Listen to your teens, parents advised
Posted on February 23, 2012, Thursday
KUCHING: Teenage runaway cases are making the news in the state. The teenagers are mostly females with relationships with so-called boyfriends.
The problem is best tackled at home through healthy positive relationships with parents, according to Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah.
Fatimah advised parents and guardians not to neglect their children’s emotional needs but spend quality time with them.
“If we study the profile and background of teenage runaways, often they belong to the vulnerable group that craves love and attention,” she said.
The minister said teenage relationship with peers must be monitored by their families to ensure they cultivate friendships which were healthy, positive and conducted with respect.
“First look at the type of relationship these teenagers are having with their peers. Parents and family must monitor it closely and intervene when something is not right,” she said.
“We need to make the partners of runaway teenagers accountable for what happened. It is obvious they have no respect for the relationship, their partners and parents if they have the capacity to talk their so-called girlfriends or boyfriends into running away,” she said.
PKR women vice-president Voon Shiak Ni also believes the issue could be solved through education and awareness at home and in school.
She said schools need to conduct moral education and parents strive to be better listeners for their children at home.
“One of the most important contributing factors to eloping is lack of cohesiveness in the family, and the advent of internet services which provide the opportunity for unhealthy relationships to flourish among teenagers.”
She said lonely young people had the tendency to seek solace through the Internet and Facebook due to lack of emotional nurturing by working parents and a hectic lifestyle.
“My advice to parents is to allocate quality time to listen to their children for the home is a place to contain their emotional needs,” Voon said.
This month alone newspapers are featuring stories on missing individuals, mostly young teenagers aged 13 to 15 years old.
On Feb 10 and 11, photos of Form 1 student Shandy Mikai from Sibu and Ivy Evaniee Andrew, 15, from SMK Penrissen No.1 appeared in the papers with their distraught parents pleading for them to come home.
Emily Celestine, 13, went missing the second time this year, the first time on Jan 15 to elope with her boyfriend.
Rachael Moh, 14, from RPR Batu Kawa failed to return home on Monday.
Rachael’s friends told her father that she was driven away in a grey Perodua Kancil by her boyfriend, surnamed Chen.
Some teenagers risk their lives and limbs just for a night out with so-called lovers.
On Jan 28 was a story of a 16-year-old girl who leaped from the balcony of her parents’ third floor flat to meet her boyfriend for a night out.
The teenager was abetted by her 14-year-old sister to sneak out of their flat at Jalan Ban Hock without their parents’ knowledge.
