PARENTS: 4 SIMPLE REASONS YOUR TEEN CHILD SHOULD COME STRAIGHT HOME AFTER SCHOOL

We will be calling our attention to some risks and dangers posed by leaving your teenage child to wander the streets. We are sure you also must have seen the number of teens wandering the streets after school usually still in uniform, the noise making, careless play on the roadside etc.
One obvious risk out of many associated with this is the possibility of being hit by a vehicle. Many times, our teens get carried away with arguments and play so much they forget where they are. We have seen a couple of them push another teen to the main road while seeing on-coming vehicles but they consider this “playing”. We have seen knives fall from the pockets of some as they run (while still in their school uniform) and you wonder where they got it from or if they had it all along from the start of the day when they were presumably at school.

Another risk involved is they are curious and suffer from peer pressure at this stage so they want to try out crazy ideas like unsafe and pre-mature sex, alcohol, drugs etc. These are self-explanatory and the consequences cannot be over-emphasised. It might not be obvious now but that time they are left to roam after school hours can significantly affect a child’s development and future negatively (Osgood et al. 2005). Those after school hours (usually between 3pm and 6pm) is when most teenage pregnancies occur. This problem of wandering has been around for a while; Sydney and Sickmund (1999), compiled data on juvenile arrests and noticed most juvenile arrests also took place between the close of school and dinner hour which falls around 3pm to about 6pm . Their results indicated very few arrests around midnight and early hours of the day.

Another result of letting them wander around without caring about their whereabouts is that it gives them the opportunity to go places you normally would not approve as their parent. This could be a friend you have warned them against, a particular place for which you have shown detest or even somewhere you do not know but you would not have allowed or permitted them if you knew and they also know you must not know. There are a number of possible consequences to this alone but a painful one would be your innocent child being arrested based on an assumption that he or she is part of a crime or crime ring because of the environment they found them or because of the company they keep. Imagine your child mistaken for a gang member or fraud group because they were unlucky to be at that place, that particular time and arrested along with the rest.

Another risk associated is a potential breakout of fights. This could result from arguments, gang issues, fighting over a boy or girl (sounds funny but it’s true). Some of these guys walk around with knives. The risk posed by knives and rate of teenage stabbing in the UK is alarming and you would be shocked at what they stab each other over. What gain is it for parents to go through labour pain, take care of their children up to when they’re youths, only to lose them to stabbing which probably could have been prevented if the child were monitored more closely and ensured they came home at the right time straight from school or wherever they went.

Many of us parents use being busy as an excuse but the truth is it’s still going to fall back on us should anything go wrong and we would probably spend more time fixing the problem than we would have spent preventing it in the first place (and that is for problems that can be fixed by the way). Death cannot be fixed; unwanted pregnancy sometimes cannot be fixed. Most of these problems and awkward situations can be prevented in the first place by monitoring our children more closely, knowing their school time tables, communicating randomly with the school and their teachers to ask about our children (if possible without your child knowing sometimes), making sure we have laid some good and solid foundation for them before they become adults and move out of our house. The values we establish in their hearts would most likely be with them for life and probably passed on to the next generation. Another important step to take is to develop a very good relationship with our children so they feel comfortable enough to tell us anything, and not feel like they are being judged or they will be punished all the time. There are times we only need to pull them close gently, and correct them in love.

We hope after reading this, parents pay more attention to their children, develop a closer relationship so they do not keep secrets, also lay good examples for them to follow. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing. We would love to hear your view and any other points you would like to add, in the comments section.