I was watching a program on TV the other day about insecurity, basically the host and other guests on the show were talking about how to keep their wards, especially Teenagers safe in this age of social media and internet, sharing ideas and pointers.
And one thing that stuck with me was something one of the hosts said, about how she makes up stories to plant fear in her kids and create awareness about the danger of social media. She gave an instance, something like ‘do you know our neighbor down the street was killed 2 months ago?’ And when her kids were like ‘really? What happened?’ She told them the story of how she met someone online and agreed to go visit the person without informing anyone and she was kidnapped for ransom and when her parents couldn’t come up with the money on time, she was killed. And while they were shocked and in disbelief, she used that opportunity to warn them about socializing with strangers online or going out to meet them without informing anyone of their whereabouts.
Now I understand where she’s coming from, teenagers of nowadays can be very daring or should I say curious and adventurous, they like to think the world is at their feet and they can do whatever and get away with it, which is why it’s always good for the parents or guardians to be their voice of reasoning. I mean we’ve all been there, we understand that actions have consequences and we like to make them understand that also so they don’t end up being a victim of their bad decisions.
But I don’t think planting fears in their heart is the right way to go about this, I mean when I have kids, I won’t tell them stories about how someone got kidnapped and killed to stop them for exploring or to explore life with caution but rather stories of survivors.
Stories about how someone managed to escape at gunpoint, due to mad genius and good luck, stories about how someone who didn’t know how to swim got stranded at the Sea and still managed to navigate it back to land due to their resilience and fighting spirit
Stories about how the odds were stacked up high against a survivor but she still managed to win and survive the incident.
Life is unpredictable, anything can happen at any time, I’ve heard of people that was endangered even at the comfort and safety of their home.
This is why it’s good in my opinion to always let our wards know they can overcome any challenges no matter what it is. To always put it in their mind that as long and you don’t give up fighting you’ll make it out.
But the moment we make them think bad things can happen and they have no choice but to be a victim, I think we’ve already sabotaged them.
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