The long holiday is here and most parents will try to avoid staying with their children for the two month holiday. Some parents will send them to grandparents while others are sent to real or imagined relatives. Others will cart away the children to live with friends. But the question is – how well do you know the family staying with your child? In a world full of paedophiles and other people with strange behaviours, how sure are you that your child is safe? Thousands of children are defiled every year by people they know well. Mostly male relatives and friends of their parents. The children are not safe at home unless closely watched. So why do parents think they are safe with elderly grandparents and friend?
Parents must take full responsibility for their children. When someone visits a new environment they are usually disoriented. A girl will easily be called by an older cousin or uncle and directed to a bush, maize or sugar plantation where defilement can take place. She can also be invited in a house and since she is unfamiliar with the compound she will follow and enter into a trap. And by the way, it is not only girls who are in danger. Boys are also sodomised. In some homesteads, your children will be introduced to drugs and cheap brews. As a parent, you need to be accountable to your child. You must know at all times where the children are. If you have a day job and have to leave the children, ensure you know they are safe. Most important organise for their lunch. You don’t want your children to be the nuisance in the plot begging for food or just staring others pitifully as they eat.
As for those who have cleared primary school keep your eyes on them. Some parents assume that after some traditional ceremony, the children particularly boys are now adults. They are still boys. When they go out find out where they went and with who. Regularly check their rooms. Don’t be caught by surprise like a friend of mine who was visited by police to search the son’s room and you know what a pistol was removed hidden in a mattress and the parents were there looking all shocked and full of tears. The children are brighter and more cunning than us. As a parent you must not drop the ball.
Listen to what neighbour are saying about your child. Some are angels in the house in the presence of parents but criminals and dare devils in the neighbourhood. Don’t always take the side of your child. Listen and question several people before you conclude. If you find your child in the wrong ask him to make amends by apologizing or returning what he had taken from another child or neighbours. Chances are if you don’t support him/her it won’t be repeated. But if you support the offense will be repeated.
The holiday is long but those are your children. Stop whining and come up with ways of making them feel useful. Give them age appropriate task to keep them busy. Let the housegirl take leave to look after her own children. They too are on holiday incase you didn’t know. Teenagers will never do chores when the housegirl is around. I usually wonder why the same hands that have been washing clothes and cleaning classrooms during the school term become so disabled that they are unable to do any chores during holiday. So mummy is doing all the work or the house girl. As the Swahili people say ” mtoto umleavyo ndivyo akuavyo” so parents take your responsibility seriously and keep your eyes on your children. There are no two ways about it. And no one, not even your parent owes you help of raising your children. Eyes on the children.
By W.K