The Pentecostal Assemblies Of God Prelate, West Pokot and Trans-Nzoia District, Rev. Samuel Nyatera has asked parents to play a leading role on their children’s behaviour and not to abdicate roles as the first mentors, leaving it to teachers and coming later to blame the same teachers if failure arise.
He said that, it has greatly led to youthful exuberance which includes; peer pressure, poor parenting, quest for modernization and obscene media messages as indicators of negative parenting among others.
Speaking during the Easter Service that brought together pastors and youths, the Bishop said that youths tend to be easily moved by what they see their friends do in a quest to meet up to their lifestyle, thereby turning to truancy, drug abuse, armed robbery, prostitution and deviant behaviour at home and school.
The Bishop said that 40 per cent absenteeism by learners in schools due to child labour and other home chores cannot guarantee good examination results.
He castigated parents for failing in their primary task of molding their children towards the right path, saying that parents were too busy to attend to their children right from birth where they surrender them to day-care centres and boarding schools till adulthood and had little or no time for them.
He accused the parents of endlessly looking for money and come home late in the night
“Why should we overburden our teachers with tasks which we ourselves should complement,” h posed.
The Prelate said that the print, electronic and online media exposure are blowing youth out of balance and said that there are programmes on television which precipitate misbehavior like addiction to drugs, glorification of sex, carefree attitude, crime, loss of cultural values and even refusing to attend church services. These, he said, have left dire consequences of either death or health implications.
According to him, the youth are supposed to be the most productive as they constitute the labour force of any nation but the major part of their uniqueness has gone to the wrong direction and that it is amazing to find a creative mind spent in creating ideas to destroy the lives of others.
He is worried that youth make a bulk of criminals, members of bad gangs and culprits of all forms of vandalism and immorality.
“Our church has started capacity building for the youth although we have limited funding but we look forward to seeing creativity, uniqueness, strength, dynamism, enthusiasm among the youth,” he added.
The church, through the five year programme intends to completely restore the lost glory of the youthful population.
By Hillary Muhalya
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