IN THE SPACE of three days last week, two teenagers faced the law courts on charges which stemmed from stabbing incidents. In one case it was a 16-year-old boy; in the other, a 14-year-old girl.
Both incidents prompted online readers to discuss the causes and solutions to the problem of violence among young people.
Sodi: I wonder if bullying could be behind these school incidents? The bullied kid can’t take it anymore and eventually fights back, and then of course we have the devastating result. The authorities should really keep a vigilant eye out for bullying.
Cynthia Taitt: Bullying among schoolchildren is nothing new. This has been ongoing for generations. The difference is, children did not carry and use knives on each other to settle their differences. These children who carry weapons do so because this is the way they are being raised.
Children are being raised in environments where violence is an everyday norm, where domestic violence is a way of life, and the children are given to believe it’s the only alternative.
There’s very little that the schools can do to prevent situations like this occurring.
Police need to visit schools and talk to students, but unfortunately we do not have enough police officers to deal with the amount of lawlessness taking place in Barbados. Sadly, there’s a rot setting in that has no cure.
Mappofbar: The fact is that all of us, and I repeat, all of us, have been bullied at some time or the other while growing up. Oftentimes, we would hear of bullies themselves being beaten up on the last day of the term. The good thing about it then was no one was killed or even stabbed.
Cammy The bomb: It’s not only in Bim, but with our upbringing, I thought we would be the last one to catch on to this lifestyle, but we are living in the last days so expect the unexpected. When we see these things, look up; the end is nigh.
Sonyfair: Lord have mercy. Our children are so full of anger.
Graceline Stewart: Let us continue to pray for young people because Christ is the only answer to all of these problems we are seeing.
Chrissy Teresa Neckles: What’s wrong? Bim needs to have a week of prayer.
Wayne Webster: Most problems we had to contend with are insignificant to what we see now – violence seems to have exploded in the lives of so many of our youth. To me, we are reaping consequences of more deterioration of family life and we don’t seem to know what to do nor willing to take radical steps to help rectify underlying causes of the problem.
Randy Boy: The impulsiveness of youth. Good or adequate parenting means everything and not just from the biological parents of the child, but all the adults in their sphere. Children will always be children . . . . It comes down to what value and modelled behaviour is practised by and passed on by the adults.
