Konoin Constituency Member of Parliament (MP) Brighton Yegon has advised parents to be careful with their parenting tactics to be assured of nurturing a responsible and emotionally stable future generation.
He gave this advice while attending the burial of a form four student who committed suicide at her school, Sironga Girls High school in Nyamira on September 28, 2024.
“Parents have become too busy for their children. They think that by providing children with food shelter and clothing, their role is done. They have gotten it all wrong. Children need more than just your basic provisions. They need someone close to talk to them and advise them on life matters and issues because they are emotional beings who want true love and not just mechanical presence of parents,” he observed.
“Cheptoo could not have engaged in this evil thought of committing suicide if parents spent quality time with her to know what was ailing her emotions and try their best to give her a solution. Her delicate mind was left to loosely wander to suicidal thoughts which she unfortunately actualised,” the legislature said.
MP Yegon pointed out that current times with its myriad of rapid changes affects every age group including children.
Hence, parents must therefore be proactive in guiding and parenting their children, counselling them on how to make right decisions as they navigate their tough situations in their tender ages.
“We should strive to ensure that our marriage differences and conflicts at home as a couple are solved amicable to protect our children from emotional torture. They are more affected when parents get involved in public altercations, compounded with ugly assaults in front of their children. Their trust and confidence in their parents is withdrawn and they start seeking for it in all the wrong places oblivious of its detrimental repercussions like what Cheptoo decided on herself. Her painful irreversible act has left all of us with an unimaginable loss, ” MP Yegon said.
Emurua Dikir constituency MP Johanna Ngeno who was also present said the family, community and country had lost big because Cheptoo was a brilliant girl with a promising future but everyone’s hope was halted by her untimely demise.
“It is very painful to lose young lives whose future is promising but we must do something to stop such deaths. We need to take time to counsel and guide our children because that is our noble God given parental responsibility. Teachers can only do their bit as second level counselors with parents’ support. Cheptoo’s cruel decision to end her life clearly indicates her stressing issues had sunk deeper into depression without anybody’s noticing,” he mourned.
The MP advised students to confide their problems to people they are free with, who shouldn’t be necessarily their biological parents. Someone they feel free and comfortable with at home, school or even church because a problem shared is half solved.
Sironga Girls High School Chief Principal Jane Nyanumba said the unfortunate incident on that Saturday morning shocked the entire school fraternity and community and healing from its far reaching effects will take time.
She appealed for deliberate concerted efforts of collaboration between parents, schools, community and churches to guide and counsel our children at the same time provide safe trustworthy spaces and environment where they can freely share out what is ailing them so they can be assisted in good time.
The late Mitchell Cheptoo, who was to undertake her end of secondary school examination starting this month, jumped from the second floor of the school dormitory early morning on September 28 and was pronounced dead on arrival at Nyamira Referral Hospital. She was buried at her home in Chebangang location, Bomet county.
By Deborah Bochere
