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A few months ago, in the offices of La Converse, a first dialogue opened on the rise in violent crime among young Montrealers. Myriam Coppry, a coach specializing in supporting immigrant parents, then urgently launched the following message: “We leave very little or no room for parents when it comes to intervening with young people. (...) We cannot blame them once the damage has been done, then exclude them when it comes to solutions. It's hypocrisy. You have to learn to empower them without accusing them.”
On a winter evening, under the harsh light from the ceiling of the Saint-Michel Youth Forum, it was done. Parents and children came together to find an answer to a question: how to strengthen their relationships to prevent gun violence?
The ambiance was surprisingly relaxed, but ears were alert. Faced with the 60 parents accompanied by their adolescents, four community workers shared their expertise. Among them, Hassan Benkhadra, father of three children and coordinator at the Associative Bureau for Diversity and Reintegration, in Saint-Léonard; Abdellah Azzouz, speaker at the Saint-Michel Youth Forum; Pierreson Vaval, a long-time youth worker, father of four children, and director of the Pozé Coalition; and finally Kahina Bouchefa, clinical psychologist at the Sacré-Coeur-de-Montréal Hospital; and mother of a teenage girl.
Their mission was clear: to offer families tools to strengthen the bonds between parents and children and thus prevent violence that particularly affects racialized communities.
“We are competing with the outside world”
Pierreson Vaval was the first to speak out. “Violence is a symptom, a sign that something is wrong," he said with a calm voice. "We must not forget that our society gives our racialized youth a negative image of who they are. This quest for identity is so strong that they are sometimes ready to do anything to answer it: they are ready to be hurt, to go to prison, as long as they are given an identity-based response.”
The solution starts within the family, he says: “We need to provide our children with an environment where they feel safe, physically, emotionally and psychologically.” Because, in his opinion, those who try to recruit young people to push them into crime do not hesitate to discredit their parents. “Your parents are overwhelmed, incapable, they don't understand you. They cannot offer you what I can give you: a place to celebrate, meet your friends, sleep peacefully, without being told about religion. As for me, I am giving you the opportunity to make money,” he cites as an example.
“We are competing with this external offer. If we have nothing to offer them, it is normal for them to turn to those who offer them something concrete,” adds Pierreson Vaval.
His solution? Really listen to young people, “because often,” he continues, “we ask them questions, but they feel that we are not ready to hear their answers. So they say what their parents want to hear. But if this openness does not exist at home, they will go and express themselves elsewhere. We need to ask them what they would like to change, show them that their thoughts matter to us.”
“Dialogue is first and foremost a presence, being available ”
Kahina Bouchefa, who sitting to the left of Pierreson Vaval, nodded her head. She abounded in the same sense. “Dialogue is first and foremost a presence, being available. You have to find a balance between dialogue and giving your child privacy.”
“There is no miracle intervention; it's work that takes time. You have to pay attention to the changes, to the signs. It's a regular job of observation and empathy. Behavioural changes, even subtle ones, are often signs that should not be ignored,” insists the psychologist.
Abdellah, known to the public as Azzouz, spoke in turn: “And there are signs that the child is gradually changing. For example: a young person who moves away without explanation from the friends he grew up with. Ask him why. He may not tell you right away that he is dating new people or that he has started smoking, but these are signs that need to be explored. This is already a sign that should be taken seriously. Otherwise, in five or six months, we will see more serious changes: they start coveting expensive things because they have already received money illegally. The signs are there, but you have to be available to notice them.”
Abdellah highlights the difficulties of immigrant parents, who are more affected by poverty, and therefore less available for their children: “These parents work hard to pay the bills and raise their children, but often, they forget about themselves... and forget their children. Many are not doing well psychologically. They want their children to succeed, but if we dig deeper, we understand that this success is often limited to school, as long as the child doesn't bother them, they let it go. However, success is not only academic. It is also social, emotional. Does this child have dreams, ideas? Even when it comes to the sport in which parents enroll them, have we questioned whether the child is really happy? ”
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Respect our young people, “show them that they matter”
Hassan, a father of three children, spoke with an amused smile. “I give a thumbs up to what Abdellah says,” he joked, causing a few laughs. “I wanted to integrate my children at all costs into the culture here. I bought all the ski equipment, but guess what? It was useless. They hate skiing! ” he let out with a small laugh. In a more serious tone, he goes on: “So, we tried something else: basketball, swimming, judo... And finally, they chose judo. Today, they are Canadian champions. I did not choose. I respected their desires, I supported them.” Hassan sat up in his seat: “If it had been me, I would have preferred soccer. But that's what respect is. Respect their choices, and more generally, respect their opinions and questions. Simply show them that they matter.”
Parent-child communication blurred by culture shock
The conversation gets more intense when Abdellah opens a new front: “One problem I often notice is that parents tend to see their children as being naive, whether they are involved in organized crime or if they are excellent students. There is a problem here... do parents also need help to react in a system where they did not grow up? ”
Psychologist Kahina Bouchefa immediately continues: “Indeed, it is an interesting question to ask why these children are so influenced by what comes from outside. Without wanting to talk to parents, it is clear that they need help, especially immigrant parents who do not always have the codes and the keys to understand what is going on around them.”
According to the psychologist, the gap between the values that parents instill in their children and those offered by the host society prevents good communication from taking place. “This fear that their children will accept the new values often pushes them to avoid difficult discussions. However, being a parent means accepting to hear what is bothering them. This requires great solidity, but also humility," continues Kahina Bouchefa. "It's not always denial, but rather an inability to build bridges between these worlds.”
Pierreson Vaval intervened in turn. “No child is safe from violence. What makes the difference is what we offer them at home.” He says that when he was younger, he met gang recruiters on the basketball court. “When they came up to me and offered to join their gang, I asked them if it would allow me to play more basketball. They said no, so I told them I wasn't interested.” A few laughs were heard in the room. He goes on, more seriously: “Know their dreams, accompany them, be complicit in their happiness (...) [but] you can't control everything," he says. "Some things depend on you, the parents; others depend on the young person's environment.”
Kahina Bouchefa recognizes that many parents do not have all the tools to understand the current world. “And that's normal. They need to be accompanied, just as they need to accompany their children.”
Resources for parents?
Resources, unknown to a large number of parents, are nevertheless available in their own community, says Hassan. “If a parent does not want native Quebec workers, there are North Africans. If parents prefer imams, there are also imams,” he insists.
“Sometimes, all you have to do is report a problem to open the door to help such as food banks, legal clinics or sports programs,” says youth worker Abdellah Azzouz. A simple call to a community centre can make all the difference in reorienting a young person to a positive environment,” he concludes.
But what to do when prevention is no longer enough and a young person is already involved in crime? Who can parents trust? Some refuse to turn to state services, which they consider far too repressive, for fear of seeing their adolescents be torn from their families. As for social workers, do they have the necessary resources to really help these young people who are already caught in a spiral that is difficult to break?
This is a question that La Converse will focus on in a future episode of the series of articles “Our Neighbourhoods, Our Voices”.