How fathers influence their children behaviour through their own

When growing up, Mariana Joseph had trust issues with men. Her relationships never lasted long.

Looking back, she now thinks she could have contributed in making the relationships fail. She was overly sensitive and did not allow any of her boyfriends to hurt her. She was always on the alert and fled at a slightest sign of trouble.

“I must admit I was very conscious. Any behaviour that resembled my father’s completely put me off. I realised much later that I was just imagining things in most cases. I ended up ruining all the good relationships I had as a result,” says the 34-year-old mother of two.

It was after she sought spiritual counselling that her relationship with men improved. She is now happily-married, her husband quite the opposite of her father.

Mariana grew up in an abusive environment. She does not remember a day when she saw her mother happy. Her mother was a miserable woman. She suffered a lot of abuse and humiliation from her husband.

The children were not spared. They too received their fair share of abuse.

“I was raised by an abusive father and a hardworking mother in rural Moshi. Ever since I was a child, my sisters and I used to witness how father would often abuse our mother, especially when he was drunk. He would beat and verbally abuse her infront of us. He would beat us when we tried to help our mother,” she sadly recalls.

Her mother’s suffering stopped when her father died in 1999 when Mariana was in secondary school. But his behaviour left emotional scars on the family he left behind.

“The suffering my late father made us go through, especially my mother, is still fresh in my mind. I still remember everything clearly as if it happened yesterday. The bad thing is that it has affected how I perceive men. It took me years to settle down because I was afraid of ending up in an abusive relationship like my mother,” says Mariana.

Fathers are an important part to the emotional wellbeing of their children aside from being care takers and disciplinarians. Mariana’s case is an example of how a father’s behaviour can have a negative or positive effect on their children’s lives.

The effects of growing up in a home where there’s domestic violence of any kind are said to often reach into adulthood. Most children from such homes often end up with behavioural problems including being emotionally disturbed.

Diana Urassa , a sociologist working with vulnerable children in Kigogo Dar es Salaam, says no matter how young children may be, they can sense the tension of abuse even when parents believe they are too young to understand what is happening. She says living in an abusive home affects the children’s brain development because of all the stress that is put on their developing mind.

According to her, most of the children who experience violence and fail to get help end up in trouble in society.

“Some of these children commit criminal acts while others fall into depression. The worst that can happen is repeating their parents’ marriage experience in their own relationships,” explains the sociologist.

The expert says children raised in a family where the father abused the mother grow up thinking that this is a normal way of life.

“They might be against such a behaviour but apparently there is a chance that once they start their own family the same behaviour begins to emerge and their parents’ fates are repeated.”

The sociologist says when a woman is a victim of domestic violence, it affects not only her but also her children. However, this could be prevented with early intervention, counselling that is, because the earlier the problem is solved the better,” she says, adding that one does not have to live the life of their parents if they grew up in an abusive family.

Diana says parents need to understand that their behaviou can have a big impact on the lives of their children. Parents need to be very careful in their actions.

Donald Kwisakwami, a 39-year-old father of three grew up looking up to his father as his role model. He just wanted to be like his father when he grew up. He used to admire his parents and wanted to be just like them when he got married.

Donald and his siblings grew up in a home which was not only surrounded by love but where they were raised by a father who devoted his life for his family and worked hard to see that his children got the best in life.

“My father was always there playing both his role as a father and husband very well. He loved and still loves our mother dearly. He used to openly show how he appreciated her,”Donald shares.

According to him, his parents never argued in front of them and he grew up thinking that they never argued at all. “But I later came to realise that they were just a normal couple who had their ups and downs except that they never let their problems affect us,” explains Donald.

He says his father always spared time to be with them, “I have good memories of how he would take us to watch football and if we did something wrong he would call us and tell us where we had gone wrong before caning us. Surprisingly, we never got angry with him because we knew we had been wrong.”

Donald is proud that his marriage is almost similar to his parents’. The lesson he learnt from his parents is that building a happy marriage takes a lot of effort.

He is proud to say that he is who he is today thanks to his parents, especially his role model, his father. “I can’t say I am a perfect father or husband but I believe my father raised me to be the responsible, emotionally stable and strong man that I am today. My mother played her role very well in raising us because she also had a stable and loving relationship with our father,” Donald explains.

Martin Ngosso, a social psychologist based in Moshi says human beings are social animals who learn by modeling behaviour which involves learning from one another, through observation and imitation.

He says as humans we learn how to survive and function successfully in the world through replicating other people’s behaviour.

Ngosso says a parent’s behaviour can contribute greatly to their child’s development including intellectually, academic achievement and even social development.

“If a father is affectionate and supportive then he can have a positive influence on his children by making them have a good sense of wellbeing and self-esteem. This relationship can affect a child through their entire life , including their relationship with others such as friends, husband and wife,” says the expert.

Girls will look for men who resemble their fathers and so if she had a father who was kind and gentle, chances are they will look for those characteristics in men because of what they experienced in childhood, says Ngosso.

The psychologist says it is the same for boys who look up to their fathers as their role models.

“Boys will copy their father’s behaviours, so if his father was abusive or controlling, then they will copy the behaviour and if he was loving, kind and protective, they will do the same.”

He says that children who are loved by involved fathers, tend to have less behavioural problems and when fathers are less engaged, children have a possibility of showing more problems in behaviour.

“Fathers are as important as mothers in their respective roles as caregivers, protectors, financial supporters, and most importantly, models for social and emotional behaviour.”

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