We HAVE FAILED OUR CHILDREN.
Our children were born innocent and beautiful. Each one given talents and gifts by the Creator.They were meant to be bundles of joy to be loved, cared for, nurtured ,protected and raised to be the future of the nation.
Why have they now become the lost generation?Violent, aggressive,promiscuous, revoltingly defiant and arrogant they are totally oblivious to the role they were born to play.Why? We have failed them.
We have failed our children and we can no longer afford to remain in denial.The time has come to face reality and say it as it is. We have failed our children and they are victims. Victims of parental neglect and abuse,victims of societal and political neglect and injustices.VICTIMS THAT NEED TO BE RESCUED AND SAVED IN LOVE NOT BY BRUTE FORCE AND BOOTCAMP DISCIPLINE.
From the cradle children were left to feel the hurts of parental neglect and abuse.Most of them were never breast fed to create the vitally important bond of mother and child.Plastic feeding bottles replaced their mother’s breast. Artificial formulae replaced the God given mother’s milk.Anyone could push that feeding bottle in the baby’s mouth.There was no special mother’s touch and love.They were malnourished because of the constraint of poverty, as a result their growth and ability to learn were grossly compromised.
From the cradle children were exposed to violence and their psyche registered violent and aggressive images and notions to be acted out when they grew older.
Mothers left alone to fend for the children offered very little parental guidance and nurturing.Fathers absent from home played no role in the raising of their offsprings. Home offered absolutely no boundaries ,no consistant rules for proper formation and discipline. The values learnt were the values of the street corners and the yards. There were no community centers for family social activities;there were no daycare centers for babies and toddlers activities;there were few basic schools for early childhood education;there was no one qualified to discover the children’s talents and detect the early signs of difficulties.
Growing up took place in a spiritual,social and educational vacuum.The teenage years saw sheer rebellion and anti-social behaviour.
Young girls acted out the behaviour learnt from watching Passa Passa sessions and pornographics shows.They displayed a totally dysfuntional behaviour ,became sexually active long before their bodies and minds were ready. They had no self respect and no self esteem. The lyrics they heard from the dancehall songs told them that they were sex objects meant to be serviced and abused.They copulated in public with anyone, they did not feel hurt that they were being violated.Sex was to them just a casual act. No big thing: sex on the bus,sex at the stadium,sex on the stairwell at school.Their innocence shattered in infancy they did not know how to preserve their dignity as human beings.They had babies conceived carelessly. They were just social misfits ready to burden their families, their communities ,the society with their numerous problems continuing the destructive cycle of antisocial and dysfunctional children.
The boys victims of the same abuses and neglect acted out their hurts and anger in extremely violent behaviour. Their defiance knew no limit and their dysfuntional and anti-social behaviour created chaos in their environment .Home was never there for them so they took to the streets. The dons became the father they never had.Drugs and guns gave them a voice and power.School and the community became their battle grounds.The number of crimes committed by young men is simply baffling but they are a true reflection of the shattered and hurt psyche of our young people.
For both boys and girls learning was a meaningless exercise as they saw no value in knowledge.Their vision of the future was that of a dead end future with unemployment, menial jobs, hustling,babies uncared for ,death at an early age, wasted life…
They are now victimising the adults who victimised them. Anger and violence course in their blood. They father children as casually as they were fathered and raised.They are the young criminals with a heart of stone who will kill with the same carelessness with which they were treated.
The time has come for a serious intervention and remediation of the social ills that have moulded these children.The government owes it to the nation , first of all,to acknowlege the responsibility it bears in the social crisis we now face as a people.The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of youth, the C.D.A and the police should work together to formulate a plan of action to RESCUE THE CHILDREN OF THE NATION.The time has come to invest in humanity.There should be a ministry totally dedicated to the welfare of our children.This ministry will employ the experts in the field of child welfare ,education psychology and psychiatry to offer a better future to the children of the nation.This investment will pay the most dividends in terms of the social richness of the nation.
The present government having taken the bold step of offering free tuition access to school to our children the time has come to make school attendance compulsory in law.The law should also be changed to enforce parental responsibilities so as to ensure that all children attend school and develop to attain their full potential.
There is already a strong effort being made in the area of early childhood education. This should be complemented with a department dealing specifically in early intervention and assessment of learning and behavioural difficulties.The establishment of a Community Liaison officer in the Early Childhood Department would make intervention and recommendations more effective at this level. Compulsory parenting classes are urgently needed to ensure that home offers a continuum to the work being done at school with the children.Very importantly all teachers should have compulsory workshops on classroom psychology and management and should be taught the latest reading methodology and approaches.This way we would ensure a solid foundation for future learning and advancement.
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