Curfews for children - a community/child development strategy?

Rose Robinson-Hall, Guest Columnist

Normally, curfews for children would be a parenting matter. While the recently announced community curfew strategy can give rise to some concern about its implications for the rights of children and parents, it could provide a golden opportunity for promoting and supporting healthy family life in the households of the selected communities.

A grassroots-led antecedent to the current community curfew for children in West Kingston has been in existence in Fletcher's Land for some time. This initiative was implemented and monitored by residents who reported several benefits that they had seen flow from it.

For example, as the restrictions took effect, children who were inclined to break the curfew increasingly found that their peers and playmates were now indoors after hours. They felt that the curfew helped to provide structure around how the children passed their time. There were more regular bedtimes; the children woke up well rested; and parents felt that there were encouraging improvements in their schoolwork. In addition, the community was able to attract sponsorship and expert advice on nutrition planning, which had led to a cost-effective expansion of an existing breakfast programme at the local school.

Questions about curfews

There are five questions at the heart of community curfews for children. First, what are the short- and long-term effects of community violence on children and on family life? Second, what kind of home environment are the children in after hours? Third, what are the best and most cost-effective ways to support healthy family life? Fourth, how can families be healed? Fifth, how can public policy better contribute to a healthier Jamaican family life?

Each question contributes to identifying what needs to happen. Since the current strategic approach to reducing crime has its origins in the discipline of law enforcement, we must not lose sight of the fact that this field has its own priorities, its approaches and practice traditions, and is seeking short- to longer-term outcomes in terms of the prevention and reduction of crime. This approach could limit the value of community curfews for children. While we celebrate the successes of the network of police youth clubs and those times when a distressed parent has sought the counsel and admonition of a police officer to a wayward offspring, we must not put all our eggs in this one basket, because law enforcement cannot, and should not, be doing this alone.

Home visitation and community child protection are intervention strategies that have solid records of being examples of best practice in the care and development of children. The Roving Caregiver programme, operated by the Rural Family Support Organisation in Clarendon, is an example of one such. For more than 10 years, this agency has deployed a team of para-professionals recruited from the community to work with young parents in providing early-stimulation services to their children.

It has been well established that during times of economic hardship, the incidence of child abuse increases. A raft of short- and long-term stressors such as family discord, financial pressure, the use of drugs and alcohol, the use of forms of punishment mistakenly considered discipline are some of the factors that can make home a dangerous place for children.

For the fiscal years 2005-2007, intake data from the Child Development Agency consistently show that neglect has been the commonest form of child abuse requiring that agency's attention. Further, statistical reports from the Office of the Children's Registry reveal that between 2007 and 2011, approximately a third of alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse were the victims' relatives. The number of missing children highlights the need to teach children safety skills.

Forcing children to remain inside overburdened homes may create problems from which they cannot readily escape. Children need to feel safe in their homes. Parents and other family members deserve to enjoy a good and healthy family life. Since the enforcement of community curfews will have children off the streets and out of public spaces by 9 p.m., there are some factors that demand critical examination to help families to adjust and make the best of this change.

Parental discipline

Most parents do not intend to hurt their children. However, in a moment of frustration, feeling overwhelmed or unable to control their temper, a parent may be tempted to lash out at his or her children. Such parents can benefit from guidance and forms of intervention to help them gain insight into and learn to manage their own behaviours and enjoy parenting.

In enforcing community curfews, it is also important to include considerations about the teenagers in the communities. Adolescence is normally a time of rapid, complex and bewildering changes in children's bodies, as well as in the ways they think, feel and behave. This period of human development is a time when children tend to test boundaries, challenge rules, question values, take risks, seek newness and autonomy and are highly vulnerable to the influence of their peer group. All these come with the territory of being a teenager and can lead to serious harm if parents are not helped to understand and cope with this stage of their child's transition to adulthood.

Research has shown that child maltreatment has enduring effects that can lead to family breakdown, mental illness, impairment of the development of a child's brain, leaving families and communities the worse off for it. These considerations have important implications for the effectiveness of community curfews for children. However, before we give in to demonising families, the following measures deserve strong consideration as means of support.

Help for families

First, to varying degrees, families need emotional and practical help. An important priority is providing guidance to parents and neighbourhoods on how their children can safely pass the time at home. Three things that come readily to mind are (1) teaching cell phone safety, (2) monitoring what they watch on cable television, and (3) teaching children how to avoid situations that put them at risk, as well as how to respond if they are abused.

Second, where there has been weak parental supervision in the past, there could be problems in establishing rules for the home and in setting and maintaining important boundaries. Families should be helped to understand their children's development and to learn caring, non-violent ways of dealing with behavioural difficulties.

Third, families should be encouraged to access relevant social services when it is found that this will assist.

Finally, we should commit to collecting and using the evidence from enforcing community curfews for children. This evidence will need to be robust and systematic and draw lessons about the social and economic benefits that can be derived from supporting healthy Jamaican family life.

Rose Robinson-Hall is on the faculty of the Department of Community Health & Psychiatry at the UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.