It's time to be afraid for our children

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Any parent who really cares about the welfare of their children would be concerned after reading the results of a National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) survey conducted among Jamaican students in grades seven to 12 and which were published in this week's Sunday Observer.

According to the Global School-based Student Health Survey, conducted between April and June last year, a large number of our high school students are undergoing stress, show suicidal tendencies, are bullied, smoke and drink, are obese, lonely, and their parents, for the most part, are unaware.

Dr Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, director of information and research at the NCDA, told us that over the period of the survey, one out of five students admitted to considering taking their own lives and that the rate of suicidal fantasies is higher among girls — 25.7 per cent — compared to boys at 19.8 per cent.

For those who actually attempted suicide the numbers are almost even -- 23 per cent girls and 21 per cent boys.

Those are indeed frightening statistics and they give cause for even greater worry when we consider that earlier this month the Sunday Observer reported Dr Yvonnie Bailey-Davidson, president of the Jamaica Psychiatric Association, as saying that for the first time in her 16 years of practice she is seeing an increasing number of children with suicidal thoughts, as well as those who have attempted to end their own lives.

A similar experience was shared by Dr Tammy Haynes, a clinical psychologist, who said she found that bullying at school was influencing the thoughts of some of these children.

Dr Campbell-Grizzle also suggested a link to bullying among the average 50 per cent of students found by the Global School-based Student Health Survey to have been involved in physical fights over the past year.

Information unearthed by the study in relation to alcohol use among students also gave us cause for concern, as 52.5 per cent of respondents said they had consumed at least one alcoholic drink in the 30 days before they were questioned, with 35 per cent of the 13 to 15 year olds saying they had actually been drunk at least once in their lives. Even more alarming is the revelation that 80 per cent of the students said they had their first taste of alcohol before they were 14 years old.

In all of this we were not surprised to learn from the survey that most students admitted that their parents were unaware of what was happening with them.

It is a point we have argued ad nauseum in this space that a lot of the social ills affecting this country have their roots in the absence of proper parenting.

Ironically, there are many non-government, state and private sector organisations that host parenting seminars and workshops in order to equip people with the skills necessary to raise children.

The problem, we suspect, is that not all parents who really need the help provided by these highly commendable seminars and workshops are willing to accept the fact that they do need assistance.

Getting them to so admit will likely be difficult, especially those who are too busy trying to make ends meet. However, it can't be too much to ask that each of us, when we recognise that our neighbours are in need, give encouragement and support.

For the sake of our children and our country.

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It's time to be afraid for our children