Tisha Ricketts
How do you prevent teenagers from going down the wrong path? Do you just put your hands up, pray for them or do something? Maybe if you first show them what bad decisions lead to that could shock them back to reality. If you live in the Bahamas, there is help.
The Bahamian government, through the Ministry of National Security in 2014 launched it’s Youth Initiative dubbed ‘SHOCK TREATMENT’. The programme was developed to help young Bahamians who have strayed down the wrong path to get back to behaving as normal kids.
I remember last year when the “shock treatment” programme was launched, some Bahamians felt that it was too excessive and unrealistic. I even heard a Bahamian saying “We not in America and this isn’t Hollywood”
In the video from one of the latest TV episodes of “Shock Treatment Girls”, it seems obvious that some of these girls were heading down the wrong path.
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How did these teenagers get to this point? The easy answer after watching the full clip, seems to be that maybe the parents failed or perhaps society on a whole. But for those who are grandparents, parents, or relatives of teenagers, it is not a simply answer. I can recall my teenage years, my life wasn’t perfect. There were times that I strayed down the wrong path but I was lucky to have parents and relatives to steer me in the right direction. However some of my friends were not that lucky.
For the unlucky ones, maybe programmes like “Shock Treatment” will help. For the sake of our future, let’s “shock” these teenagers back to reality.
