Student Holidays
October 21, 2019
All schools close this week for the December holidays. Some will close on the 24th and others on the 25.th As the students look forward to going home for the holidays, parents are gearing up for two months of bonding time with their children. As much as this may sound exciting, it brings mixed emotions to most parents. Having the children at home for that period of time without proper supervision always has its challenges. Most of these parents have 8-5 jobs they attend to every day. As the children enjoy the holidays, the parents are pondering where the money will come from to feed their children three meals in a day. Most households have between 2 and 6 children. The cost of living has become very high, and shopping for the household is not what it used to be. Parents in the supermarket try as hard as possible to cut cost of the household budget by buying only the basic commodities. Still, when they get to the till to run the items, the cost of the goods often overrides the parents’ budget. Looking at the supplies, one wonders what items to return and what to retain, but again all these supplies are needed in the home, so they pay the bill, but that could well mean that another bill will remain unpaid. The cost of electricity, water, housekeepers and rent has really gone up. The children will spend a lot of time behind the TV watching their favorite shows not caring about the electricity cost. They will warm their meals in the microwave sometimes way more than necessary, and that will be a daily affair for the next two months. Their friends will come over to visit and the supplies that the parents had budgeted for a month will be consumed in less than two weeks. Christmas is also around the corner, and the children will be expecting Christmas gifts, special meals on the menu and holidays in prestigious places; they need to have a story to tell when the schools open. The parents, on the other hand, are thinking of the tuition fees that need to be paid when schools open (the fees keep going up every year), not to mention the many textbooks that will need to be bought as children progress to the next class. Uniforms have also become very expensive, and most parents will find themselves replacing those that have worn. All this gives the parents a lot of stress and anxiety as they try to make ends meet, so they can meet the demands of their families.
The need for the children to be watched during the holidays, so they don’t get into mischief or engage in bad habits cannot be overemphasized. The bars see an increase of the revelers once schools close. Those in Secondary School tend to run away from home and attend discos clubs. The malls also experience an upsurge in teenagers meeting in the restaurants as well as the movie theatres. As much as the children are allowed to meet up with their friends and release the stress of school, a lot of care needs to be taken. There is always someone out there with a bad motive; the world has become a scary place to live, and the parents can only pray that their children will make the right choices. Girls have been known to engage in risky behavior and many pregnancies are noted in schools by the month of March. We wish the students all the best as they go home for the holidays, and we hope they will be responsible in all they do. We hope they will remember the advice they have received from the Choice Club and their teachers.
The past week we have been visiting the schools motivating the candidates as they get ready to sit for their exams and advising those going home earlier to take care of themselves. We wish the parents all the best as they deal with teenage issues and hope they enjoy bonding with their children for the next two months.
