Parents, teachers should do more

from serious offences such as murder, extortion, rape, domestic violence, kidnapping, robbery, carjacking and stock theft, sodomy, to petty crimes like shoplifting or vandalism.
Minors are appearing before the courts too, mainly as victims of one or the other of the crimes above. Whether the deteriorating moral standards are because of a changing social milieu or inherent as part of a cultural practice is irrelevant.
What is clear is that the country now has a sizable part of its population that sees crime as a solution to any problems. A self-centred section of society is now obsessed with personal gain and self-gratification and without any care for anyone else, including vulnerable groups. On paper, the majority of children appear to be well protected when coming from a respectable family and going to an equally good school. The two institutions are vital for a young mind because it is there that one’s legal, ethical and moral parameters are set.
But today, both sets of institutions are so preoccupied with other issues that the traditional forms of parenthood and teaching are no longer the sole priority. In schools, teaching personnel complain that they have been living well below the poverty datum line for too long. Most are demoralised and are not as keen at providing for the children as they are at exploring income generating projects. The parents are perhaps just as bad. Too busy either searching for a better lifestyle, pursuing a vibrant social way of life, or battling through marital problems, parents are increasingly becoming more distant from their own children. 
The time children spend away from parents and teachers is predictably longer today. That time is crucial because there is no real control — just an avalanche of peer pressure and exposure to the world’s most dangerous people and substances. It is during this time that young girls and even boys are offered sex for whatever reason. Some take up the offer for reasons ranging from peer pressure, the lure of a better life in exchange, or the curiosity of a first time experience.
There is no shortage of men on our streets willing to exploit the children for personal gain. The young boys too may find the offers for sex, drugs, crime and alcohol too tempting. I find a pre-adolescent mind to be like a big hard drive only just starting to store the serious stuff. The streets have no rules and should the mind be continuously loaded with the immoral, unethical and illegal content without a proper counter argument, there are no prizes for guessing which side wins.
Marijuana is not so hard to find in Zimbabwe. In townships, just about everyone would know the “Jazzman”, the merchant selling the illegal substance. There are too many unemployed people just roaming about at the local shops willing to let the youths access either drugs or alcohol for personal gain.
In addition, just about everyone in the ghetto knows who the prostitutes are and where they live.
It is a lot more difficult for pro-drugs, pro-sex and pro-crime education readily and widely available on the streets to establish a nest in the minds of the little ones, than it is for them to be an integral part of that putrid system. Some parents are even helping their children to get closer to the bad company. It doesn’t help to ask that 14-year-old girl to operate the vending stall just opposite the local tavern.
The heavy drinking fathers and the promiscuous mothers indirectly poison the minds of their children by openly presenting sullied morals to young minds not yet developed enough to know the difference between right and wrong. For whatever reason, there are a lot more divorces compared to previous years. In our sister newspaper H-Metro, crime pages are littered with stories about rocky marriages and the abuse of minors. If the parents are no longer as close to their children and are not really paying any attention, the vulnerable minors would be exposed to just about everything.    
The richer parents are letting television and the Internet take over the parenting duties while they run some “important” business elsewhere. Western values the children are exposed to through the electronic means promote vile activities that include sodomy, pornography, incest, drug taking and alcohol abuse.
There is nothing bad about letting the children watch television or surf the internet. The problem is that most parent and guardians have absolutely no control over what their children watch, either out of ignorance or they are always pressed for time. It should be the parents’ responsibility to monitor and understand what children are up to when they are not within eyeshot of the parties responsible for safeguarding their interests.
There should also be more interaction between schools and parents, not the professional setting where the teacher sits behind the desk and the parent(s) across the desk while speaking as if it is a job interview.
There is need for a relaxed environment with no language or content restrictions where any issues related to the child can be discussed confidentially. After all, both always say they have the child’s interests at heart and they should start putting that into practice.
Some never discuss any possible behavioural changes the child may be experiencing, or problems at school and at home such as poverty, parents’ marital problems, bullying or any form of abuse. The discussions would almost always centre on what happens in class and homework. If neither the teacher nor the parent knows what goes on between the moment the child leaves school and the time he/she arrives home, then that system does not work.
A child’s life experience is like a video game. There are always things in the way with the sole purpose of destroying the object being controlled.
The school personnel and the parents combined should be like the video game player — helping the child to navigate through a minefield of aggressive sociopaths and reach the next level with its body and mind uncontaminated. The moment she realises she is pregnant, both parents must view that as an obligation to ensure that the child is well catered for until 18 or even beyond. If either or both cannot adequately provide, then why bother? Condoms are not expensive.