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Permalink Reply by Kaline on March 10, 2010 at 7:25am

Bula vinaka mai JSF!

It goes without saying that Fiji's current administration stand to be the most voracious child/teen mentors, evidenced by the Crimes Decree and the Criminal Procedural Decree, we'd perused but have yet to read in depth.

A good read we recommend for all citizens who are able, for there are clauses in there that will criminalise any mature adult who bears responsibility over any minor within their professional , residential, place of worship or commercial properties, if and when any criminal act done by a child is thought and/or witnessed to have occurred. Even neighbours aren't exempt.

As harsh as it is, laws are now in place to protect the child - first, depending on whether the child is 13, 16 or 21. Adults will need to read and ascertain where and when each and all ages are applicable.

Its enforcement is yet to be tested and tried throughout the nation.

The question is "How does an adult help solve these issues and concerns?" Herein is the catch 22. Children and teens of 2010 are similar yet dissimilar in more ways than their predecessors. The enforcement of any aid or solution from the adult set will be heavily reliant on their perception and personal senses of motivation with how they individually and collectively gauge the good, the bad and the ugly. No amount of help can redeem or assuage the percentage who are comfortable or choose to behave in criminally negligent ways, as their subconscious effective chosen forms of protest and advocacy through rebellion.

Funny you should ask this question JSF, for we were discussing similar paths to your very same concerns about a month ago now, case-specifically relevant, where we needed to seriously consider forms of age appropriate discipline for an unruly teen, where we were left in the position of having to discuss whether a parent's suggestion that the child be sent to Reform School or consider the general family consensus that the child who is in their latter teens is to be treated as an adult the teen desires to be - with breathing space to 'experience' life and freedoms as we all hope to redirect anger and frustration towards a more positive direction - employment and adult responsibilities. The reason being is, when children/teens want to live adult lives, they will access it where and when and with whom they deem it appropriate for them, so what are we as the adults in their circles left with? Give them real adult experiences. Get them employment and have them pay their percentage allotments of the family's expense - bills, possible family shared community interest projects, ...

Children and teens who act out, reflect 'the buffers' the adults in their immediate lives allowed them. Sheltered from adult responsibilities and concerns where their interpretation of adult life is a life of party, party and party - completely void of the element of hard work and clueless about the value of the dollar, failing to respect how it is earned and how it is stretched to cater to their created lifestyles of displaced senses of delusional grandeur, their parents can't fathom or understand. In cases as such, who can protect present and active parents from 'the enemy within' when the child has made a conscious effort to disassociate itself from it's rearers, yet brandishes the open palm to the adults within to cater to its life as they should by law (the staples ++)?

It has to be said however, that no 2 children/teens fit the same mold. Some could possibly be suffering from chronic depression, then if recreational drugs and substance abuse (alcohol) are added to this cocktail, the house, the home, the adults who are aging (and aged) and the children are in danger. They're in danger from the child/teen and they too are now susceptible to the new Crimes Decree and the Criminal Procedural Decree, where the adults are now accountable to the law for their self-hating delinquents issues. It's not that not all parents/adults aren't trying, it's just that some are dealing with 'brick walls,' as in inanimate responses.

Note that throughout our sharing we have used both terms, "child" and "teen" - for both are safe and have immunity under the Crimes Decree and the Criminal Procedural Decree which is good and well for the innocent, obedient and the well behaved; but has now offered the blanket of protection for the delinquents and the dangerous within their homes, places of work, places of study and their communities.

When a parent whose life had been that of direct exposure and experience in the field of reforming unruly teens as an educator, a former military personnel who trained military personnel and was respected and regarded with distinction by the UN to train UN forces using modern combat technology, a man who'd be requested to adorn a jersey when a city team is pooled to play the violent rural team (which will remain nameless) - a veritable city Neanderthal in a Fijian, yet is now faced with a dilemma and the challenge of his life, having now resorted to calling out for help, to his former immediate family's senior members and the extended members of his family is proof enough of how turbulent the teen is or it just might be the result of the overly pampered child/teen who is a spawn of changed laws beginning with the removal of corporal punishment. What we are all faced with here, is the 'first wave' of it - illegal smoking, underage illegal sex, illegal consumption of liquor, prohibited prescriptive and recreational drugs, ... These were the primary school students from whence corporal punishment was removed, not that we are proponents of corporal punishment, only where are the advocates who were pleading for its enactment? Where are their solutions for unruly children/teens as a result of the removal of corporal punishment? The order of authority has been denied good parents when talking fails if and when the child/teen refuses to listen - as is their right. Now the boomers are under attack from within their homes.

How may we control children's exposure to destructive elements of life? Tough love from toddlerhood and the removal of the parents, the government and the laws 'enabler' syndrome.

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Permalink Reply by joker smilin'face on March 12, 2010 at 7:21am

you know what, i am very much impressed with you. you never commented based on your own thoughts and inner feelings. But rather you always based on facts supported with many PERTINENT DOCUMENTS. you are indeed a true epitome of wise man. Praise you for all the wise words... Good luck my friend!

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Permalink Reply by Kaline on March 17, 2010 at 10:24am

JSF, we couldn't promptly reply with further angles to your post, for we were observing a specific case, relevant to dialogue.

