Lopsided Parenting

In the month of June 2008, over three hundred schools in my country were hit by unrests which saw students disrupt learning, by setting school property on fire as a way of raising their concerns.

Many others had to be closed due to the high tension among the students. In one incident a boy in one of the schools was actually found with three liters of petrol, a box of matches and a sweater that had been soaked in petrol; with the intention of committing a felony. Others were caught in time and charged with breaking window panes and generally being disobedient. Many other schools were able to save the situation in the nick of time by sending the kids home indefinitely.

Solutions have been floated around. But the problem is still not being recognized by all and sundry yet. I'm not a parent yet but I know raising a kid is like holding a dove in your hand. You squeeze it too hard and you crush it. Hold it too loosely and you risk it flying away.

According to the school heads' association, in my country, the indiscipline recently witnessed in schools had grown to unmanageable levels. Some of the reasons given by them for the trend included the law, which through the children's act, passed in 2001, outlawed corporal punishment. The other reason cited was that parents were giving too much freedom to their children. Lack of role models of high moral integrity in society was also cited.

They noted that children are now accompanying their parents to adult entertainment joints, where they were exposed to a new kind of teaching. Parents were also accused of ineffective parent involvement in their kid’s life. They were guilty of spending so much time on their careers and leaving their children in the hands of house-helps, babysitters and peers; who often lack the authority and the skill to steer the kids in the right direction.

Why then, are we shocked at what these kids are doing in the three hundred or so schools? Or why do the recent school shootings in the US shock us?

In a recent study by an organization by the name “Africa Mental Health Foundation,” credence was given to concerns over run-away indiscipline. Their findings showed that school children—in my country—as young as eleven were falling prey to drug abuse. These findings linked up with media reports— produced sometime back—that certain shops, close to schools, were lacing sweets with drugs to make children develop a dependency on them; and were thus to be demolished. They were, apparently, recycling chewing-gum and lacing them with drugs. The study warned of major economic costs and loss of the country's workforce, if urgent and stringent measures were not taken to curb the trend. The report also backed up the blame on parents who dumped their children in schools and didn't follow-up on their kids' in-disciplinary cases.

These “kids gone wild incidences” are not the preserve of kids in my country though. There are many global instances of poor parenting. But few are seeing how it is affecting the future of man as a species on this Earth. It is sad to say, but some Superior Being could be using this phenomenon against us. The end result might mean well but the method might be painful; simply because we refuse to take the short cut by perfoming the "The Grand Test." Read on. We are amost there. The season finale is nigh!

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