Awoniyi T A
Ment Health Soc. 1978 Jan;4(1-2):9-25.
This paper is based on the thesis that a community approach to childhood and child-rearing practices has serious implications for the mental rehabilitation of children born into such a community. Examining such traditional views of childhood and child-rearing practices in an African context, the writer emphasizes that social, religious, economic, and political contacts with Europeans and Arabs, particuarly since the nineteenth century, have radically altered the African Community's view of childhood and child-rearing practices. For instance, socio-educational problems that no one ever thought of in an African traditional perspective are on the increase: abandoned children, delinquent children, broken homes, child stealing, weakening of the mother-child bond, abortion, family planning, etc. These changes are happening to the dismay (not without protest) of Africans who are still guided by traditional African value systems. The paper concludes with the dilemma: How can the Africans advance with the rest of the world, economically, politically, educationally, and socially, and at the same time maintain and preserve their traditional value systems with minimum maladjustment to their mental health?
以社区为导向的儿童观和育儿方式对出生在该社区的儿童的心理康复具有严重影响。在非洲背景下审视这种传统的儿童观和育儿方式时，作者强调，自19世纪以来，与欧洲人和阿拉伯人的社会、宗教、经济及政治接触已从根本上改变了非洲社区的儿童观和育儿方式。例如，从非洲传统视角从未有人想过的社会教育问题正在增加：弃儿、犯罪儿童、破碎家庭、儿童偷窃、母子关系弱化、堕胎、计划生育等等。这些变化正在发生，这让仍受传统非洲价值体系指引的非洲人感到沮丧（并非没有抗议）。本文以一个困境作为结尾：非洲人如何能够在经济、政治、教育和社会方面与世界其他地区同步前进，同时以对其心理健康最小的失调来维持和保留他们的传统价值体系？
