inability to control emotions. Then he suffered the pain of being abandoned and abused, and that caused more aggressive anger.
One thing we know for sure is that every act of sexual, physical and verbal abuse is recorded in memory, buried deep inside the person and added to the pool of pain and hurt, to be carried within for the rest of a person’s life.
That is how children are scarred and damaged for life. It cannot be healed until removed by reliving the abuse and freely expressed in tantrum-like sessions of release by shouting and punching the cushions in the therapy room, as if hitting the abuser again and again.
This is done during the Preda Emotional Release Therapy. It is a healing process that frees the child from the pain of the buried memories of abuse. It empowers the child to live a more normal life, having confronted the abuser in therapy and helped to release her or his feelings.
The well-off college students are more likely victims of peer group control-by-fear inculcating slave-like loyalty to the group and their desire to belong and be accepted in the group
Maria also suffered malnutrition and carried its effects in her genes and expressed in extreme teenage hardship. That deprivation and injustice likely contributed to feelings of anger and aggressive behaviour.
The well-off college students are more likely victims of peer group control-by-fear inculcating slave-like loyalty to the group and their desire to belong and be accepted in the group.
Another equally serious downside of malnutrition in the womb and out of it is underdevelopment of the brain. Unfortunate children grow up with low IQs, learning disabilities and short attention spans. These are the conditions that lead to aggression in children like Wilson and Maria.
An acclaimed study on the island of Mauritius showed that children malnourished at three-years-old, showed signs of elevated aggression at eight-years-old. By the time they were 11 years of age, like Pedro, outbursts of violent behaviour were seen.
These behaviours included kicking other children, biting, lying, stealing and punching others. By the age of 17, they were expressing severe aggressive destructive behaviours. Malnutrition in Maria and Wilson contributed to their aggressive behaviour. The violence they seesaw and experienced on social media and television exacerbated matters.
It is what we eat, or fail to eat, that causes our brains to develop or not, our heart and organs to be healthy or not. Sadly, the food industry has captured the taste of so many that junk food malnutrition will continue and there will be more aggressive and violent children, teenagers and adults. We urgently need to teach healthy food choices.
Intelligent legislators and government officials must pass laws to curb advertising by the junk food industry. Otherwise we are heading for a more violent future for our children and society than we already have. [Google: Infant malnutrition predicts conduct problems in adolescents BBC.com/Reel]
Father Shay Cullen
www.preda.org
