OP-ED | ‘We are not born bad, we are shaped’ — How childhood trauma shapes violence

Health-e News OP-ED | ‘We are not born bad, we are shaped’ — How childhood trauma shapes violence Over two years, Plant Play has reached 542 children aged between 10 and 15 in Diepsloot, Gauteng, one of the thirty gender-based violent hotspot areas in South Africa.

These areas were identified by the South African Police Service based on reported crime data including rape, domestic violence, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, and human trafficking.

Identifying a perpetrator tells us who.

It does not tell us why.

Asking this question ‘why’ forces us to pay attention to the early years in a child’s life, while they are forming their sense of self and learning how to treat others.

Children live in the same world we do.

They see what we see and hear what we hear.

Repeated exposure to violence, abuse, and crime results in children living with chronic stress and fear.

Childhood and adolescence are critical periods in which cognitive and social-emotional skills are still developing.

Trauma can disrupt this growth, affecting judgement, impulse control and the ability to understand consequences.

If left unresolved, the suppression of these emotions can resurface in adulthood through violence, disengagement, self-harm or harm to others.

Words become conversations that become actions.

Support exists, but seeking it often means being associated with terms such as abused, suicidal, mentally unwell or depressed.

For both adults and children, the stigma attached to these words can discourage seeking help for fear of being seen as less normal, less capable or someone to be feared.