UNICEF survey: majority of Georgian parents raise children with ‘authoritarian style’
The UNICEF survey speaks about the lack of psycho-emotional support of parents to adolescents. Photo: yourteenmag.com.
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A majority of Georgian parents raise their children with an ‘authoritarian style’ of parenting, a UNICEF survey reports, adding that parents often employ physical and psychological punishment to discipline their children.
The findings of the UNICEF ‘National Study on Parenting of Adolescents and Parenting Support Programmes in Georgia’ released today says that Georgian parents are mostly engaged in caring for their adolescent’s material and physical wellbeing, less in their psycho-emotional development.
Adolescence presents a crucially important window of opportunity to influence the development of children’s brains – and thus, their futures,” said UNICEF Representative in Georgia Dr. Ghassan Khalil.
Parents need to know just how influential they are in their adolescent life. Parents need to impact their children’s skills to cope with different developmental challenges. But parents also need guidance to understand all this. In Georgia there are no parenting support programmes. The objective of our study is to support the Government in developing national policies and programmes for parents of adolescents, so that they are equipped with competencies they need for positive parenting and constructive support for adolescents.”
The study shows that many caregivers in Georgia struggle to fulfil their basic obligations of psycho-emotional care.
There are cases, when adolescents feel that they are not being supported by their parents during some of the most emotional periods, adversely affecting their psychosocial wellbeing. Few parents are involved in such important aspects of adolescents’ life as health, prevention of risky behaviour, sexual and reproductive health, psychological well-being and prevention of violence,” UNICEF Georgia says.
Countries that participated in the research included Bulgaria, Belarus, Georgia, Montenegro, Moldova and Romania. A qualitative study methodology - focus groups discussions and in-depth interviews - were used for collecting the data.
UNICEF Georgia says that the goal of the research was to collect basic information on how parenting is understood, perceived and practised by parents/caregivers of adolescent boys and girls in Georgia.
Social protection programmes can better identify poor families with children though poverty still remains a challenge in Georgia, UNICEF’s new Welfare Monitoring Survey says.
On Child Protection Day the UNICEF has launched a campaign ‘End Violence’ in Georgia today with EU support to contribute to forming a shared understanding of what is violence against children and that violence is unacceptable
The Government of Georgia has adopted national mandatory standards and technical regulations on pre-school education.
A new national curriculum for primary grades based on the Estonian experience will upgrade pre-school and general education in Georgia.
The Georgian police have arrested a man accused of sexually harassing adolescents online and violating their right to privacy.
With the help of UNICEF the Georgian Parliament’s Human Rights Committee has drafted the Code of the Child to respond to existing challenges in terms of children development and protection.
The EU in Georgia has announced the launch of a three-year project which aims to address the needs of disadvantaged Georgian children deprived of parental care and provide alternative, quality care for them.
Special clubs will be created at schools and an active information campaign will be launched to raise children’s awareness regarding the threats coming from Internet, including dangerous online games, the Georgian Education Ministry reports.
Tbilisi Court of Appeals has ruled that a spouse or parent’s speaking negatively of another parent in the presence of children is psychological violence.