EDITORIAL: Keep ‘gems’ shining

The theme for this year’s Child Month is Celebrating Children: the Gems of Our Nation. As gems, we all want the youth of this country to be shining examples in society, true sparkling lights of positivity that will shine brighter as they grow into future leaders of Barbados. However, as with all gemstones, one needs to take care and handle correctly and safeguard against tarnish and damage.

 

This concern was addressed at a gala to mark the start of Child Month, where Minister of Education, the Hon. Ronald Jones, scolded those parents who bring brutality to [children’s] flesh in an effort not to spare the rod and spoil the child. “Flogging is not discipline it is simply assault on the child. Those who assault should be taken before the courts and jailed, if found guilty,” he said, adding that verbal assault is just as damaging “The verbal nasty, stinging derogatory word – that cuts the heart and the soul out of our children and they respond, because they know how they feel; they know how we make them feel.” 

 

The Minister urged Barbadian parents instead to “Let us modulate our words with words of understanding, with words of hope, with words of compassion. Let us give our children the love that they are crying out for.”

 

We concur with the Minister’s perspective and urge all parents to examine their actions and motivations in dealing with their children.

 

Unfortunately though, many parents make the mistake of refusing to discipline their children at all, in a misguided belief that it will do them harm – dull their shine. They allow children to behave as they will and give them free reign, in essence allowing them the freedom and privileges afforded adults. This is just as damaging to children as excessive discipline.

 

Child psychologists agree that all children require some form of discipline during their formative years to ensure that they learn to set limits and boundaries, learn accountability, and develop within social parameters similar to those they will have within society as adults. Parents are urged therefore to establish rules amongst themselves and agree on the course of action to be taken (creating a united front); explain rules to children along with the consequences of breaking the rules; and be consistent in acknowledging and reinforcing children when they follow the rules, as well as meting out punishment when rules are broken.

 

By creating a stable, consistent and routine-filled environment – both at home and in school – children are better adjusted and are less likely act out. They will be fewer incidences of violence at schools and in public, and mutual respect between adults and youths.

 

It is time for parents to step up to the plate and acknowledge their role in keeping our children shining like gems. They are looking to us for guidance. As Barbados’ Prime Minister, the Hon. Freundel Stuart said at a Democratic Labour Party branch meeting in St. Peter last Sunday, “…Children don’t run homes, they don’t run schools either. And if we can reach the stage where we can blame them for almost everything happening around us, it means there has been a forfeiting of our responsibility as adults, and children can no longer look to us as they should be able to.”