Parents - Take care of your Children! - Listern to your Parents - Children!

When safety matters most

Ruby Taylor-Newton
Sunday, August 21, 2011

IT'S festival time in the Capital City.

This year's Hibiscus Festival theme "Our Children Our Future: Love and Protect Them" is timely.

With a lot of emphasis placed on the young in our community, the school holidays is a rare opportunity for parents and guardians to spend quality time with their children.

Quality in the sense that parents bond with their children at home or at fun spots. Getting to know your household toddler, child, teenager or youth better.

Talking and asking questions, sharing good advice and listening to what they have to say about anything they're interested in. This is a great way to show our children that we do love and protect them.

Sure there will be a lot of hype and festivity like the Hibiscus Festival and many other fundraising bazaars and such, but parents must keep a tight rein on their child's activities and monitor the friends they move around with.

Instead of trying to get them out of the way by giving them the freedom to do whatever they want to do or go wherever they want to go, piling them with junk meals and giving in to their couch-potato style TV and movie whims, use the holidays as a form of health and good practice therapy where they eat healthy, and play outdoor games or participate in mind and body-nurturing activities.

Aside from having a lot of fun, let's be mindful that we don't over indulge in ways that could be destructive to ourselves, our families, or to others.

Social get-togethers and festivities have been proven in the past by our health authority surveys and statistics, to be major contributing factors to the increase in sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies, drug, alcohol and substance abuse because of the lack of parental supervision.

If we are serious about making sure that our children are loved and protected then we as a nation ù parents and children, families and leaders ù must make a stand against actions and influences we take, or let into our lives that will hinder this goal we seek to accomplish.

Taking responsibility, commitment and genuine concern, are three important values that will give us a head start.

Children, teenagers and youths must also meet parents and elders half-way. They also have a huge responsibility to co-operate with parents and elders. Selfishness, disobedience and uncompromising attitudes only get in the way of efforts to build a safe wall of love and protection around them.

The onus is on both parties to co-operate and compromise if we want to make a positive impact for our children, our families and society as a whole.