Premier and Minister of Education in the Nevis Island Administration Hon Vance Amory, issued a call to parents to take their responsibilities seriously and urged them to spend quality time with their children.
The call came on Wednesday May 31st, 2006, during a televised address onNevis TV Channel 8 to mark the commencement of activities by the Department of Education in celebration of Child Month, 2006 from June 1st with the theme “Unlock the Virtues in Me”.
“Spend quality time with your children. Teach them to speak properly and to think and reason. Help them to read, play with them. Take them on outdoor trips to appreciate nature. Teach them to appreciate good music and their culture and history. Teach them to pray and worship. Show them and tell them you love and care for them so that they in turn can reflect those values and virtues in their lives,” he said.
Mr Amory said children were in need of nurturing and guidance and good discipline now more than ever and every parent or guardian who shirks his or her responsibility was creating a long-term problem which may never be solved.
He said one could not shy away from the reality that children who lacked proper nurture and care, true discipline and effective guidance from parents and adults were more likely to become underachievers and posed serious social problems as they grew older.
Notwithstanding, he said that children who were exposed to love, kindness, godly and loving discipline and who were taught good qualities such as honesty, sharing, patience, respect and good behaviour, were more likely to develop into well-rounded human beings who achieved high goals and objective and later played positive roles in the community.
“Our children are precious gifts from God, given to us as parents and members of society for us to nurture, protect, guide and direct to that they can grow to be useful citizens of our country and our world,” he said.
According to Mr Amory, the first three years of a child’s life was critical to its total development and as adults, whether one had children of their own or not, they had a God-given responsibility to ensure they maximised the child’s potential and unlock the virtues in them.
He admonished persons to recognise the changes that had taken place in the environment of our societies.
“Our people no longer willingly see it as their responsibility to help nurture our children. Everyone seems to be seeking only for himself. Some parents have become overindulgent and even ‘spoil’ their children. Some have been known to teach their children to disrespect others, to be dishonest and selfish.
“Some parents and adults abuse our children and have thereby sown seeds of anti-social behaviour which create a negative impact on teachers in schools, on other children and institutions in our society and destroyed the gems which are children. This is a reality we must resolve to check and eradicate if we are to unlock the virtues in our children and create a better society and a better world,” he said.
While Mr Amory acknowledge that all children did not exhibit the same capabilities of intellectual and physical talent, he said it was also necessary to recognise that each child was different and special it was necessary to teach them and to inculcate values in them, so that they would develop self confidence and an appreciation of themselves which therefore would prepare them to become independent in the community as they grew up.
