Brava: ICCA organizes lecture on “Parental Accountability”

The delegation of the Cape Verdean Institute for Children and Adolescents (ICCA) will hold a lecture on Tuesday, in Nossa Senhora do Monte, in Brava, on the theme “children's education these days”.

Speaking to Inforpress, the ICCA psychologist on the island, Mileida Cabral, explained that this activity has the main objective of raising awareness among parents and guardians about this issue, taking into account the various non-compliance by parents with regard to their responsibilities and consequently, the violation of the rights of children and adolescents.

In this sense, the same source informed that this activity, the first of many, is being organized in partnership with the Escola Básica de Nossa Senhora do Monte and the Educational Complex of Nova Sintra, with a view to working primarily within the school and trying to as many parents and guardians as possible.

For 2023, within Parental Responsibility, Mileida Cabral informed that several activities will be carried out with the aim of “warning, reinforcing parents’ roles in the education of their children, and drawing attention especially to the part of imposing limits on children”.

“If we look at the data, we will see that the nature of the cases most assisted by the ICCA on Brava during the year 2022 were behavioral problems, alimony and conflicts”, he indicated, underlining that in his understanding, many of these problems, mainly the behavioral ones, happen for “lack of imposition of limits”.

The psychologist argues that "parents need to set good examples for their children, dialogue, spend time and pass on good values and not give material things", but that nowadays, parents leave their children in front of 'tablets' and cell phones, harming their social interaction, communication with others, hampering their imagination and creativity, which is very important for the child's development.

Currently, Mileida Cabral highlighted that there is a maxim of many parents who say “Ami nha fidjo nta dal tud kim nka tevi” (I give my son what I didn't have) and do not want to let their children be frustrated.

But, he justified that this “frustration” has to happen for them to learn to be resilient, and learn from mistakes, being necessary to let the children walk with their own legs.

“You have to protect, yes, but let the child do things according to their age, even to help them with their self-confidence, in the regulation of emotions, anger and fear”, he maintained.

Another issue that parents have to keep in mind is that the school serves to guarantee the learning of knowledge, skills, cultural contents (reading, writing, doing math, knowing the world) and not educating the children, that is , the school complements it, but it is the parents' responsibility to educate their children.

Within the theme, he took some data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) published in March 2022 which says that of the 9,441 registered children, 13.6 percent (%) do not have the father's name, 55.9% of the children children under 18 live without the presence of the father, 4.3% of the children live with the father alone, family breakdown such as alcoholism and drugs, 63.5% and parental irresponsibility, 55.9%.

Based on this data, he stressed that it is necessary to work on this awareness and that is the message he intends to pass on to the community of Nossa Senhora do Monte at this Tuesday's meeting.