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| Naeemah Hazelle-Menon Guidance Counselor at the Washington Archibald High School. Photo by Anastasha Elliott |
(BASSETERRE; ST. KITTS) Naeemah Hazelle-Menon Guidance Counselor at the Washington Archibald High School and Vice President and Public Relations Officer of the two-year-old Guidance Counselors Network believes that talking and communicating with your children is key.
She believes that parents can have an ideal if not perfect relationship with their children especially their daughters if they talk to them about perhaps some of the problems they would face, as an adolescence, what to expect and what not to.
She outlined a few problems young girls would normally face, which includes a rising number of abuse cases; both sexual and physical, a surprising number of incest cases; pregnancy, suspected pregnancy, suspected termination of pregnancy, behavioral problems and children having problems getting along, also anger management.
We have a lot of really angry kids, which you can see in the community. They are just angry at everything and everybody and as adults we think that they are not entitled to be mad because they dont have real problems. But some of them are dealing with really adult problems and nobody acknowledges that they have real problems so they just become angrier until you just cant reach them.
She noted that one thing that can explain the anger seen in children is the breakdown of the family. There are the mothers and fathers who cant communicate with their children or are not getting along with them, sometimes there are the she doesnt want to live there anymore or that person is troubling her, scenarios Hazelle-Menon mentioned.
Every problem that you can imagine, we get in school. I think that is because we have the children in school from 8 4 in the afternoon, so we end up spending most of the time with them.
In taking a step to alleviate some of the problems that children face which can be identified by the following including, (a) withdrawal, when they stop talking to you , (b) disobedience, that u dont expect , (c) changes, in friends, outfits they wear, the places they want to go and the (d) lack of focus, in terms of their school work , according to Mrs. Menon, she urges parents to really sit down and talk to their kids, dont preach to them, she says.
Let them understand that what they are going through is normal because you went through it, because everybody has been through it. I think as adults some times we act like we dont remember we were children so we dont know what they are talking about.
She further advised parents to take some time out from their day and relaxation to talk to their kids and find out what is really going on. If you come across as though you are preaching or that after they confide in you there is going to be a punishment then the kids just wont be honest with you.
I think with our girls we need to develop value systems in the parents giving the children, some kind of ruler to measure by and how they should be conducted in their lives.
Girls are just as susceptible to peer pressure as boys are Mrs. Menon said, and because of this, girls are not in a position to negotiate their sexual rights; such as demanding of their partner, I want you to wear a condom or simply saying I dont want to be sexually active, because he would leave me or I would be ashamed if I get the done.
She noted that peer pressure along with self-esteem problems and the absence of fathers in the home is really affecting the home in a strong way. So I think with the girls we are not communicating with them properly.
Our girls are really out there looking for a father figure, somebody to love them and a lot of the times the girls are trading their sex for love and the boys are trading their love for sex. Then we wonder why the girls are getting pregnant.
She continued: But, some parents as soon as their daughters get their period they freak out& Oh she is going to get pregnant and they start yelling and the daughters are just rebelling because nobody is talking to them. I think that if we can talk to them, then they may not get misguided.
Some of the problems that are occurring can attribute to societys depiction of the way girls socialize, said the guidance counselor.
The boys are socialized to go out and have fun, meet a lot of girls. But we dont socialize our girls& but they are not stupid, so they are doing their own thing, she said. Sexual activity among boys is very high and we expect that, but it is also high among the girls and we havent socialized them towards that.
She noted that the problems parents are having with their girls have partly to do with issues of self-esteem that, encourages them to partake in behaviour that they think is fine but dont quite understand the repercussions of just yet.
I am finding a problem that we are having with the girls is that they dont understand the value of their sexuality and the sanctity of it, so they dont relate well in intimate relationships that are not sexual& we havent really taught them how to do that.
We dont really encourage them to develop normal platonic boy, girl relationships. Parents freak out when they see their daughter with a boy, but sometimes you have to let your daughter go out on a group date, hang out with her friends so she can learn and decide, well these are the kind of boys that I dont like.
She continued: I think families need to develop a value system in the home, where children are taught that this is what we as a family believe in and this is what we expect you to believe in, and then we ask well what do you believe in and talk to your kids about that.
Another fast becoming major problem Mrs. Menon spoke of was the use of cell phones in school. She said that the school is having a problem with girls and their cell phones more than the boys.
With the girls, their outside of school boyfriends are calling them and taking them away from school, or texting them while they are in school and distracting them from school. There are some children who can handle school and boys and some who just cannot and so parents need to pay more attention to that.
She said if as a parent you did not buy your child a cell phone but he/she has one then you need to be asking where did you get a cell phone? And what are you doing with your cell phone? Parents need to be paying more attention to that.
We are there for the children in almost every capacity, Hazelle-Menon said. We are Counselors, Social Workers, Nurses, Truancy Officers, Health and Family Life teachers. We also do a lot of home visits, we work with the principles in dealing with behavioral problems, offer counseling, and liaise with the national counseling center in cases that are outside of our area of expertise. We do pretty much everything.
When questioned on her effectiveness as a guidance counselor she said, As a guidance counselor I think that I am as effective as I can be. You can talk to 100 children and only ten would listen. But you got ten. In the beginning you think that you will be able to reach every child, but you quickly learn that there are so many external factors affecting any given situation that you just try to save the ones that you can.
In conclusion she explained that guidance counselors could be quite effective but they have a lot of restraints and over the past few years they have been gaining a better reputation as being more confidential and trustworthy. Which I think was one of the problems that we were facing when we first came into the schools a few years ago.
She said, Everybody just wants somebody they could talk to, who they can trust.
