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when making comments on your child’s performances? And do we really consider the gravity of those words in your child’s physical, emotional or mental health?
And because of the chilling effect criticism has on human lives, some other people have failed to withstand it and its effects have resulted in serious tragedies and this is called destructive criticism.
Only a few from the bulk of the world populace are able to brave its vulgarity and these are celebrities.
“Celebrities are like shock absorbers of severe diatribes. They are able to resist them completely regardless of their lack of enthusiasm. Look at musicians, footballers, politicians or film-makers they always suffer thousands of fervent negative evaluations from their fans and supporters,” said Tinotenda Moyo, a student journalist at UMAA Institute in Marondera.
Some of us have poor word selection especially if we get depressed, angered or when trying to rebuke our beloved colleagues. But, what we forget is that words have in themselves both constructive and destructive implications.
Surprisingly, at the end we tend not to mind about it, resultantly a distressing situation eventually would ensue.
On different occasions we have heard of students who make sudden unusual behaviours towards school work, but we seem not to take note of some of the problems associated with such a state of affairs. Cases of child abuse in the form of sexual abuse, bullying and corporal punishment have been rampant over the past years.
Some schools administer corporal punishment as if it was part of the learning system.
Childline Zimbabwe is making efforts to raise awareness of bullying in an effort to prevent it from happening and protecting children from being hurt by bullies. Specifically, it focuses on bullying amongst and between children.
“Bullying is the emotional and physical abuse of children by children. It is a serious problem in Zimbabwe. It can be a problem for all children from all backgrounds as it is not specific to socio-economic circumstances, race and religion,” said Childline public relations officer Patience Chiyangwa.
“Childline has responded to calls from children and their concerned family members seeking advice and counselling on how to cope with bullying and how to respond to it.
For example, a young girl was being badly bullied by a group of young girls at school but, through the counselling she received, she was able to take certain actions to protect herself.
These actions came from her, rather than a coping strategy imposed on her by the counsellor. She made a pact with her teacher who agreed to help her by having greater control over the group of girls that was bullying her. She was allowed to have a cellphone for a period so she could call for help when the bullies approached her,” she added.
In October 2009, the weekly Manica Post newspaper carried a story in which a teacher whipped his three biological children with a double electric cord for bed-wetting. Such cases can potentially lead the child to experience serious mental and emotional problems.
“Some of those maltreated kids resort to strange behaviour or abscond from home and these are the children we see on the streets and some decide to take potent drugs so as to neutralise the effects of the weighty criticism,” said Tichaona Zanze from Kuwadzana Extension.
“Because some parents do not appreciate their children’s misdemeanours they worsen the situation by continuing to discuss the offence for several days and this will lead the victims to decide to bid a farewell so as to breathe fresh air at free places,” Zanze added.
Another incident occurred in November 2009 when a teacher at Heritage School was accused of ill-treating a six- year-old pupil after he made the minor sit on the floor during lessons. Although this minor was charged because he was using inappropriate language, bullying and was said to be disruptive, the issue remains a blot on the landscape considering the gravity of the punishment.
“Bullying, in certain instances, is a very dangerous weapon that can make some other schoolchildren think that schools are evil places to be especially when done by teachers who should be taking care and protecting them from harassments by other fellow students,” said Forget Chipunza, a secondary school teacher at Musanhi School in Murewa.
“But, as teachers, we should not punish students using such ways. Although the teacher was right to punish the child she was not supposed to implement a measure of such nature because it amounts to corporal punishment – it is reprimanding bullying by bullying which resultantly scares kids,” he said.
Even at home a child would start to rightfully respond differently to parental commands and we begin to wonder why and how that kind of character has resulted. The whole thing lies on the cult specifically called criticism.
There are certain habitual phrases or statements some other people have taken fancy of their meanings and tend to ignore their severity but the same statements mighty have severe effects on a certain populace.
“Because we have different lifestyles we happen to have different interests and tonal expressions hence different reactions to a certain wording or phrasing,” said Elvis Makandishaya from Waterfalls.
“In some instances, children will be in the hands of step- mothers and in the process as they suffer from perpetual criticism because they would have failed to perform their duties correctly and in time they think marriage is the best remedy to their problem. But some of the marriages will not be healthy and happy,” pointed out Elvis.

And many stepmothers have been known to give the stepchildren a lot of house hold chores even during odd hours.
“In many cases, they do not appreciate what the child would have done, regardless of how hard the child has tried. It is in such cases that these children tend to become paranoid of their stepmothers and miss their biological mother,” said Tawanda a kombi driver. “They miss being listened to and miss the deepest love they used to enjoy,” he added.
Many people at large have fallen foul of critiques that ended up in tragedies. One of the incidences which took place in 2004 at Dewure High school in Gutu left a number of students breathless after a Form 4 student tried to commit suicide by imbibing the dangerous rat killer poison because her father was not satisfied with her end of term performance. She was heavily criticised and was denied pocket money and decided to kill herself. Many parents use destructive instead of constructive critics to their kids especially when they fail to satisfy their expectations ending up risking children’s lives.
“Some of them would think of killing their own lives, abscond from work to avoid certain people, or thinking of absenting themselves from school because they do not want to mingle with so and so who always make some scorns at their dressing, eating habits, behavior or their interests that will be claimed not to be in line with what is on the fashion,” Said Tinashe Pariremanzi from kuwadzana.
Criticism has claimed a significant number of clients on its own right especially at school. It is all about looking down upon someone-maltreating, singling out, hounding or harassing someone either before a crowd or otherwise forgetting the sense of honor the recipient has.
The establishment of Tabloid newspapers which carries very sensitive stories of human privacy has also serious negative effects. Victims of such incidence have been recorded contemplating to mull illicit drugs after having been criticized of doing unlawful things. One such story of a Temporal Teacher called Melania Chandengenda who was found bonking a male student at Musanhi secondary school in Uzumba is typical of such tragic situations. Melania thought of killing herself after the fiasco since she was at the eve of a marriage affair. So she was afraid of losing her future lifetime hubby.
It is in fact that criticism can potentially hurt and shatter our enthusiasm and emotions. It hacks directly our ego, self-esteem and personal integrity.
It is lethal, dangerous and futile to human dignity and life in general.