I get terribly stressed out when I hear stories about children getting hurt and tend to adopt an \u2018ignorance is bliss\u2019 attitude to protect myself and my children from these horrific events. At times this shield evaporates, like when I heard about the rape of an 8 year old little girl by 12 to 14 year old boys in her school. That\u2019s when everything else that is happening comes into focus. I\u2019m also talking about the rape of a pregnant woman by 11 men (11!) and the murder of at least 4 women found over the past weekend.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0 my frustration and horror I hit out\u00a0 at the system, the justice system, the education system, the work ethic of teachers and child carers, whether anyone in this country cares about anything else besides themselves. Then I realise that the real question for me is – where do kids learn these things from?\u00a0 What are their parents like?\u00a0 Are they taught to be hurtful, hateful, discriminatory people?\u00a0 How is it fun to watch another human being being tortured, humiliated and abused?\u00a0 And that\u2019s when I decided that there actually is something I can do, maybe not to change the world (unless I run for President!), but to hopefully ensure that my own children never grow up thinking or behaving that way.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 Because there\u2019s a chance that these abusive kids are lacking in something, lacking love and guidance, seeking affirmation of themselves in the world, trying to find someone to notice them, all be it in a negative way.<\/p>\n
The solution then, for me personally and for my own kids, is to be more present.\u00a0 To listen more, to give my full attention, to be a good role model, to wake my kids up with a smile on my face, to put them to bed with a story of love, to teach them to be kind, not because we have to but because it feels so good.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard work being happy and patient all the time, especially with all the pressures of life.\u00a0 I am privileged (and not so privileged but that\u2019s a story for another article) to live across the road from my kids\u2019 school.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen parents hoot all the way to the school, wait impatiently for their kids and then drive off in a huff because they had to wait a few seconds.\u00a0 Is that child going to feel happy to go home?\u00a0 Or would he rather stay out on the streets or somewhere else where he doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s a burden.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve chosen to make a promise to myself that no matter what goes on in my day, that my actions and my attitude towards my kids always needs to be one of care, thoughtfulness, compassion and all things good for their little hearts.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible for me not to know what goes on in the world, especially with all the cruelty and craziness wars, famine, droughts, Donald Trump and all things negative – things that I\u2019ll never understand or agree with.\u00a0 Not to stress myself out with but to enable me to teach my kids about what’s not acceptable, about engaging with them to see what they think and in this way gauge whether I am in fact doing a good job being a parent.\u00a0 That\u2019s what it\u2019s about right, growing great leaders, pillars of their communities and well balanced, sane individuals.<\/p>\n
This article was originally written for Jozikids by Fatima Kazee in 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to find Protective Behaviours, an NGO dedicated to the goal of creating a safe environment for kids and adults.<\/p>\n Note: If you enjoyed this article, and would like to stay updated with more, you can:<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n I get terribly stressed out when I hear stories about children getting hurt and tend to adopt an \u201cignorance is bliss\u201dattitude to protect myself and my children from these horrific events…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":352607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bullying"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n