Schools will finally re-open after the long teachers strike. This is good news to the parents who feared that the strike would be detrimental to their kids’ studies. Just the other day, I overheard a parent complain about how her son (a form two student) had become overly hooked to his phone at the expense of his studies. The son would spend a better part of each day locked up in his room and claim to be studying. However, he could not answer even a single question after the mother asked random questions on the topics he claimed to have covered. This concerned her and she decided to check what he was up to. She checked all over the bedroom but found nothing. She asked him what was bothering him that he had become disinterested in his studies but he did not have an answer for that. She was rudely shocked to find graphic videos and pictures in her son’s phone. Explicit adult content. Her son had been watching pornography in the privacy of his room.
A while back, porn was hard to find especially for the young people. Only magazines were available in the streets and these young people could shy away from buying such or they did not have money for that. Nowadays, at the click of a button, thousands of sites with this content open. Worse still, young people now have access to these sites. Parents buy them phones that can access the internet and there are data bundles as low as five shillings. Out of curiosity, the young people access these sites that lead to them being hooked. The more they watch, the more they yearn for more explicit content. This porn menace easily corrupts young minds instilling in them vices that parents are unaware of.
It develops crazy sexual fantasies that may affect how they make decisions and may end up thinking irrationally. This sometimes leads to harmful practices such as sexual assault to quell their sexual desires. It affects their studies, social life and concentration on things. It steals away time that they could have spent on meaningful areas such as community service. Once they are addicted, they can’t easily pull out. Parents, therefore, need to pay keen attention to their children’s lives and any vice should be nipped in the bud. This is a taboo topic for some but to ensure your kids are safe,
1) Take the bull by its horns
Sometimes parents shy away from having a discussion on sex matters. Some do not know the angle to take when talking about this touchy issue. They therefore go silent but hurt inside especially when they discover fishy behaviours in their children. Silence is affecting their kids. It’s about time these parents took time to address the porn issue. Detailing on the harmful effects and why their children should shun it.
2) Seek a counsellor’s advice
This advice is critical for any young person who has become hooked to this vice. Several sessions with the counsellor ensures that they are able to refocus and slowly recover from their behaviour.
3) Enrol the young people in youth clubs
This helps to ensure that they are actively involved in a meaningful activity. They channel the much energy they have in something productive rather than idling and eventually falling into the porn’s trap. Club’s such as Rotaract clubs helps the young people to undertake projects that leave them little time to waste and gives them a sense of achievement.
4) Monitor their moves
Parents need to monitor what their children do in their absence. However, this should not be done in an obvious way so that the young people feel that their privacy is invaded. A house help may be of great importance as they are able to see what the kids do after school and report it to the parents. Parents also need to spend more time with the kids to understand them.
5) Limit access to the internet
Gifts such as phones, credit for the phones and other gadgets may facilitate the kid’s access to these porn sites. There are now apps which can be used to block websites with questionable content. Parents should make sure that they are able to monitor what their children are doing on the internet. This ensures that they have little or no access to the explicit content.
Featured Image via Washington Times.
