Balance between restricting the adolescent child and giving them room to explore — Parents told

Dr Joseph Swanzy, a General Medical Practitioner at the International Maritime Hospital (IMAH), has advised parents to find a balance between restricting the adolescent child and giving them room to explore to find out who they were.

Dr. Swanzy said this at the 16th edition of the Stakeholder Engagement organized by the Ghana News Agency-Tema Regional Office on the topic: “Addressing the health needs of children, adolescents, and women, a sure way to build a healthy society,” which was monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema.

The GNA Tema event also aimed at providing a platform for both state and non-state organizations to address national issues to enhance development as well as serve as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters toward national development in general, growth and promotion of the Tema GNA as the industrial news hub.

Dr Swanzy stressed: “You have to be there as a disciplinarian and also as a friend to them so that when they are going through any challenges you are the first person they will talk to and open up to because you have the experience to educate and help that child navigate that path rather than letting that child rely on their peers”.

He explained that the teenage period between ages nine to 19 was a very confusing period in a child’s life as the child goes through psychological, emotional, and physical changes.

He said adolescents use the period to explore and experiment on many things especially illicit drugs and sexual activities, therefore a lot of emphasis was being laid on parents helping their children to know the effects of these drugs and sexual behaviours.

Dr Swanzy added that “you realized that at that time children do not really know balancing the risk and reward of such behaviours, so they might think its okay for me to try marijuana at least once, not knowing that if he tries it, there is the risk that he could get addicted and start engaging in activities that will derail him from the right path.”

The Medical Practitioner said children at that period want to experiment and therefore have a lot of questions that needed to be answered, this he said was not the responsibility of the parents alone but the community and teachers must also take part.

He said there was an increasing trend of identity crises among adolescents due to exposure to social media, noting that most parents find reasons that at puberty, their children were very difficult.

He explained that “the reason is that they are experimenting and trying to identify themselves, so maybe you might have educated your child to sit in this chair, but you realized that at that age the child will choose to sit in another chair because they are experimenting to develop their own identity.”

Dr Swanzy said studies have shown that children were better able to adapt to those changes when they were better educated.

He added that for that reason adolescent health care was focused on educating the adolescent about the changes they were going through and how to navigate them, as well as making sure that there was an environment available to handle some of the challenges they face during that stage in their development.

He, therefore, appealed to parents to help children navigate through the adolescent stage by being disciplinarians yet friendly to them as that was the only way to help them discover their identity to transit from childhood to adulthood.

He said being close to the adolescent enabled the child to turn to their parents first when they face challenges or need answers to some questions instead of depending on others.

Other speakers included: Dr. Amma Benin, Head of the Paediatric Department, at IMAH, who spoke on “Addressing the health needs of children, adolescents, and women, a sure way to build a healthy society”; Mr. Kenneth Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Delax Finance, who spoke on “navigating through the current economic crisis with or without the International Monitory Fund”.

Mr. Richard A. Quayson, Deputy Commissioner, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) spoke on the topic: “Public Service Integrity in the fight against corruption”.