DEBATE:There are no bad kids, just bad parents? (Blame it on nature not nurture!)

It’s so unfair how parents are often blamed when their children go off track whether they are teenagers or full grown adults. There are many factors that lead children into becoming bad and it’s not right to blame it all on the parents. Most parents teach their children to be nice to people, but that hasn’t stopped bullies, has it?In reality, children spend more time away from their parents, seeing as they are always at school. When they grow up, they spend more time with colleagues. How now can we blame a parent for the ‘man who embezzled money from the office’? As kids, there is a little something called peer pressure. It is that simple. If a child gets into a bad group, no matter how wonderful his parents are, nothing will change that. He will smoke, drink, do drugs, probably rob people and if it gets really bad, commit murder too. We cannot blame that on his parents!Most parents never have bad intentions towards their children; all they do is love and protect them. In fact they sacrifice a lot to see us happy and turn us into responsible people. Why would a parent who brought you into this world want to hurt you or see you grow into a hooligan?There have been scenarios where some children have turned out to be so bad compared to their siblings yet they share parents. In such scenarios it would be extremely wrong to blame ‘nurture’ when one child turns out to be bad. I’m not trying to say that children are born bad or evil, but somehow along the way nature takes its course, thus what seemed to be a good and innocent, becomes rowdy, violent and a disgrace to society. In the traditional African setting, a child was for the community and anyone would scold a child if they found them doing wrong but in this era, no one cares because the laws protecting children do not entertain scolding thus the children have turned out to be spoilt. The youth of today are indulging in several social vices like drug abuse, alcoholism and in open places and little is done by onlookers. I believe if it was in the ancient times, they would have dealt with the issue differently. Therefore before we start blaming parents for raising a bad child, what have you done as a responsible citizen to put a stop to teenagers smoking and drinking alcohol?