Ghanaian parents only feed children, no training – Lecturer

Parenting in Ghana has lately been reduced to provision of basic needs of children to the neglect of proper upbringing, a Lecturer of Psychology at the University of Ghana, Dr Ernest Darkwah, has said.

His comments follow the arrest of two teenagers for allegedly murdering a 10-year-old boy at Kasoa over the weekend.

Speaking in an interview with Kojo Mensah on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Tuesday 6 April 2021, Dr Darkwah said the children may have committed the offence based on their aspiration.

“If you look at our current dispensation, parenting especially in our local communities, is being reduced to breadwinning and so a father thinks that the best way to be a father is to wake up in the morning, provide chop money and off to work,” he said.

Dr Darkwah added: “And so, we have come across a lot of situations where parents have absolutely no idea who their kids are talking to, especially adolescent, what they are interacting about, the kind of information they are accessing on social media and their aspirations.

“When you listen to these two boys who did this thing, they did so in accordance with their aspiration. They see people as young as them who are driving big cars among others.”

He believes there must be a concerted effort to address challenges confronting the youth in a holistic manner.

Speaking on the same programme, Nii Armah Addy, an educationist reiterated the call for the establishment of a counselling unit in all schools across the country to cater for the psychological needs of students.

He said it will help the schools identify and support children with peculiar challenges before they escalate.

“We have said time and again that there is a need for counselling in our schools, there shouldn’t be any school without a counsellor and if we leave that out then we are certainly going to have problems with how children turn out from school,” he said.

He added: “School is not only about what they learn in the classrooms, it is a complete formation of the person… Whatever psychological pressure the child may be going through be it from home, peer pressure, the school system needs to know, these children need to be monitored closely to see what they do out of the normal.”

 

SOURCE: Fred Dzakpata/Asaase Radio