Thoughts about Youth Day
A Challenge to South African Homeschooling Families
In South Africa, 16 June is a public holiday – Youth Day.
Youth Day a commemorates the Soweto Uprising in the country in 1976. On the morning of June 16, 1976, thousands of black students went on a protest rally from their schools to Orlando Stadium. It was intended to be a peaceful event, but it got out of control and thousands of students were killed by police gunfire.
Learn more using our Youth Day printable notes and worksheet
The word “teenager” first appeared in a Readers Digest in 1941. Before then it was not part of the English language. Our blue print for life, the Bible, also does not mention this “being” – the teenager. There are children and there are adults, according to scripture.
Today there is such a huge movement to validate teenagers and their feelings, attitudes and hormonal changes that sometimes parents dread the years when their children are 13 – 19 years old. Parents make excuses for their “teens” bad behaviour, their “teens” loafing around the house all day, their “teens” lack of motivation and drive…the list goes on.
The expectations for children 13 – 19 years of age are so low that these same children often never grow up to be valuable members of society. They instead become a drain on their parents, family and communities and sadly society says “It’s OK, they are just being teenagers.”
In 1976 “teens” spurred on by the Black freedom struggle chose to rebel against Bantu Education. This ended in a blood bath with many dying and a lot more injured. Today we look back on it and are terribly saddened by the pain and tragedy of this period in our nation’s history.
But is it not more of a tragedy that we are now allowing the youth of our country to waste away their lives kowtowing to the low expectations that their families, schools and communities set for them?
Around us we see children in the age range of 13 – 19 swamped with school and homework, many of whom do not even meet the minimum requirements for their grade. We see children dropping out in Grade 9, girls as young as 15 falling pregnant, young men abusing alcohol and other addictive substances…and the days tick by and nothing changes.
But your child is “safe” because they homeschool, not so? You are a diligent parent training your children in the way they should go so that when they become an adult they will not depart from the ways of the Lord, yes?
Have you ever thought that the purpose of raising strong Godly children is not so their lives are more comfortable and safe, but it is so they can grow up to be the future changers of this country? Not only this, by raising them as children with compassion, they will be the ones who will take the Love of Jesus that operates within them to a hurting world. They can become the hands that bring healing as the Holy Spirit flows through them, the mouths that bring God’s truth and the income earners who can support those who work full time for the Lord in the mission field.