Adults must set example

The adults in this country must lead the way in being good citizens and if they do this, then the youth in this island would naturally follow suit.

This is one of the messages that Rector of the St. David’s Church and Chairman of the Barbados Christian Council (BXC), Canon Noel Burke, is sending out to all Barbadians.

Speaking to the Barbados Advocate on the sidelines of the National Day of Prayer that was held across the various nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary level institutions in Barbados, he stated that in society there are some young people who are exhibiting extreme forms of certain types of behaviors and when there is a continuous display of these types of mannerisms, persons need to ask themselves exactly where are these young people learning these types of behaviors because it is obvious that they are picking them up from somewhere.

“We recognise that among young people there are extremes of behavior and those extremes of behavior – where it continues – are learnt. The thing about it is, where are they learning such extremeness of behavior? And we hold the view – and a lot of research has taken place in this area – that a lot of the learnt behavior initially takes place in the environment in which they spend quite a lot of time.”

It is therefore incumbent on the adults in society, whether they be parents, teachers, leaders of various public or private sector departments and organisations and clergy to recognise that the youth are vulnerable in this regard and, therefore, they must ensure that they model the types of behaviour and speech that they want to see in the youth.
“Adults in society also have a responsibility – as we did in the past and one of the things that made Barbados great – was that the adults in society would also have an eye to the way in which you know young people behaved. It may not happen in the same way as it did in the past, but certainly the adults in society setting the correct example, could also give good guidance to our young people in our Barbadian society. This is a Barbados that we love, this is a Barbados that we care for and so we would want our young people to grow up in that spirit of Barbadiana that we so well known for.”

The Chairman of the BXC stated that once the adults in society do this, then they would see positive results redounding from the young people.

“So we are convinced that our response today along with all the other inputs, you know, including the way in which our young people behave – that it would have a tremendous impact on our current society and on the future as well.”