As the first child, one thing I observed early is how badly parental abuse was bruising me and that it was going to scar my siblings even more. My younger brother was notoriously hyperactive. My mum always said that she felt he was going to be a problem child right from the womb.

His tantrums were not normal. He’d break walls, glasses, doors, ceramics, etc, with his head (and no I’m not exaggerating). Anytime my mum was leaving the house and didn’t take him along he’d cry uncontrollably and destroy anything in sight. And this was as early as 4 years old.

He never concentrated on anything. In school, he was terrible; infamous for always coming last in class. If you like, add 20 more people to his class, my brother always found a way to beat them and come last. Yes. The very last position.

Teachers knew him. Other parents knew him. The proprietor knew him. Hell yeah I can’t count how many times random people approached my parents to recommend a pastor who could cure him of his “demon” because everyone legit thought he was possessed.

He was so disorganized, often restless and impulsive. After beating himself and others up, mostly bruising his head, you’d find him curled up in a corner, sleeping, with blood dripping from his nose. Then he’d have headaches for the next few days, and he would be very quiet.

I noticed the pattern; get violent, destroy things, get weary, find a quiet corner and sleep, blood dripping from the nostrils, headaches for the next few days, and a strange, disturbing calmness that came with it.

As a child myself, I didn’t understand why he was so uncontrollable but I knew that the way my parents were beating him and venting all their frustrations and anger on him wasn’t helping either. This guy clearly needed help.

My parents were too frustrated to think of better ways to deal with the situation especially given the fact that he’d repeated three classes. I was the total opposite and constantly comparing him to me wasn’t helping the case; only made things much worse.

“Look at your sister; why can’t you be like her?”

“How on earth did I end up with a child like this?”

“What did I do wrong?”

“I knew you were going to be a problem child from the way you made my pregnancy difficult”.

“May your children treat you the way you treat me”.

Fine. This boy was frustrating everyone, including me. He had a reputation for being troublesome wherever he went. But what I never understood was how those harsh words were supposed to help his case. If anything, they compounded everything.

Because my brother would sometimes ask my mum why she expected him to be useful in life after all the curses she’d heaped on him and she wouldn’t have anything to say. His own was fire for fire.

Hitting him was like pouring sand on the beach. Someone that doesn’t cry when taking injections. He just didn’t care. The beatings only hardened him and my parents got even more frustrated.

But to me, this guy had a lot of potential. I used to draw a lot as a kid and the way my brother picked from me was astounding. Even became better than I was. When he wanted to, he paid exceptional attention to detail and his mind was a world of creativity. I became his student.

I knew he was capable of much more. Sometimes when my parents were hitting him, I’d cry and beg them to stop and allow me to talk to him instead. When they allowed me, he calmed down. I was the only person who could talk to him and my parents couldn’t understand how or why.

Once, I had this long conversation with him about why he was finding it difficult to excel in school and he told me that sometimes he wanted to, but he found it very hard to concentrate. I reassured him that he was intelligent, and that he could do better with more dedication.

He agreed that he needed more focus. Then made a promise to me that he’d perform better at school but he also needed my parents to stop treating him like a failure. That part touched me badly and later that evening, after dinner, I told my parents about our conversation.

I was scared of how they’d take it but my brother was seated there, remorseful and willing to change, and for the first time they truly believed him. He wanted a new bicycle so they promised to get him one if he did better at school but there was a little problem—

— my brother didn’t just want to do better at school; he wanted to come first in particular and to my parents it seemed like an overreach. But I believed him. I believed in him. And my parents just went with the flow.

At the end of the term, the shock came. This guy went from always getting the very last position in his class to coming first. I’m not even joking. He came FIRST. First fucking position. It was unbelievable. Almost felt like a dream.

My parents cried. The school celebrated him like a hero. Other parents celebrated him. It was a moment in history. All it took was just a little understanding and patience. They got him his bicycle as promised and he was so damn proud of himself.

For some reason I won’t mention here, he relapsed but the point still remains - communication is more productive than abuse.

It’s easy to say that your anger as a parent is valid but if you can apply better ways in resolving conflicts with adults, you can do same with your kids.

I would later learn that my brother had possible symptoms of ADHD, and this is something that affects many children in Nigeria, with as many as 1.5 million cases every year, mostly undiagnosed. And I can assure you that those children need actual help, not beatings and curses.

There are people who will say “but I turned out fine” but it makes no point. Just because you “turned out fine” in spite of abuse doesn’t mean that it was as a direct result of the abuse. Many of us survived other forms of abuse too but we don’t give it credit for our survival.

For every adult who “turned out fine” despite parental abuse, there are thousands of others who didn’t & have to deal with the scars for life.

If you understand how a partner saying mean things during arguments can scar a relationship, what makes you think kids are immune to it?

The fact still remains that the excuses everyone make for hitting & abusing their kids can also be made for domestic abuse & other forms of abuse.

There are many ways to discipline & correct your children without denigrating their person.

But patience is too expensive, I guess.

Just to add: my brother bounced back after the relapse. Going to boarding school helped. And he graduated top of his class. Today, he’s the total opposite of what he used to be; calm, introverted, barely has any friends, always locked up in his room, and hardly talks to anyone.

My parents get scared of the unpredictability of his sometimes dangerous self-seclusion but I tell them there’s hardly anything they can do about it now. A part of him is damaged and he can only live his life the way he knows best. Even I myself seclude myself from everyone.

And I must tell you that if you don’t want your kids to end up secluding themselves from you later in life as a result of years upon years of trauma you inflicted upon them, don’t treat them like hopeless failures.

Those words will bounce right back.

And you won’t like it.