Officials are again encouraging parents to make sure that their children are being supervised by adults during the August vacation from school. This newspaper has observed that the statements from the police and the Child Welfare Authority have become rhetorical since the safety of children issue keeps comes up every year at this time without any suggested solutions to the problem. Looking at some real examples in Grenada, can all children be supervised at all times during their vacation? What about the single-mother that must leave her home to attend to her job or to take up duties with another family, caring for their children?
In relation to that fire incident at Chantimelle, we must remind the Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell that he issued a call for parents to have their children under proper supervision at all times since it was suspected that the fire was started by an unsupervised child. However, in that same light, he presented what seems like a little defense for parents, especially in his constituency, when he said that he is aware that it cannot be avoided in some cases. Cannot be avoided Mr Prime Minister?
This newspaper continues to say that the time has come to seriously make all parents responsible for their children or stand the consequences. The system is definitely too soft on them and that could very well be the main reason why some people are slacking when it comes to raising their children properly. Another contributor to the problem may be -the fact that the state has accepted ‘single parents’, as an official term in sociology; in fact, it is very much a Caribbean thing having mothers alone raising children.
Where are the fathers? As we watched this week in local news where a mother revealed her struggles of taking care of her child with cerebral Palsy, it is obvious that something is very wrong with the system. Why is she the lone parent in this? Wasn’t it revealed after a recent study was done that single-parent homes, most times, are nests for criminals where children, especially boys, get groomed at an early age by their peers and step-parents?
While some ministries and other groups are hosting free summer programmes, the problems remain with proper supervision at nights -should parents attend the Spice Mas events. In that light, single parents really need some kind of help!
Another area of concern in raising children, is the exposure to the internet, even by the very tablet which was meant to be a useful tool for school. This newspaper has information that the previous government, in an unofficial survey, found out that very young primary school children had pornographic material on those tablets. In fact, the government then sent a team to schools to clean up the tablets only to find out that the children were able to break the codes that were supposed to provide some form of control, and go on porn sites which they share with their friends. One boy under 12-years-old had over ten pornographic shows on his tablet. It would be interesting to know how that was treated!
Times have certainly changed, and so even the attitude of children. A young child at age seven in the past, would have found great interest in playing with dolls, marbles, skipping ropes, hop scotch and other games with their friends. During vacation from school, how they loved to be outside with nature, gathering fruits while observing insects and animals, spending uplifting time with friends, taking trips to beach and even rivers. There was also great fun in “going and spend time” with relatives such as aunts, uncles and grandparents in another parish. Children were never alone.
They learnt very early in life that there were a lot of benefits in being well behaved, and so they were just that. It was a shameful thing in the past to misbehave especially in public; but then again, the upbringing and the whole mind-set was different. Parents took their responsibility seriously.
Those of us who grew up in the sixties, and seventies definitely had a different outlook on life; if we were exposed to tablets then, we most likely would have concentrated on using them in uplifting ways, maybe most times to play games. This is not to rule out that there were not teenagers then, who did not sneak peek the Play Boy magazines, but they were in the minority; there will always be those who will test the system to see what they can “get away” with; which really was not much.
Anyone with doubt, perhaps should ask the artiste who sang about holding tongue and twisting it. In those days parents took their role seriously even though they lived in separate homes, as it was easy for the community to cry shame on them for neglecting the welfare of their children. How proud they were when their children did well in school! Those parents were even the ones to seek little jobs for their sons when they became old enough to be apprenticed to a trades-man which worked out to be quite beneficial in getting them disciplined.
The challenge that comes with adopting the foreign culture especially from the USA, which is learnt from social media, is a big one and parents and other officials must wake up to that fact. We remember when Prime Minister Mia Motley of Barbados called on all of us to take a time out to reflect and meditate on the part we can play in steering young people away from crime. Just what came out of that?
