What external factors directly influence our children’s outcomes?

Several years ago now I was an art tutor with Canterbury Prisons. When people used to ask me what my job was and then when I told them, I would often hear  “wow lucky prisoners getting to do art everyday” or “they get it better in there than my grandmother in a nursing home  !” . Let me tell you .. it wasn’t just about painting pretty pictures .. It was a whole lot more than that …. 

One of my psychology papers was on the workings of .. Urie Bronfenbrenner. I found this fascinating and possibly one of the psychology theories that I mostly resonated with. 

Urie Bronfenbrenner (April 29, 1917 – September 25, 2005) was a Russian-born American psychologist .

Bronfenbrenner saw the process of human development as being shaped by the interaction between an individual and their environment. 

The specific path of development was a result of the influences of a person's surroundings, such as their parents, friends, school, work, culture, government bylaws and so on like in the diagram on the front page of this blog.

The COVID-19 pandemic , I think this is a good modern day example of how a pandemic and then a worlds health authority and governments decisions , laws imposed etc , directly affected cultures , communities, businesses , schools and ultimately you the individual. From lockdowns and vaccinations , to quarantines , this resulted in long lasting , economic, cultural, sociological and psychological impact to each and every one of us . How did that period of time impact you and your own family and how has it influenced you emotionally and economically going forward ? 

You may ask “ok ok .. so what has all this got to do with your role as an art tutor ? “

Well I’m just setting a scene for some work in a unit at Rolleston Prison that I did in 2012.  And I’m setting a scene about how our environmental factors impacts our children’s outcomes . 

I was working with a group of prisoners doing some mask making. First we moulded tinfoil over the men’s faces (so that there was a part of them in it) and then I asked them to paper Machete over the top. The brief was  “how did they see themselves “ .  The idea that the process of making art would give the men, myself and their units psychologists a glimpse into their subconscious. 

This is a personal story from one of those men about his mask, and I want to thank him for opening up, as this begins the healing process.

I’m going to put a “Warning” here as it’s a tough read .  He talks about his abusive childhood, being sent to a Government Social Welfare Health Camp and then his life as an adolescent growing up.

Notes from the Prisoner about his artwork…

His mask that he made had a hand over his mouth and spiders crawling out of open wounds on his face . 

“Between 5-7 years old I guess as a young quiet kid that I looked at life strangely from others.  My up-bringing was not the greatest.  It was strict, ruled with fear and intimidation.  Laughter in the house was very rare when the old man was on a rampage which made me panic with uncertainty.  I would freak out and hide under my blankets when I heard the familiar sound of the Cortina roll down the drive way after one of the old man’s drunken nights, praying that he wouldn’t scream out my name, but quite often that never worked.

He would beat me down like an adult, with a closed fist or smash me with a pool cue or jug cord and not even blink.  Most times when he was done or got tired he would force me outside, lock the door and tell me to sleep on the back porch.

Me being shattered, broken and too scared to cry I would curl up to my dog and use her as a pillow, she was a collie.  I would fall asleep and be woken by my mother as she would sneak out with a hug and shed a tear, but it would turn to feelings of sickness as she walked away and I could hear the lock clicking.

Some years later I bumped into my sister and she told me the old man took the back of his axe and killed my dog.

I believe he did this because of me.

Well at the age of seven my parents disowned me and gave me up to Social Welfare because the understanding was, that they could not cope with my lying and steeling anymore.  I was only a fucking kid.  So I had mixed feelings, I was glad that I wasn’t going to be around the old man and get beat down, but once again uncertainty kicked in, cause I really didn’t know what was going on.  I thought it was a big adventure, because straight away I was driven “up North” to this “Health Camp”.  I found that all of a sudden I went from being in an isolated environment to bang! I had all this freedom, I was surrounded by boys my age .  I could push the rules and not get a beating.  I could stay up late.  And then I ran away.

A group of us made our way back to Auckand, along the way we robbed houses and drove a tractor all the way down.  But from that stage until now I never really knew how damaged I was emotionally.

So it is only now that I am looking at how I really felt or feel.  I have had a lot of hurt built up in me and I really felt lost, unloved and rejected by my family.  I had some mad resentment and blame towards my mother, I hated her as I saw her as being weak.  She did not stop the old man from smashing me, so I felt bitter and hostile at an early age towards women.  I viewed them as not important.  I became violent, implosive and when I felt that people talked behind my back I would attack without looking at the consequences.  I felt that I was unskilled at talking with straight people and struggled hard with women that I felt attracted to.  I would get shy and avoid them.

My social skills were useless, but I really wanted to fit in, to belong, to connect , but I knew that I lacked communication skills and the understanding to deal with societies rules and manners so I would get embarrassed and feel useless.  I would get hostile and often causing fights just to feel like a man and I took these negative behaviours into my intimate relationships. I was verbally and physically abusive beating my partners with closed fists.  I was arrogant and controlling.  To make my life feel better I turned to drugs, alcohol, violence, physical sports , crime and sex.  I would isolate from society and move into gang activities, like shakedowns or stand overs.  I did feel disgusted at myself but I felt lonely, frustrated, scared so I released those emotions through anger and targeted others.”

Conclusion:

We all wear masks to an extent to hide our feelings from others but it was interesting in this mask making module how it brought up hidden feelings of childhood trauma. There was a lot to unpack in this one mans story but I will leave you with the question that I started with and I ask you to think on how do we break this cycle .. When we look at the larger picture What external factors directly influence our children’s outcomes?