A horrific video depicting the perpetration of epic violence by a young mother has been circulating on social media platforms over the past few days.
Most viewers of that video clip expressed anger and disgust towards the mother with quite a good number clamouring for the mother 's immediate arrest, while others made extreme comments calling for retributive justice.
While all the reactions and comments from the public were based on the need to protect the child and correct the mother, as a society such a situation, which by the way is not isolated, could just be a wakeup call for broad interventions from multiple professional dimensions.
Such interventions should focus on ensuring that children are protected from adverse early childhood experiences such as physical abuse as was seen in that trending video.
It is important to ensure parents are not only provided with maternal health services that enable them to bear children, but they should also be equipped with the basic skills for parenting readiness so as to prevent situations like the one captured on the video clip.
Almost everyone can give birth to a child, but they may not be prepared for parenthood. Raising a child is a mammoth task that calls for emotional, material and mental preparedness.
Some parents face deficits on the demands of parenting because they may base their parenting style on deeply held beliefs that are anchored on their own childhood experiences.
Coupled with other psycho-social challenges like single parenthood or socio economic problems, this becomes a recipe for such disasters.
The results of inflicting violence on children will for some individuals manifest years later as they grow up.
These adverse early childhood conditions will negatively affect the child' s attachment to the mother or other care givers, and in some cases as an adult, it may actually reflect in their personality or behavioural patterns.
In mental health parlance, what the young mother exhibited in that video clip may be construed as psychogenic parenting. Psychogenic parenting is a parenting style where the parent's interaction with their child is influenced by their own unresolved issues such as childhood experiences or emotional challenges.
While arresting the mother is in the interest of justice, this case calls for consideration of a more supportive system that calls for parenting programmes and mental health services for at risk parents.
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Parenting training should be more than just about feeding, clothing and providing shelter. It must include the basic understanding of the child's emotional and developmental needs.
Mental health professionals like psychologists have a big role to play in that regard. For instance, in the case at hand, a baby crawling at that stage is not a milestone that can be enforced.
Every child grows at their own pace as individuals depending on various factors, and punishing a child for failing to meet developmental milestones suggest a significant and dangerous lack of child development knowledge.
In addition to interventions like parenting programmes, screening for associated mental health problems such as post-natal depression is critical for at risk mothers.
A young mother under stress and without adequate emotional and financial support can be overwhelmed by the burden of parenthood, resulting in anger, frustration or even violence toward the child.
While actions of that young mother in the trending video clip are seriously troubling, it is a reminder of the urgent need to consider widening the scope for pre- and post- natal service provision to address parenting readiness and mental health in young parents and other older parents who may be at risk of subjecting their children to psychogenic parenting practices.
Ison Ndoro is an intern Forensic Psychologist and Adjunct Lecturer of Psychology at the University of Zimbabwe. He writes as an independent social commentator
