Founder and President of the Men’s Empowerment Network Support, Fabian Sargeant is calling for a national parent programme and is adamant that the church must play a major role in facilitating the process.
Contributing to Monday’s Man Talk panel discussion organized by the Men’s Ministry of the Cave Hill Wesleyan Holiness Church, on the topic How Much Is the Church Doing To Help Rescue At-risk Men? Sargeant said the church should come together in a collective effort to get the programme off the ground.
“I think that the church is the biggest institution in Barbados and if we had to look at a parenting programme across all the churches. I said all, but I find that churches are extremely territorial. If you really have the Bible at heart and the Bible teachings, I guess that you would see giving back to society and empowering people as part of the journey. Therefore, I don’t see why we should have an issue with a collective programme,” he said.
Sargeant said that too many young men and women get caught up in deviant activities because they were raised in homes where parents lack essential skills to guide their children through the developmental stages of life.
However, the social worker stressed that while many parents may want to know why they may need to attend a programme to learn how to parent, the national parent programme should not be seen as an avenue for parents to be told what to do with their child.
In fact, Sargeant said men who are hurting or displaying deviant or anti-social behaviours are hurting from their childhood experiences, the environment their parents raised them in and from pain inflicted on them by other relatives.“So parenting programmes are not about telling you what to do with your child. A parenting programme is really there to give you some extra tools to help you in your whole parenting journey or parenting process because sometimes as a parent you can only parent based on what you have learnt, your own experiences and your own perceptions and beliefs and values.
“But then sometimes someone can come and probably enlighten you on a skill that can complement your already existing skills and even help you as an individual to understand yourself in the whole journey,” Sargeant said.
(AH)
