Commentary: How do we raise sons who will never hit women?
SINGAPORE: The recent incident of a NUS dentistry student receiving a community-based sentence after strangling his ex-girlfriend in her own dwelling, drew an outcry from many women'south groups in Singapore.
In a bid to revive their relationship which ended later two years, Yin Zi Qin, 23, met the victim and together they entered her bedchamber by climbing into her window from an adjacent showroom unit of measurement.
When the victim declined to revive their broken human relationship, Yin strangled her until she blacked out on the floor.
In another case that went before the courts in Jan this twelvemonth, a former student at Yale-NUS College admitted to taking intrusive pictures of his female person flat mates.
He said that looking at naked pictures of the women helped him destress from the bookish pressure he felt.
Like many fathers of daughters, my eye went out to the victims. Only the latest incident also made me expect at how I am raising my two sons when it comes to how they treat women.
A Father'S INFLUENCE
Global research has shown that active fathering positively influences a child'south social, emotional and cerebral development.
Children whose fathers are highly involved across diverse activities - such every bit eating together, helping with schoolwork and going on family outings – exhibit fewer child behaviour problems, and college levels of sociability and academic performance, a report by American sociologists, Jane Mosley and Elizabeth Thomson found.
Adolescents who feel shut to their fathers are likewise less probable to engage in delinquent behaviour or feel emotional distress according to the Journal of Marriage and Family.
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Women'southward groups have highlighted the importance of raising boys to respect women through instruction. But for me, the real lessons are learnt when a child watches how his mother, sister or other women around him are treated by the men in their lives.
When men at home treat women like they are equally worthy and valued every bit people with needs, feelings, intelligence, skills, and power, their sons are much more likely to grow up doing the same, a 2022 article in Psychology Today argued.
This was something I too had to learn.
In my younger years, I used to exist less inhibited and careless with my words. There were times when I would utilize unkind words on my wife at the dinner tabular array. It took me a long while to realise the agin effects this behaviour had on my children.
When I realised how harmful this was, I became more conscious of the words I used, the tone I took and resolved not to put downwards my wife, fifty-fifty in jest.
LEARNING HOW TO DISAGREE WITHOUT RANCOUR
I used to wonder why marriages in the movies e'er seemed and then perfect, and mine was filled with conflicts I was ill-prepared to handle. It took me more a decade of working through disagreements with my wife to empathise such instances served to help us appreciate one another improve and describe u.s.a. closer as a couple.
In working through these differences, we have come up to a few simple rules: Nosotros will effort our best non to fence in front end of the children. And if I lose my cool in a disagreement, I volition do my best to apologise and seek reconciliation.
In doing so, I prioritised harmony in my abode. And this is what I tell my children – the importance of maintaining skilful relationships depends on the extent we have to get to work on them.
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My sense is that even though my children are immature, by watching my wife and I, they appreciate what strong relationships look like – and see that while they are non perfect, they are ever centred on respect for each other.
Information technology also helped that I accept a community of fathers effectually me that held me accountable for the state of my marriage, and modelled for me how to love and respect my wife in all circumstances with their own honest sharing.
This is another powerful lesson I took from this journeying. Men, like women, can and should have the avenues to share personal highs and lows. It makes the states better as fathers and sons too.
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LEARNING NOT TO OBJECTIFY WOMEN
In recent cases of violence towards women and sexual practice crimes that stop up in court, there seemed to be a blueprint of perpetrators objectifying women and resorting to violence when things practise not get well in their relationships.
Mr Yin also had demonstrated a loss of control after facing rejection. He had striking his own head against the wall when she declined to continue their relationship. He admitted he was upset before he proceeded to strangle her.
Objectification is office of a harmful sexualisation procedure being forced onto our girls, which co-ordinate to the American Psychological Clan is a leading crusade of sexual violence against them.
It unremarkably takes the class of sexual comments nearly women or jokes virtually their looks or body parts. Information technology may seem harmless, fifty-fifty picayune, but tin be an insidious style boys learn to disrespect women. Nosotros must consciously avoid that kind of talk as men.
We need to movement away from this conditioning that objectifies people of the contrary sexual activity and plays up causeless gender-specific roles. When it comes to my three children, I am mindful non to hash out near their physical attributes, but to emphasise their qualities that deserve praise.
I would commend them for being loving, joyful, good, kind, gentle, faithful, patient and possessing self-command. In our home, we have a nautical chart to rails such behaviours and we would reward our children accordingly.
EQUIPPING FATHERS
We take to acknowledge none of this is easy. As with everything else, we demand resources, back up and encouragement. Information technology is hard for us to talk to our children most relationships for instance so how practise you share your view about sexuality and relationships?
This is especially tough when the way nosotros were raised is different from the world our children live in.
When our children render home with relationship problems, fathers (and not but mothers as a default) can create a safe and conducive surround where tough conversations can happen. If our children experience unconditionally loved and accepted, they may exist able to talk about such episodes more than openly.
Nosotros cannot shield our children from heartbreak, but we could certainly build their sense of personal resilience by affirming them, and making them feel more than secure in who they are, and how much they are loved in the family unit, then that they learn emotional self-control.
Apart from demonstrating love, empathy and affirmation, fathers could engage in emotion-coaching to model how to overcome arduousness.
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In Singapore, nosotros are fortunate to have several platforms that help fathers with such skills. The Centre for Fathering (CFF) conducts weekly fathering workshops to empower fathers to strengthen their relationships in the home and address gimmicky issues that children face in their growing years.
Fathers are equipped to positively influence children past beingness involved in their lives, showing them love consistently, beingness enlightened of how they experience and think, and nurturing them through affidavit and encouragement.
Through the national Dads for Life movement, a strong accent is too made in the community to form begetter groups throughout Singapore which provide fathers with support and esprit. I believe in that location is much wisdom in shared journeys because that has helped me get a better father and husband.
In showing that we take fatherhood seriously, we would have laid the foundation for our sons, who will in turn go on to be boyfriends, husbands and fathers themselves.
And perhaps, we will have 1 less story about a immature woman who is abused or a swain whose life is turned upside down.
Bryan Tan is the CEO of DADs for Life and the Heart for Fathering. Formerly a senior officer with the Singapore Armed services, he made a mid-career switch to the social service sector to serve fathers and the "fatherless" in our nation. He is happily married to Adriana, and they have iii children, Michael, Joshua and Deborah.
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