Dear Aunt Silvia, My 18 year old daughter, who was meant to sit for her national examination by the end of this year, has refused to go to school. When I ask her what she wants to do, she says she wants to do some short courses. I am very disturbed by this turn of events. What can I do to make her understand the importance of education? Helena Dear Helena, I don’t know what is happening to these children nowadays. Because after having dropped my daughter in school on Tuesday I met a young girl in a public taxi who also has refused to go back to school because she says she is tired of being in a boarding school, and yet this was also her final year in secondary school. All this I knew through a conversation she was having with someone on her phone. After which I turned to her and tried to talk to her as a parent but I knew my efforts were futile because she had already made up her mind; I almost pinched her, I was breathing fire. I have seen the likes of these young girls who actually opt to drop out of school, not because of lack of school fees but just because they choose to roam around the whole day doing a lot of nothing. It is unfortunate because these are children who have lacked nothing, and decide to waste themselves just like that; whereas there are some orphans who are crying for a chance to go to school. I can tell you this because right now my mother is fighting tooth and nail to take some orphans that were recently left behind by a very close relative to school. These are children who came to our home crying so that my mother, who happens to be their aunt, could do all she can to take them to school after having lost their mother three weeks ago. While the ones who have all the opportunities to go to school without begging for anything are busy ruining their lives; this life is such an irony! One thing for sure, these are the kind of people who will be a liability to their families and the whole nation at large. If I put myself in your shoes, the first thing would be to try and talk to the girl; maybe she is hiding something from you. Try your best and find out what it is, even if it means for you to use her best friends to get that information. Based on whatever information you will get; kindly seek a second opinion and advice as well. But if the girl is just big headed and she thinks she can do what she wants, the only best option for me would have been to take such a child to an approved school; which is a correctional centre for juvenile children, if you ask me this is a typical habit of a juvenile child. Please, do not give up, you have to try all the means and ways for this girl to go to school, if you let go now you will cry later. kayitesius@yahoo.com
