Why have Guyanese children gone astray?

Dec 23, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
With all respects being given where due, kindly permit me to perhaps act as an illuminator or vision enhancer, all in an attempt to endeavour answering the questions posed regarding whether children in Guyana have gone astray?(Kaieteur News, December 21, 2015 – “Young, Armed and Dangerous”).
Perhaps the response to this seeming enigma may be more evident if the sentence structure was altered to read thus: “Why have our children gone astray? Sad to say, but this national problem that we are now focusing on has been years in the making.
Could it be that we are now realizing that the chickens have come home to roost? Our children have been assaulting us, robbing us, even murdering us and we have failed to accord it the gravity it deserved. Yes, take it or leave it, as it is pointless to heave it, but Guyanese have created the society that they now live in, one in which the children have become the oppressors. Criminal acts once viewed as shocking for adults to commit, have become the regular for teens and adolescents.
Let us stroll or roll back down memory lane, recalling the jealous teenager who stabbed his girlfriend fifteen times, while at a dance in Sophia. The teenager who was killed while attending school sports, and the gruesome death of Samantha Benjamin whose decapitated body was found on the Annandale seashore, again the work of two teenagers. Not to forget the teen who was shot while robbing a home on the East Bank.
We still continue to have our moral fibres ripped at the disquieting headlines involving youth and crime. Lots of folks have openly stated that a return to their native land is uncertain, disconcerting etcetera, as the disturbing crime scenes and stories daily play out in the local media. Indeed, some of the teenagers are certainly behaving like skilled predators. This in my opinion is the most unpleasant aspect of the behavior of our children.
The majority of children today do not respect their parents let alone authority. Let’s face it; they drive parents like beasts of burden always wanting more, carry out unrelenting harassment, especially when they do not get what they want or their own way.
Case in point; the Mahaica teenager who laced the pot of hassar curry with a deadly dose of monocrotophos that almost eradicated her entire family save for a brother absent at the time of consumption. Another factor to be considered is the deficit in moral teaching. It is virtually nonexistent to some. Guyanese society no longer believes in the existence of absolute right and wrong. Why? One may ask.
In November, under the direction of Education Minister Roopnarine, the Ministry of Education announced its interest in considering abolishing the recitation of Christian prayers from public schools. Since then, the support for abolition has found support among many people, but a debate has begun regarding possible alternatives.
Discipline begins at home. Far too many parents today lack the will or seeming understanding to train and discipline their own children. Growing up as a child in urban Guyana my parents heeded that advice with total disregard for gender bias or sexual identity.
Moral teaching mixed with love first and then loving disciplines has long lasting effects. When done properly moral training will last a lifetime. Another contributing factor to the expressed concern surrounding our teenagers is our broken families.
The majority of teens and youths involved in criminal activities are from single or absent- parent homes. This means that they are growing up with a mother alone, a dysfunctional homestead or with a grandmother, who must work to keep at minimum –the basics on the table. A stable society can only be built with stable families. We also need to fix our failing marriages.
Another factor that is contributing to our children’s demise is the entertainment industry. If we were to stand back and look objectively at our television, movie and computer screens, even the most myopic can see that our children are being nourished on a continuous video diet of blood, gore and pugilism.
Some of these games even have an added feature, a new level of clarity and reality, which allows the user to feel and sense they are actually in the game.
Continuing on the path to sure destruction movie and video game makers are also competing behind the scenes to produce the goriest action packed game or movie than ever before. This steady savage diet is conditioning our young to accept violence as a way of life.
Yvonne Sam

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Why have Guyanese children gone astray?

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