Psychosis aside, it all boils down to the DRD2 gene, only that it would be unfair to align all negative behaviour from the male side where mutations have possibly occurred in the MT-ND1 specifically, or for a wider scope possible abnormalities in the MT DNA or even MT/RNA. Having discussed this perspective, we as a group surmised addressing a particular case in casual dialogue, that despite the fact that there are determinants in geno-typing and its use in defending wrongful actions, where its effects in these children/teens can be deemed as criminally negligent, stem from genetics as a precursor, bad behaviour still warrants that rearing plays a larger role. The nurture vs nature argument where an individual who may have 'negative' genes is able to combat it through nurture (rearing) to suppress nature (genes/environmental exposure, influences and impacts).

Another humongous contributor to negative behaviour is bipolar disorder which is quite rampant in all areas of the segment who do get affected where children and teens have been the largest segment receiving treatment for it, where it has been identified, that they all tend to think that there are no repercussions to every action; calling on negative, destructive nuances of what they believe they can get away with and therefore risking themselves, other children, their parents and the community.

We often discuss whether there is cause in a shared ingredient (food), possibly increasing their serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine levels to self-destruct thereby violating elements within our community, identifying them as 'triggers' or possibly lack the care towards definite self-implosive behaviour. How much is too much per child/teen, where weight and height needs to be factored in consciously? Tough job for Fiji's Ministry of Health, where a conscious effort in a partnership with the Mental Health Department needs to be bridged to ferret out possible spurs in negative behaviour, where diet plays a role.

Then on the other hand, there are children/teens who loathe any form of adult authority on sight. No amount of balancing, trouble shooting or psychiatric treatment will alter these children's negative personal philosophies.

Having addressed our minors, what of the minors, teens and dependents who are victims of a Mom or Dad who suffers from munchausen by proxy, where a young adult's legal mental status has reached a level that could possibly qualify as abuse done him, when the parental authority in his mother gets him committed when she feels like it, without any medical expert's recommendation - the no school village woman - for back talking his Mom, where he refuses to be given medication - she administers at will.

The question that arises here is, who is prescribing the sedative (which is the effect of the meds given him); more of a sedative and less an anti psychotic. Medications should not be prescribed without the patient being reviewed every 3 months, where side effects need to be considered and prescriptions should be altered to suit the patient.

We're sharing this case here of our suspicion that the mother is suffering from munchausen by proxy clearly evident with the direct result of the suspicious admittance of yet another son - the day after his older brother was admitted to Reservoir Road. The youngest was admitted in to the Private Hospital for severe dehydration, whereupon a neighbour intervened upon hearing his cries. He was locked in a room with burglar bars, writhing in pain, where a senior member of staff, at the school he attends, stated that he was fine throughout the day, prior to this incident.

This leads us to question, what was given him to induce severe dehydration? The ONLY answer would be some form of diuretics and at that speed of the minor getting dehydrated, the diuretics would have to be medical diuretics administered by his mother, a non-medical practitioner. The adults from her village and her parents were in the house, hearing him scream and cry out in pain and did nothing. Hmm.

In any country, the Social Welfare Department would've intervened already, from whence 2 sons from one house, under the care of one parent were both admitted to separate medical facilities within one zone and where the younger of the 2, needed drip for 2 days. One could even assume, that the older brother who is challenging his mother for the rights to his father's estate and its disbursement was protecting his brother the day before? After his removal, the youngest was locked up - by her, with some help obviously, as her relatives acting as the at home orderlies. Getting back to the Social Welfare Department, if the young adult is to be considered a mental case, he qualifies as a minor. Her doing.

The scary element of this case is that the mother, as the adult and the parent of the child in the teen, locked the boy in a burglar bar grilled room, where he was suffering form severe dehydration, which naturally leads to the frying of the brains, as side effect, within minutes, which would then result in what she is accusing her eldest of (schizophrenia), is reason enough to investigate her actions, for criminally negligent behaviour, attempts of criminally negligent homicide, parental neglect, assault, false medicating, removing any refrain clause defense for her to claim elements of justifiable homicide, which could have been the result had the neighbour not acted. It's abuse. Being that it is, why aren't the authorities doing anything when the Crimes Decree and the Criminal Procedural Decree contain clauses of the administering of medication and the abuse of children and minors? The alarm has sounded - 2 sons in the span of 2 days, where the first is committed for not having a home and the 2nd for dehydration. She is not a medical practitioner. This case screams munchausen by proxy for the young adult she declared insane is calling for legal intervention, questioning his legal rights to protect him and his brothers from her - their only surviving parent. Goes without saying, that this case calls for discomfiture on every level, for the mother upon admittance or visitation of her children (she declares have no home), brags to nurses, policemen, people who will listen. Meanwhile, the home she lives in with her relatives was their father's. This should not be happening. First they get sick .... Then they're declared mental .... Finally homeless.

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Permalink Reply by roi on March 19, 2010 at 9:56am

Many things children do is usually the result of parenting. Gov. has it's role but it does not come close to parenting's role.

So whatever values imparted onto the child is more so a reflection of what he does in the world.

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Permalink Reply by le croix (El flaco) on March 21, 2010 at 5:29pm

Parents are not the only ones responsible, teens these days are well informed about politics, sex education
how to drive my parents crazy???!! all they have to do is google it!! lol

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Permalink Reply by kteek on March 23, 2010 at 6:10pm

Parents show your children that you are not only there as a parent but as his/her best friend,in that way you're able to build that relationship where he/she will trust you no matter what.So you don't have to run around spanking them like little kids when you could have solved it by asking them in the first place.Try and discuss facts about life to your children...get them to reality..i know its a big "rere" for us to ask our parents about dating and sex...

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Permalink Reply by kteek on March 23, 2010 at 6:00pm

well i think it really depends on how a child or children is brought up in a family.

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