Parental guidance recommended to curb youth violence

Given the fact that Uganda has one of the most youthful population in the world, one would expect the country to have an energetic productive population contributing towards the country’s development agenda.

Unfortunately, this is not the case because majority youth in Uganda have turned out to be violent and hostile.

Many have found themselves on the wrong side of the law, getting involved in numerous strikes and demonstrations.

“The first one is unemployment in our nation, most of the students that have gone to school have failed to get jobs,” James Kateregga, a youth, said.

“Drugs and alcohol have affected the youth. These push them to commit violent acts since one cannot think straight,” Deborah Nakate, a student, said.

Some feel that there is a generation gap; elderly people have not understood that the young people today operate in a totally different environment and so for them to take the advice of their elders there is need to bridge the gap.

“There is a generation gap between the elders and the young and at times elders misunderstood us, they do not give us a chance to speak out,” said Faridah Nakazibwe a student at Makerere University.

Sylvester Kujjo, an elderly person, he attributed the hostility of the youths to both the government and the parents.

“Youths are not getting what they require both from the government and from their parents,” Kujjo said.

Ali Male, a psychologist weighs in on the matter. He says that many of the young people have a low self esteem which breeds from poor parental upbringing.

“Today we have a high rate of dysfunctional family rate which has brought about low self esteem amongst the youth. So when the self esteem is low, we are getting implications of fragile self esteem leading to issues of violence through anger expressions,” he says.

Many parents according to Male, have left the mental and spiritual health of their children dormant.  He warns that negative utterances from parents to their children affect their childhood development.

“So when you only mind about the physical health and leave out the mental health, the emotional and spiritual health dormant. It means this person at one time will have to be violent.”

Male also attributes this to peer groups, unemployment and alcoholism among the youth.

For Uganda to have a violent free generation of the young people, Male advises government to put in place a policy that requires all parents to go for parental training.

“We are lacking that policy in Uganda or even Africa but when you go abroad, these policies are working. Every parent needs to go for training,” he recommended.