DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN

IT IS timely to use April, which is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, to look at parents' challenges with 'teenage boyfriend problems' and how we discipline and punish.

As cited in the 2016 IDB publication, Crime and Violence in Trinidad and Tobago, 'widespread use of corporal punishment is a result of a complex interplay of cultural and social norms, including the belief that children are born 'bad' or 'wicked' and need correcting, the view of children as 'property' of their parents, the belief that punishment is necessary for character and moral development, the importance placed on obedience, lack of parenting skills (including a lack of knowledge about non-violent approaches to discipline), and the widespread belief of adults that they were not harmed by the physical punishment they received as children.'

Corporal punishment describes physical violence enacted on the body. It is accepted by many teachers and families, and by children. Adults fear lack of control over children and loss of discipline without such aggressive domination.

However, we should note that both the Children Act and the Domestic Violence Act prohibit cruel or humiliating punishment, unlawful physical violence and all forms of abuse. Beating children isn't a crime. However, it's essential that we name it for what it is and how it should be seen.

Both physical violence against children and between partners is abuse. In 2005-2006, UNICEF found that 77 per cent of children aged two-14 experienced violent discipline in TT, with five-six per cent experiencing being 'hit or slapped on the face, head or ears, or being hit over and over with an implement,'

However, no child deserves to be battered because extreme violence masquerades as discipline in our society.

Let's move now to adolescent sexuality, for which many teens are berated and beaten.

Adolescent desire is normal, psychologically and biologically. Despite our misunderstanding and fears, it is not an expression of deviance. Sexual attraction becomes familiar to children beginning in primary school. Children talk about sex and intimacy, know others experimenting as they emerge into early teens, and have their own desires, even those from religious families.

According to the Global School-Based Student Health Survey, reported in 2017 for Trinidad, one in three adolescents between 13 and17 was sexually active, with 55.9 per cent of this group having first had sexual intercourse before the age of 14.

Among 13-15-year-olds, boys (33 per cent) were twice as likely as girls (16 per cent) to report having ever had sexual intercourse. In Tobago, it was 38.8 per cent, with 56.3 per cent of this group found to have had first sexual intercourse before the age of 14, and boys having higher rates of early sexual initiation and multiple partners than girls. As boys' practices fit dominant expectations of heterosexual masculinity, it isn't considered a teenage problem.

With regard to girls, maybe they are not making decisions that are