Parents have a major role to play in whether their children turn to crime, but parentage is not the only factor.
So said Professor Dwayne Devonish, who was the guest speaker at a parent support group meeting hosted by the Ammar Empowerment Network at Sky Mall, Haggatt Hall, St Michael, recently entitled How Parents Can Help Their Children with Crime Prevention.
“So, you can have a situation where you have a child coming out of an environment where both parents are excellent, they do their best and so on, and the child still ends up in a life of crime. The first thing that society would say is, ‘Well, it got to be the parents,’ but these parents were doing everything they could. So you wonder what’s the missing variable.” Devonish, a professor of management and organisational behaviour in the Department of Management Studies at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, said factors such as peer pressure, social media and environment were also crucial to a child’s development.
“People forget that children coming out of a family still interface with other social institutions like the school and the community. So you could have a child coming out of a Christian family, but that’s not a secure way to say that the child is going to be an outstanding citizen, because they’re still interfacing with other children or other peers who may not be like that.
“Also, when a child passes into puberty, the parental influence is less prominent and other community influences or peer influences become more predominant. That’s why I have an issue with people making this blanket statement, saying that when a child or when a teenager is out there doing the ‘most’, the parent should be blamed too, because in all cases, that is not it.”
The professor gave the audience some guidelines for effective parenting, such as consistent love and emotional support; setting clear boundaries and reasonable consequences; having open communication; practising active listening; recognising and praising positive behaviour; creating daily check-in routines; establishing regular family meals without electronic distractions; monitoring the child’s activities and connections by knowing the child’s friends and the families of their friends; being aware of the child’s online activity and setting limits; establishing clear expectations about where the child goes and when they are to return; and encouraging positive engagement such as sports, the arts or faith based activities.
He said parents must be able to teach their children empathy.
“If you have a child who can recognise different sides of different spectrum of society, that’s the kind of child that’s productive. Because when they go in to work, whether they’re a lawyer, a doctor, mechanic or a plumber, they will respect different households in the same way. And I think we need to get back to that, teaching our children empathy, understanding different walks of life,” he said.
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