Before we condemn our children, let us examine ourselves

Recently, I came across a video on TikTok in which a Jamaican mother, visibly enraged by allegations that her child was being bullied, appeared ready to confront the situation with violence. In the video, she spoke of her son as a “bad man”, suggested that both she and her son were armed, and declared that she would rather visit him in prison than bury him. Her remarks suggested that she was prepared to accept the possibility of her son being imprisoned for a violent act rather than risk losing him to violence.

As an educator, I found her response deeply troubling, not because a mother should not defend her child, but because of the ease with which violence appeared to be presented as an acceptable response to conflict. What concerned me even more was the message being communicated to her son. Rather than encouraging him to seek help or resolve the matter peacefully, her response appeared to reinforce the idea that violence was a legitimate means of standing up for himself.

The incident prompted me to reflect on a much larger issue confronting our nation — the contradiction between the values we demand from our children and the behaviours we, as adults, continue to model.