Children’s Day: Child rights, social media and child development

Sir: The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) emphasises in one of its conventions that no child should be treated unfairly for any reason. UNICEF insisted that when adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. All adults should do what is best for children. Governments should make sure children are protected and looked after by their parents or by other people when this is needed. Governments, the covenant added, must do all they can to make sure that every child in their countries can enjoy all the rights.

This UNICEF’s position is well appreciated because children are not only innocent but the most treasured possessions on earth that are loved by one and all and as grown-ups, we have the job of nurturing our kids to be strong and independent. And as parents and caregivers, we are doing the most important job here. We all have a role to play in treasuring our children. No one needs to do the big job of being a parent by themselves. Friends and family are the best people to lend a helping hand.

An area of concern is parent’s inability to regulate the activities of their children on social media and the government’s payment of reluctant respect to quality education to these children.

There was a veiled agreement among participants in a focused group discussion held recently in Lagos, Nigeria, that what users make out of social media depends largely on their ability to perform, and engage their minds on tasks such as learning, reasoning, understanding and other activities known for far reaching positive impacts.

But in the present circumstances in Nigeria, the vast majority of parents have at different times and places, in their concern for values such as work, success, prestige, and money advocated that social media like a free press is an organic necessity in a society. Therefore, if children are precluded from using  social media to ventilate their sentiment on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, their freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent they may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.  

Undoubtedly, looking at the crowd of Nigerian children that fraternise with the social media with exciting progress recorded in this direction, and instincts coming from the larger society, it is evident that social media have great power to educate, create new ideas and promote human relations. But just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole country sides and devastates crops, even so, uncontrolled use of the social media serves but to destroy.

Aside from the fact that many who originally supported children’s unhindered access to social media have recently come to realise that such judgment was plagued with both moral and ethical issues. There are questions of what the parents and government are doing to regulate the access from within? Why have Nigerian children for the moment lost all fear of punishment and yielded obedience to the power of social media? The solution to these problems, urgent as they are, must be constructive and rational.

First, parents must not fail to remember that the formation of a child is a delicate one. In fact, experts have described adolescence as a period of the storm, a stage in the developmental growth of the child that drives the youths to explore and express their psychosexual self to possibly know more about the world around them. Once the point is missed, such ignorance and mistake by the parents cause on the child an opening that many a time is voluntarily but wrongly filled by the social media posing as a friend.

What children desire most from their parents are love, solidarity, peace, faith and not unhindered or uncensored access to social media. Certainly, previous governments’ not-too-impressive educational system, characterised by incessant industrial action on one hand, and the quality of materials youths are exposed to by teachers in the name of education on the other, should be a source of worry to all. After all, it has been established that one can be extremely educated and at the same time be ill-informed or misinformed.

From the foregoing, it is important to underscore that the menace posed by the activities of our youths was created by the youth, accelerated by parents and past leaderships in the country.

An effort, therefore, must be made by all to end its existence and erase the guilt. Catalysing the process will require parents becoming more religious in monitoring the activities of their wards.

Jerome-Mario Utomi, a media specialist, wrote from Lagos.

Join Our Channels