Revelations from a ‘weekend story’
More than two decades ago, as a pupil teacher in a Montessori, I was exposed to a shocking story told by a class two pupil of about seven years.
To explain, the school had the practice of making pupils write down their observations at home over the weekend. It was a way of allowing pupils to tell a fascinating happening during their stay at home.
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The rational was to get them alert to what went on around them during the period. Turning to the last exercise book I had to mark one Monday morning, I flipped to the page on which the weekend story was written and saw something shocking.
Quest
Pete, as I would want to call him, had drawn a bed with a man lying on. On top of him, was a woman. The drawing could tell what was going on, but Pete in his quest to paint a clearer picture used bubble speeches.
The woman was saying, “I love it, I love it”; another read “I am coming, I’m coming.” From the man, it was, “Ride on, ride on!!!”.
I called Pete and asked him to explain what he had done in the book and whether that was the most fascinating thing he could recall over the weekend. He replied in the affirmative saying, “This weekend, I was home throughout with Mummy and Daddy”.
Visibly shocked about the narrative, I quickly asked him to tell whoever picked him up from school that afternoon to see me. Unfortunately that day, the househelp came with a driver. I asked them to prevail upon Pete’s parents to see me the next morning to discuss an urgent matter.
They appeared in a hearty mood, being a young couple, having been married just for eight years and mostly living abroad.
Explanations
I took them to my table and opened the page for them to see. “Ooohh!” They both shouted. With their hands on their heads, they bowed in shame and apologised. “Why apologise?” I asked.
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Pete’s mother explained that anytime their son was put to bed in his room, he fell off the bed and eventually rolled to the back of the bedroom door, making it difficult to open it to get him out in the morning. Because of that, they often brought him into their bedroom.
The father intervened saying, “I always tell you (referring to the wife) not to allow that boy in while we go to bed, because I always suspect he is watching us.”
According to the father, Pete would never roll over or move from the sleeping position, while in their room, a phenomenon which aroused his suspicions, but the mother would not listen.
They decided not to let him sleep with them again, but whatever he had been seeing had already registered in his mind.
The weekend story confirmed to me what I had been hearing from some of the classmates of Pete. Some told me how he often accosted them in the washroom to kiss them.
I usually brushed those reports aside thinking, “How can a seven year old be doing all these as reported?” But I was wrong.
Lessons
In the last couple of months, there have been videos circulating about some students in junior high and senior schools in the country engaging in sexual intercourse and making statements in support of sexual promiscuity. I believe that some of them pick these traits from home.
The actions of parents or guardians are recorded in their minds and although they may not exhibit those traits at home, they take them to school and then act them out there.
I have seen parents happy to see their kids as young as four, dancing provocatively (twerking) in public places and instead of calling them to order, they rather feel proud and urge them on.
Others even display them on social media. In the end, they become targets for weak men to prey on.
What we must know is that weak morals exhibited by our children are not only learnt from schools, but from home.
E-mail: charles.benoni@graphic.co.gh