CHILDREN immersed in trauma in their households continue to suffer from and be at a disadvantage to its effects throughout their life, with dire consequences to their learning abilities and interactions outside the home.

Youth development specialist Kemoy Lindsay pointed this out in a rousing speech to students at the recent Petrojam Primary Exit Profile (PEP) scholarship awards ceremony, to reward four students of two inner-city community schools for their achievements in this year’s sitting of the exams.

“The trauma — it moves through the household, because when the parent is frustrated, and when the parent is going through that trauma, without even knowing, without even realising, there are times when that frustration passes to the child. So children lash out when they go to school – the parent doesn’t see it in the household because that’s the nucleus of the trauma, that is where the child is picking up the unsaid or said, or unconscious effects, and it affects their self-esteem, it affects their confidence,” he told the room full of students, past beneficiaries of the programme, educators, and parents who attended the function held at the Jamaica Business Development Corporation’s (JBDC) Marcus Garvey Drive location.

Four students, two each from Greenwich All-Age and St Andrew High schools, received five-year scholarships of $60,000 per year under the programme, which was initiated by the state oil refinery in 2006. So far, 49 students have benefited.

Sharing his own story of poverty and resilience, Lindsay said that, as a child, he endured the kind of trauma brought on by being at an economic disadvantage, but said through this experience, his mother also taught him valuable lessons in survival.

“She stressed a lot when she could not provide. When there is no money in the house, I felt it. It affected how I played, it affected how I slept, it affected how I learnt, it affected my general happiness because in those times she wasn’t the most approachable — she was worried about survival. When I was just seven years old I was living alone with my mother in Jungle, she had no money, we lived in a tenement yard, but being the proud woman that she was, when we were in that house hungry, you would not know. One day she was in the house, at about five o’clock and nothing nuh cook from day. Being a tenement yard, everybody faassing in your business. Naturally, by now, people would start wondering, how me no hear nuttn ah ‘chhhh’ in the frying pot? My mother turn on the stove, put on the dutch pot, made it heat, catch some water in a little cup and threw it in there and it go ‘chhhhh‘,” he shared, while reminiscing on her sense of pride.

Lindsay said it was when he was much older that he understood that his mother was teaching him, in that moment, how to be resilient.

“Naturally, no child should have to grow under those circumstances… the traumatic upbringing of children that grow in circumstances like myself — it transmits to how they learn, it transmits to how they absorb education, it transmits to how open-minded they are,” he stated. Further, the youth development specialist said that the emphasis in many of these households is placed early on school, and not much other time is devoted to embracing other aspects of life.

“Because of how life was stacked against them, the mother and father’s only focus is ‘tek yu book’, there is nothing much outside of that line that parents that were grown to survive are comfortable in embracing, because for them — and it’s understandable — the book, and school and education, that is the way,” he explained, adding that despite having the ability, many parents did not grow up with the privilege of attaining an education.”A lot, lot of them were brilliant — I grew up with a lot of youths who were bright [but] a lot of bright ghetto youths just could not make it,” he said. In the meantime, Lindsay said the scholarships were helping to heal the trauma of broken households, and society, and urged the awardees to stay focused as they move on to secondary school, where both academic and peer pressure will intensify.

“High school a nuh one normal place. If you think primary school was full of distractions, wait ’til September morning. You’re going to hear a lot of noise, telling you what you can and can’t do. You will hear more about what you can’t do than what you can. You’re going to hear a lot of noise from other students who didn’t react as positively to whatever circumstances as you did. Learn to identify what is noise, learn to tell what matters, and learn to block those [distractions] out,” he cautioned.