After the article last week, I received some calls and emails informing me about four videos involving underage schoolchildren engaging in some form of sexual activity circulating the World Wide Web. I was not amused but rather angry, for it is alleged that in one of these videos a young school-age girl was engaging in oral gymnastics with what appeared to be the manhood of a mature male. The other videos featured homosexual and heterosexual activities.
It appears as though there is a sexual demon on the loose, preying on the weak and vulnerable in and outside of our schools and stopping them from being focused on their academic lessons.
It appears that many adolescents are promiscuous and some are not afraid to show it. The sanctity of their virginity is not valued. Quite often as a society we are quick to condemn and ridicule these young people. Have we ever stopped to ask why these children are so promiscuous?
The underlying factor could be that some of them might have been sexually abused or exposed to sexual activity from an early age. They have not received the necessary counselling to help them deal with the pain and scars and it is their way of lashing out. Many of them have lost their self-respect and self-esteem along the way.
Parents need to open their eyes and know some of the activities children are engaging in during and after school. Never say “not my child” because some children behave one way in the presence of parents and take on a totally different persona in their absence.
The values imparted to children are critical to their survival at school, for the school is a microcosm of the society. It is the place where children will interact with peers who are exposed to all kinds of societal ills who come from households with different values.
Parents, the time has arrived to start engaging your children with age-appropriate information as it relates to sex and their sexuality. Please be mindful that if the peers of your children give them incorrect information, then they will be lost.
Sit and watch even the cartoons that children are viewing, for some of them are full of carnal activities that will make your hair stand on edge.
Can we not see that society at large is contributing to the plight and demise of our young children? The media is guilty of promoting sex and preying on the sexual vulnerability of teenagers in advertisements, highly explicit sex scenes in movies, you name it. It takes sex to sell it. Sex, the undercover demon, is infiltrating our children’s minds.
The information posted on the World Wide Web is there to stay. Do not allow the actions of your youth to return to haunt you in your later, adult years. Children, respect yourselves.
• Rhonda A. Blackman is an educator, a National Development Scholar and former president of the Early Childhood Association of Barbados Inc.
