THE EDITOR, Sir:DURING this Child's Month, let me share some thoughts with your readers in respect of parents and children in our society.
When life begins with abuse, neglect and emotional deprivation at home, then add to that the effects of poverty, drugs and gang culture, it is not surprising that in a violent society such as ours damaged children become deadly teens.
Most children thrive if given half a chance. Others are like orchids, they do well while young enough to be nurtured by loving parents, but wilt as adolescents, subjected to peer competition, bullying and rejection.
The normal culture of adolescence today contains elements that are so nasty that it becomes hard for parents to distinguish between what in a teenager's talk, dress and taste in music indicates psychological trouble and what is simply a sign of the times.
How many parents are capable of thinking the worst of their child? Even if parents know the child as an individual, they may not understand what he or she is capable of when in the company of peers. Loving attentive parents can lose children who are temperamentally vulnerable if they develop a secret life.
The majority of parents are never ever ready to accept the naked, ugly truth. They can be fooled like anyone else despite not being absentee parents, but parents who are normal people who seem to care for their children and are involved in their lives.
Children who are unresponsive, aggressive, impulsive or otherwise difficult are the most in need of competent parenting to keep these innate tendencies from pushing them toward criminality, addiction or violence. TV-raised children know more than parents do, and television caters to children's violent fantasies. Teens have long been adept at lying, dissembling and otherwise conniving to hide their secret lives.
I am etc.
C.L. HUNTER
cljhunter@hotmail.com
Box 38 Bridgeport P.O.
St. Catherine
