Parents are entitled to great expectations, writes Nesmahar Sayed, but must they shout? Badri 'aleiki, Nevine Fathi told her friend: "too early for you". The conversation had started with an innocuous seeming question about said friend's daughter, who was in her first year at school. "Every time I help her do her homework or revise for dictation tests," said friend replied, "I end up shouting at her -- it's terrible!" The prevalent attitude is such that even at the tender age of five, children fall prey to their parents' obsessive concern with school grades and the active interest mothers tend to take in their work. According to Nahla Mahmoud, one such mother, neither concern nor interest is a problem in itself. It's rather the overcrowded classes and an overload of schoolwork. Through homework, not class time, teachers will endeavour to demonstrate educational standards, and they do it quantitatively rather than qualitatively; in the same way, Mahmoud claims, parents are expected to spend time with their children living up to those standards. According to primary school teacher Nashwa Ahmed, homework in large amounts is indeed a must, but the difference between one teacher and the next is whether or not a child ends up going home knowing how to get on with it by themselves. For Nesrine Aly, another teacher, the purpose of homework is to make sure students will retain what they have learned in class; they should do it independently of their parents: "I keep telling my third-year students they should do the homework by themselves. I can always tell when their parents have helped them. I'm grateful when homework has been done, and I'm confident that some 75 per cent of my students do it by themselves, which I feel is to my credit, to be frank." These days, she adds, younger mothers like herself are tormented: between their own jobs and most if not all of the housework, they have to accompany their children on activities and help them study. It is this, not overcrowded classes or unreasonable teachers, that makes parents shout at their children. In this picture, where -- and this is the next logical question -- might the father be? For Rehab Tawfik, journalist and mother of two boys, "these days everything is the mother's duty". Modern appliances might help, husbands may appear to be accommodating, but in practice they are rarely home until well into the night and it is up to the mother to look after the house -- with or without help -- and the children's (academic) welfare. This, Tawfik feels, is a relatively new development resulting from the pressures placed on men by the greater challenge of economic survival. Tawfik actually has fond memories of her father helping her with her homework -- being a civil servant with fixed working hours, she explains, he would often be home early enough to do so -- something that involved no shouting, unlike her own homework sessions with her children. Happily, as Mahmoud Alaa, father of three, demonstrates, fathers helping their children with homework is not an extinct phenomenon. Alaa helps the children with science and English: "Maybe it's because I grew up abroad that I realise this is part of my responsibility as a father..." But is the process always appropriately civilised? Alaa admits he will sometimes lose his temper, especially in the build-up to exams; he blames the kids rather more than their teachers: "So long as their classmates can do it, getting high marks, then they too can do it." Mild corporal punishment will sometimes encourage concentration, he argues. Even when it doesn't work, he says, "it feels good to vent your anger -- I always kiss and cuddle them afterwards, but I never say sorry". Does such tenderness make up for the guilt parents feel on mistreating their children while helping them study, however? Not for Tawfik: "I'm very unhappy with the way difficult, huge, boring curricula and the rhythm of life make us treat our children. I think in the past things were not so bad." Nor could they have been, according to Yara Yasser, 11: "If I like the subject I'm happy to study it. If not, I just can't concentrate, and in such cases I have to admit shouting and beating do improve my attitude." Are such topics discussed among schoolmates? "We never bring it up, it doesn't make you look nice in front of others to have been insulted or humiliated." As a mother, Yara says, she will never shout at her children whatever happens: "I don't want them to end up hating me." Karim Osama, 14, is equally eager to keep up a positive image among colleagues; as he grows up, he says, the shouting has decreased, because more and more he knows what to do and how to do it. "I can rarely find an excuse for the way parents treat us when they help us study even though they keep saying they only do it for our sake." This is significant: as Ahmed says, "Above all the mother's duty is to build her child's character through perseverance, creativity and organisation, and helping him/her do homework is a great opportunity for her to do that." According to Cairo University psychologist Ali Suleiman, however, the phenomenon of the mother's role being replaced with that of the teacher will make for a tense mother-child relation and complicates growing up. The reason parents are more likely to lose their temper when they put on the teacher's hat, Suleiman contends, is the drive to make your child successful at all costs, whether because you have been successful and you want to see the child in your image or because you have not been successful and want to spare him the consequent suffering. Good intentions, all: more often than not, however, they fail to take into account that each child has his own unique personality and that the mother's primary role is to develop social skill, emotional intelligence and effective behaviour -- all of which requires self-confidence. A parent should rather act as a guide when it comes to homework, providing minimal help and only when it is required. Given the economic situation and prevalent attitudes, however -- it is, after all, concern with their children's financial future, which does depend on qualifications, that drives parents to behaving in this way -- does Suleiman see a way out of the vicious circle? Pressuring schools to make students spend more time studying at school, less at home -- extra hours may be required, he adds -- as well as improving husband-wife relations and avoiding shouting will all help. A tense domestic atmosphere will affect everyone's psyche and may lead to divorce. A wise approach and self-control will work miracles. But for Nadia Ghita, who has been teaching for 24 years, until the education system is radically reformed such suggestions will remain "hollow dreams": with teachers barely surviving on their regular income (many resort to private tuition) and aimless, illogical curricula the situation is already difficult; add to this the tensions of daily life for their parents, and you end up with shouting -- and more shouting.
