Erwin Leacock, Principal of the Government Industrial School.
The whole picture must be considered when searching for ways to help troubled youth.
This was highlighted by Erwin Leacock, Principal of the Government Industrial School, who delivered a lecture recently on “Youth Violence: The Barbados Experience”, at the Whim Playing Field.
When speaking of wayward youth, Leacock noted that most persons usually point fingers without realising that troubled young people exist in every household, and what matters most is how we handle the situation.
“We are talking about children who are experiencing challenges and misbehaving and you may characterise it as misbehaviour, but every single household in Barbados, every single extended family, can point to some experience they have had with adolescents who were transitioning into adulthood,” he said.
“Before we can address this issue, we have to identify who we are talking about and what may have motivated somebody to misbehave. We focus almost exclusively when speaking on troubled young people on what they have done, what they are doing, how they are disappointing, but we don’t often focus on the reasoning.”
He stated that pinpointing the misbehaviour of a child is the easy part, and stressed that it is time to pay attention to why it is happening.
He told the audience that based on his experience, troubled young persons usually start acting out due to something that would have caused the child’s reality to shift, adding that there are two different roads to delinquency experienced by males and females.
Leacock explained that the main cause of delinquency among young people in Barbados is as a result of some form of neglect, abuse or trauma.
With this in mind, he said that it would be beneficial for persons not to be so quick to judge the actions of youth who behave badly, and to extend patience and grace and think about ways in which they could lend a helping hand.