Editorial: Parents of teens face dilemma

It is tough being a parent these days, especially if you have teenagers.

Your children are not your little babies anymore and they crave independence, but often do not have the maturity to behave in the way they should. Even when they do behave themselves, they are often thrust into situations where they may be vulnerable or under threat.

The pressure on youngsters these days is immense. Social media has brought a whole new dimension to bullying and peer pressure. Nowadays a simple tweet or text message can cause much heartache and unhappiness for children and their parents. No one wants to see their children get hurt, but we can't wrap them in cottonwool. Sometimes we just have to send them out and hope for the best. I look back on my teenage years and realise now just how effective my mother's prayers were.

The age-old question for parents is how to manage your children going out at night. How late do you let you kids stay out? Where do you let them go? How do they get home? These are all questions parents struggle to answer.

Hawke's Bay Today had a front page report yesterday on 19-year-old James Morpeth, who was bashed in the face at a Hastings party, requiring him to have facial reconstruction surgery in Wellington Hospital. He had multiple fractures around his eye and a pinched nerve which was causing double vision.

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The full facts of the incident have not been revealed and police are investigating, but it seems as if James was punched during an altercation with people who gatecrashed the party he was attending.

This is most alarming and one can only imagine what his parents have been through. One minute you are waving goodbye to your teenager on a Friday evening, the next you are being called to the hospital. How awful would that be?

What is even more alarming are the comments by Detective Senior Sergeant Dave de Lange, who said: "The number of violent acts police are attending is of real concern, many of them involve young people who seem to use violence as a first choice to resolve what are relatively petty disputes."

As a society and communities, we need to ask ourselves why we allow this to happen. It is up to us to keep our children safe, but it is also up to us to ensure our children know how to behave.