Wake-up call to nation

THE EDITOR: Death is a tragedy for everyone, but it is particularly difficult for the grieving parents of a teenaged son, who was an only child.

As a parent, I can only imagine how those parents feel, and as I listen to their story I do agree that his death cannot be in vain. What can we as parents, educators, counsellors do?

Firstly, we need to understand the difference between bullying and conflict, we need to understand that bullying can be physical as well as mental (mainly in the form of cyberbullying). We also need to understand that the process is repeated over a period of time, that there are red flags to indicate something is not right, and we must encourage our children to have trusted adults in their lives who they can turn to for assistance.

That is the remedy. What is the cause?

In our society at present there is a general lack of respect for the dignity of others, and unfortunately in many homes not sufficient time is being taken to develop certain character traits in our children to help them understand the basic golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”:

Fundamental habits that relate to forming true friendships, like kindness, empathy, self-control, loyalty, sincerity, understanding, support and courage. Learning how to disagree in a respectful way, conflict resolution, having respectful conversations and expressing differences in opinion online, not hiding behind the facade of "keyboard courage," where anonymity gives the individual the opportunity to say or do things they would never do in person. All of these need to be taught.

Are we as parents taking the time to teach our children, first from example, these basic inter-personal skills? Where are we expecting our children to learn them? Parents need to begin and work with our educational institutions to reclaim these basic moral values. This lies at the crux of all the behavioural challenges that we are witnessing.

A few weeks ago an increase in teenaged pregnancies was an issue, now we have the tragic suicide of a teenaged boy, a victim of bullying. Can we see the underlying issues among our young people? It is important that we address the problem at all levels, not just with a remedy, but addressing the root cause – a need for values education of our young people.

We need to understand the impact that things as simple as words can have on a person’s psyche, we need to appreciate that in the pre-teen and early teen years, both girls and boys are more vulnerable to negative emotions, and therefore need to be supported in a more significant way, by all the trusted adults in their lives, while building up the sense of well-being and security.

There is so much that we as parents need to know and so much educators need to understand to lend support, so perhaps programmes that help both parents and teachers understand what needs to be done to help our children through these challenging times should be introduced, and parents should be trained and assist in teaching as well. The Alive to the World programme seeks to do just that.

This poor boy’s death is a wake-up call to our nation. Are we all alive to the needs of our youths, and responding as we should? Pause and think. As a country we need to be part of the change we want to see and strive to fix, instead of simply speak.

TONIA GOODING

via e-mail