Communication Gap by Swastika Singh

Why there is a communication gap between children and parents?

1. Working parents: Children feel left out when both of their parents are working. Due to lack of conversation, children gradually drift away from their parents and start hiding things from them. Lack of time and exhaustive routine of the parents become a hindrance in developing parent- child relationship.
2. Peer Pressure: Children victim of sexual abuse start living a reclusive lifestyle. This attracts
   attention of bullies, who further harasses the kid and threatens them. These experiences adds onto their already tough life and further alludes them from people.
3. Toxic Masculinity: Since childhood a child is taught to be brave and strong. Tears and emotions are framed as weaknesses. Parents sometimes reprimand their children for crying over petty things. This kind of upbringing makes children prone to keeping things that might showcase their weakness.
4. Normalisation: While discussing about sexual abuse with friends, children are exposed to many stories of abuse. This makes them believe it’s not a rare incident and is ‘normal’. They accept it as the reality of their life and decides not to share it with anyone.
5. Trigger: Children with history of sexual abuse gets traumatised even while reminiscing those experiences. A mere recollection of that event triggers traumatic shocks inside their brain. To avoid this children don’t share this experience, they don’t want to unlock those triggering memories.
   These are some of the reasons that could provide a plausible answer to the above question. So there is a need to work on the above reasons and come up with possible solutions such as:
   ? Time-management by parents. They should take out time from their busy schedule and talk to their children about their day to day events. They should also closely observe their children and any odd behavior should be immediately attended.
   ? Schools and colleges should make campuses intolerant to bullies.
   ? Parents should teach their child compassion and kindness. They should also highlight the importance of free flow of emotions. They should not scold their children for crying and should endorse free expression of emotions.
   ? Sexual abuse shouldn’t be normalised. Children should be made aware that abuse is not natural or normal, they should immediately report abuse.
   ? While talking to children, parents should be calm and patient. They shouldn’t force their child to reveal the incident in a single go. They should give them time and space.