Parents have been urged to monitor the activities and behaviour of their children during the current long school break to prevent them from engaging in social vices, including crime, drug and substance abuse.
Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) Cleric, Reverend Godffrey Jomo, challenged parents to utilise the festive season to inculcate good morals in their children, partly blaming moral decay amongst young people to poor parenting and societal fabric decadence.
Rev. Jomo himself, a trained counsellor, advised parents to befriend their children and always be close to them so that they can be free to open-up on issues affecting them and exerting pressure on them to act anomaly. Doing so, he noted, parents would be in a position to guide or counsel them accordingly.
“Most young people live in closed cocoons and we parents have to nurture friendship with them, so they can reveal to us what they are going through in life. Be available, offer guidance on how to go about the various challenges facing them.
“Be alert that at such a stage, young people are more prone to making very dangerous decisions, which could have negative far-reaching effects,” Rev. Jomo told KNA in Nairobi yesterday.
The Nairobi School Chaplain advised parents and guardians to discourage their children from overindulgence in partying and sleepovers, while keeping an eye on whom they were associating with.
The Clergyman described the current generation of young people as potentially tenacious and fragile at the same time; therefore, he advised parents to be very tactful while disciplining them.
“Today’s youth are very delicate. For example, if your son or daughter threatens to commit suicide and you react by buying and giving him a rope, he or she will go ahead and do it; they are the kind who leave suicide notes barring certain people from attending their burials, forgetting that once dead they will not be witnessing the happenings during their funerals,” he quipped.
On peer pressure, Rev. Jomo said the youth adopt vices such as illicit sex, drug abuse, drunkenness, poor grooming, vulgarity, crime and poor eating habits, as they try to explore self-identity as well as pursue a sense of belongingness.
“Being a softie or being cool” is the in-thing with teenagers as they crave to outdo others and be celebrated among their friends,” stated Rev. Jomo.
By Kamiri Munyaka
