Focus: Parents greet homecoming students with mixed feelings

On July 11, students will come home for the holidays. It is a common phenomenon, for students to wile away their holidays in dangerous indulgencies. Instead of revising their books to increase chances of passing exams, they loiter about. Holiday time is interpreted differently by both parents and students. Some parents welcome it, because it is a time when they get to interact with their sons and daughters, thus getting to know them better. Rosemary Murekatete, a parent of four, when asked what she is doing to prepare for her children coming back for holidays, she said she has plans of taking them to the village in Umutara, eastern Province. “In the city, children can be troubling at times. You shout with them all day, almost to madness,” Murekatete says. She says she would rather send them to the village to get some relief and to get them away from the city’s promiscuity. It is true that some parents are not ready to see their children loitering around during holidays. Some are planning to hire private teachers to teach their children during holidays, in a bid to improve their academics and avoiding idleness and occupy their minds. “Like the say, an idle mind is a devil’s workshop,” Geoffrey Munyawera said early this week. John Kaitare has already hired an English teacher who will be teaching his two francophone daughters how to write and read English. Alfred Munyaneza, a parent of two, who lives in Remera explains that when his children come home, he will have a chance to rest while they do the housework. “They should show some appreciation for the ever increasing money we pay out for them,” he remarked. Some parents busy in their professional lives have little time for attending to their children. Such parents have earned a reputation of giving their children a lot of money to compensate the time denied. Coming back home for holidays calls for adjustments which at times are not effected, making it more likely that children will get up to no good, maybe even going as far as getting involved in drug abuse, fornication and pornography. However, not all students indulge in harmful practices during holidays; some have gone a head to devote their holidays to constructive activities like, participating in small scale businesses, which can earn them a living. Uwimana Françoise, a form four student of APRED Ndera, say she is planning to use this coming holiday, for improving her spiriritual life through participating more in her church choir, which might as well step up her singing talent. Some parents in that group take their kids in boarding schools, as a way of minimizing the threat of children competing with their time. In some families, schools are seen as a blessing, in the sense that it’s where their children can have maximum security and supervision, since askaris and teachers are always on the look-out, to enforce discipline and academic concentration. However, there is a reality of people who would even prefer school to be non stop, giving reasons like; children tend to ignore academics when in holidays, thus compromising their performances. Others make a lot of noise bringing chaos and confusion into the home. Contact: gahimore@yahoo.com