By Emmanuel Olayeye
Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Samuel. He is the only child of his parents. His parents are very busy people who are barely present in his life. He rarely sees his parents as they already leave for work even before he wakes up almost on a daily basis and they return when he has gone to bed.
He never gets an opportunity to relate with his parents and even when such an opportunity calls, they use it to make up for social outings by taking him to the arcade, restaurant or the museum to have fun and make up for lost time.
Samuel is a gifted child who draws and paints very well. But his parents never encouraged him to develop this skill as they will always destroy his paintings or art-works. Over time, he became depressed and sought solace among his mates in school.
He started keeping some bad company as friends and the worst of them is this female friend of his who pushed him to demand for a phone from his parents. He quickly bought the idea and using the excuse of his constant loneliness, he requested for a phone from his parents. Without giving it a second thought, his parents got him an I-phone and this became the beginning of his destruction.
Samuel formed the habit of taking his phone to school, after all no one is there to monitor or caution him. This female friend of his introduced him to other immoral chat room. Subsequently, he became addicted to wrong sites. And in no time, as a result of the bad company he was keeping, he also became an armed robber, a rapist, and a kidnapper.
Several years later, he was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to death by the firing squad. Given a chance to make his last request, he asked to see his parents, especially his mum. When she came close to him as he had requested to speak into her ears, he bit off her ear before he was shot to death.
Moral lesson
Don’t be an absentee parent, always observe your children and monitor what they do on the phone every day.
Emmanuel is of Lordswill Academy, Abuja
