Teen Criminals

The following is an excerpt from the article published in The Straits Times this month by Serene Goh under the tile: All is not well with the family in Singapore.

FOR three days last week, The Straits Times ran articles on teen criminals. But for every story we write on arson, theft or even rape committed by teens, counsellors have dozens more that are even harder to hear.

These stories of heartbreak concern youths deemed 'Beyond Parental Control' (BPC). The label covers not only complaints lodged against youth under age 16 who aren't old enough to be juvenile offenders, but also describes the state of their caregivers, who have thrown up their hands in abject defeat

In February 1999, a Subordinate Courts research bulletin stated that about 200 BPC complaints were lodged at the Juvenile Court each year. Compare that to today's numbers: last year, 744 applications were filed. In 2008, it was 720 applications; and in 2007, 673.

Almost all cases involved children running away from home, an indication that they were deeply unhappy there. All this is occurring in an era we call the 'Information Age' - which, as it so happens, doesn't translate into enlightenment in matters of family life.

The spike in BPC complaints cannot be regarded as just an issue with 'young people nowadays'. It is every body's problem when the family nucleus in Singapore is at risk.

A short 20 years ago, getting into trouble was a lot more difficult because teens had aunts, uncles and cousins to keep them on the straight and narrow. They might have been unhappy, but running away was tough with grandma and grandpa 'hawk-eyeing' them. Nobody gave up on them easily.

But parents these days are weary from going it alone. Without a support network to help them raise a child who may be a handful, it has become a lot easier for them to lose parental control.
They already spend so much time making money to pay for enrichment courses, tuition sessions, co-curricular programmes, and so on.

They have little energy left to gain the attention of their children, who even when they are physically at home, are more connected to their many gaming kakis, or chat friends online, than they are to their parents. Children and parents no longer have to share a family phone, or television, or even computer.

Cash alone is no shortcut. Children need time, mentoring and a reliable network of adults they can count on.

It takes a village to raise a child, as the African saying goes, and they deserve one.
The question is: how can we give them what they deserve, before their stories make the news?

In a follow-up letter from Dr John Hui, he mentioned that "If parents fail to fulfil these deepest of needs, it is not surprising that many try to fill this void by 'looking for love in all the wrong places and faces'".

As a parent we should try to understand our children better by spending more quality time with them and try to fulfil their deepest needs. Giving them the pocket money alone doesn't mean that we have fulfilled our children's needs.

As mentioned by Lee Seck Kay in another letter to Straits Times, there is no doubt that parents must give what their children deserve - warmth, love, food, shelter, education and so on - not only because it is their moral obligation to do so but also because in their children they can perhaps see hope for the future, and their children making a difference to the country and even the world at large.