By Pat Roxborough,
Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE CAST represents a cross-section of Jamaican society; a relatively wealthy couple with two children, a struggling single mother of four and a couple of average earners with two children.
The plot is one of the most complicated problems facing Jamaica -- the task of bringing up a child properly.
The wealthy couple, whose younger son's delinquency cost them many a sleepless night, tried everything before turning to Tranquility Bay, the American reformatory that operates from the community of Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
"We gave him all sorts of options, but nothing worked. He dropped out of school, we couldn't get him to go back. He would promise to go and then not turn up. Sometimes he would be gone for days. We would have no idea where he was. He was out of control," said the boy's mother.
She says a big part of the difficulty stemmed from the fact that her values were at odds with the example set by prominent people in the society.
"For example, here I was on the one hand telling my son to stay away from marijuana, while on the other hand, he was able to point out prominent people who were using it. There was no back-up in terms of reinforcing discipline," she said.
Looking back at the now-resolved issue, she says another part of the problem may have been due to a failure to set a strict code of discipline from the outset. "One of the basic problems was that we did not enforce the rules consistently," she said.
This problem, which Tranquility Bay addresses by reinforcing a consistent system of rewards for conformity to its rules and punishment for defiance, is similar to the experience that the mother of four is having with her ten-year-old twins.
The children, who moved out of their mother's home last year to live with their father in a nearby community, are now showing signs of unruliness, according to their mother.
"Since they went to live their father, they are less obedient. It's like this. When all four were living with me, they had to obey their older sisters and they had to obey me. Now, when their older sisters scold them or give them instructions, their father says 'Leave them alone,' so their manners have begun to slip," she said. The struggling couple do not have that problem -- they ensure that their children understand that they both agree on matters of discipline. "They cannot play us against each other. They know that if their father refuses to allow them to do something they cannot go behind his back and get a different answer from me," said the mother.
This is extremely important, according to a counsellor who mans the parenting hotline that was set up in 1999 by Jamaica Foundation for Children, a non-governmental organisation committed to assisting Jamaican children.
"The lack of co-operation between mothers and fathers is having a negative impact on their ability to provide proper parenting for their children," said the counsellor in a progress report.
The report, outlined two trends emerging from the 751 calls it received in 1999 and the 616 calls that were made during the operating hours of the hotline last year. "Parents are having difficulty understanding the developmental stages of their children (as well)," the counsellor wrote.
According to the counsellor, who spoke to The Gleaner on condition of anonymity last week, the same trends are emerging this year.
"Most times a parent will call concerned about a child's behaviour. When we investigate, we find that the behaviour is normal, but that the parents just don't know how to respond. Sometimes we find that the parents are not co-operating and that the child is acting out what he sees," said the counsellor.
According to the counsellor, 1,173 of the 1,367 calls made to the hotline between 1999 and last year came from females.
"The calls come mainly from the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew, St. Catherine and St James," he said.
