Should parents take children for adults only shows?

It is good for parents to take their children to events where they keep monitoring them closely and go home early. PHOTO BY JOSEPH KIGGUNDU.

What you need to know:

Charles R. Swindoll, the author of The Strong Family, once said, “each day of our lives, we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.” Nowadays, parents often take their children with them for adults and late night concerts. Lydia Ainomugisha finds out how this affects the children.

It has become common for parents to go with their children as young as three months’ old to adult concerts. The latest was the just concluded Kampala City Festival where many parents attended with their children. The idea of taking children to have fun and experience the flair in town was good if parents had only stuck by child to the last rules of the day.

Even with the children’s section, some parents took the children to the adult section and kept them out past 9pm. Visibly tired, some babies were seen sleeping as the parents danced and got themselves drunk.

Others cried but the parents soothed them and when they kept quiet, the parents went on with the party. Some parents chose to ignore the crying children and the noise blended in with the music so other people hardly noticed.

When it was finally time to go home, it was worse for parents that were under the influence of the bottle as they were seen dragging their children home impatiently slapping them to hurry up as late as 10pm. But this is just one scene of the many that happen every time there is a concert in town. Children are taken out and that loud music blown into their little fragile ears until the concert ends.

The children may seem to enjoy at the beginning by shouting and dancing to the music but get tired in less than one hour. Children look misplaced because they easily get tired and bored.

Diana Namanya, a nurse who has seen these children try to fit, terms this as a form of child torture. “I don’t know why parents take children to late night or any concert that goes past 7pm. What are you instilling in these children?” she says, wondering if such a parent will in future stop the child from staying out past 8pm.

Emily Kahunde, a businesswoman who agrees with Namanya, says charity begins at home. She says what parents instill in children at a younger age is what they will most probably become when they grow up. In her opinion, seeing is believing and since most children look at their parents as role models and believe that adults are always right; this exposure will turn them into reckless people in future since the act itself is irresponsible.

To Kahunde, this is the beginning of elevation of immorality in our societies as children are exposed to immoral scenes in these concerts.

Annet Lukanda, a communication specialist, says taking children to shows is not good at all. “The fact that it is branded adult it means the content is not suitable for children. It is like watching PG18 movies with the children,” she says.

Lukanda instead advises parents to take the children for children’s shows or for concerts that have a section for children. In case a parent wants to stay longer, she advises them to first drop off the children home. There should be someone responsible to look after them and he or she goes back to the concert alone.

How it affects children

Beatrice Balitenda Kakembo, a child psychologist and counsellor at Inspiration Inspirations Centre for Counselling and Parenting Services, says taking children to adult shows is insensitive.

She explains that children are exposed to skimpily dressed people, they use public toilets and find people involved in antisocial behaviour like smoking, drinking, or lovers kissing and you wonder if that is what you want your child to take in.

She observes that at adult shows there are no facilities to look after children and everything they see there doesn’t add up to good parenting.
Kakembo says in the long run, chances are high that the children become what they are exposed to. She says children are unable to sieve between what is good and bad and in most cases can only manifest it in their character.
“Don’t be surprised if such children at seven starts using big words they heard from their neighbours or want to take alcohol.”