By Julie Charles

“Oh Land of Beauty, Our Country where Peace abounds” is the first two lines in our uniquely patriotic national anthem but, given the current state of crime in the Federation, can these words be sung with the true meaning intended? Our children are afraid and we, as adults, are all afraid and the question begs to ask who is to blame for this.
 
I have listened to the various radio talk shows and read the many opinions that seek to answer this question. However, it appears that everyone is quite content in placing the blame at the feet of others. For example, the main entity of blame is the government, followed by the parents, the church, the school, and the media, but we all fail to realise that as citizens of this still beautiful land that we are ALL to blame. We are responsible for this crime situation as we are all leaders in some capacity in this great nation, and have a role to play in its building as well as the education of its future generation. 

In my many presentations to teenagers, I have become acutely aware of their lack of social skills such as something as simple as how to sit properly, how to address/speak to an elder, how to speak while looking the person they are speaking to in the face, how to walk without looking on the ground, how to speak without raising their voices for all to hear, and finally how to resolve a conflict they may have with a classmate or a friend. 

These instances, although they may appear quite simple, are part of the problem that our youths are facing. How did you learn to speak? By attending Sunday school and reciting recitations.  Who taught you these recitations? Your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, Sunday school teachers, persons in the community; who taught you how to have manners? Everyone you came in contact with and if you did not say good morning to Ms. James down the road while on your way to school then you can almost be certain that a nice licking would be home waiting on you. Gone are the days that a community raised a child. The excuse I frequently hear is that “oh when you correct them de parents dem want to cuss you and say leave me child”, as I have been told while giving a talk to a Women’s Church Group. But ask yourself, is this truly an excuse not to correct a child that you see is doing wrong? It is not an excuse for me as my motto is if I can only save one.

Now, imagine if we can all save just one child each from going down the wrong path, can you imagine the change these youths would undertake. It would truly be phenomena. I am not suggesting that we can save all of them, as I have had experiences with failure to the point of despair of not being able to save a life, but the children’s lives that I have touched with positivity eases that pain of those few failures.
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We have all become too accustom to saying, “Dem children just bad.” NO, THEY ARE NOT!  As the reggae artiste Buju Banton sung “Circumstances make me what I am, I was not born a violent man” gives a better understand of some of struggles that these children have to face as they do the best they can based on their experiences, which isn’t much. Given my own encounters with them, I have begun to understand why they so readily accept failure. When we were children, the expectations were different, now these children are expected to fail and that is all they know. There is no encouragement in their lives, no one to say “Good Job keep it up”. All they hear is negative feedback from a society which has gotten used to using violent and aggressive expressions. Children are like sponges, they soak up what is in their environment, and if we as adults do not show examples as to how to resolve a dispute then how are our children to learn.

I am often told that I am not a parent so I do not know what it is like, but my response is that when a stranger, like myself, speak to your children they tell me more than they would ever tell you. I have reached the point where I am no longer shocked at their many questions, as their questions tend to stem for a lack of knowledge and a healthy curiosity.

We, as a nation, need to wake up to the true picture as we tend to play the denial game and prefer to blame others rather than facing the truth because it is far easier. Well, here are some truths that our children are facing in this nation:

• Some children go to school without breakfast, therefore their ability to learn is hindered greatly;

• Some children are exposed to violence in the home such as domestic abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse. It is unfair for an eight-year-old boy to have to defend his mother from the hands of an abuser. He is now filled with hatred and all he can say is, “A want kill him.”  These are not words that a child should have to utter;

• Some children do not have parents at home to help with their homework because they are working two and three jobs to put food on the table, so no homework is done and the understanding of their school work  is diminished; 

• Some children are been prostituted by family members and so their childhood is lost;

• There is hardly any counselling that addresses all the social issues that these children face as the school. Counsellors are overwhelmed, the general counsellors are overwhelmed, the Ministry of Gender Affairs and Community Affairs is overwhelmed and the problems are more than the resources available;

• It is only human nature to want to know who your parents are, but many children do not know their parents. When a young man was asked what type of career he wanted, his answer to me was a soldier. When I asked him why, he said, “Because I want to find my father…I don’t know who he is.” This first-former has this burden that he walks around with all day and he said this to me, a perfect stranger who simply asked a question; and

• Let it not be believed that there are only a small percentage of children that suffer these ills. The amounts of children that are caught in these situations are far more than previously thought.

Given these situations, is it any wonder that we are producing young men and women who have no empathy, no conscience, no fear, no regard for personal property or the understanding of personal space, no respect, or no spirituality? We have done this to them and we need to correct it while we can, as there are still a number of children that can be saved. Let us stop the blame game, stop the denial game, and look in the mirror for the problem, for correction is staring back at us.

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” Quotation  from John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America