Tag Archives: parenting

I have always misunderstood marshmallows. Never quite got their popularity. In the old days, they popped up mostly around Christmas time, along with butter cookies and other treats. I’ve since discovered that they are actually made up of 90 per cent sugar, but that had nothing to do with my …

In this week’s episode of school violence, we saw a lack of respect for school authorities writ large. The accustomed respect for the office of the Principal was missing. The core incivility of life in our society has been demonstrated for all to witness. The National Parent-Teacher Association President opined: …

“[…] Is it that two pandemic years at home have left some of our school children confused and unable to distinguish between video games and real life?  Is it that the violence-filled ‘entertainment’, often the only type of entertainment they are exposed to in our cinemas and elsewhere, has dulled …

“[…] Many years ago, the United Nations funded a parenting skills programme that was available free of charge to parents of high schoolers. Each participant was provided with a textbook and a workbook. The programme was run over several weeks. “[…] For one thing, I learned that values are caught, …

As a father of two unmarried daughters, Bobby spends a lot of time thinking about their future. His own marriage is almost 40 years old already, his daughters rather less. And, despite the evidence of a steadily growing divorce rate, his faith in the institution remains unshaken. The seemingly clear …

“[…] The pattern here is undeniable: the schools with the highest Excelling to Academic Watch ratio are located in Caroni and Victoria, while the obverse ratio is found in the Port-of-Spain and South Eastern areas. The other six areas have more or less equal ratios of good to bad schools.  …

The news was blunt but not unexpected. The lead sentences (Express, 9 December 2021) calmly reported, ‘Shadie Dassrath was beaten to death in an apartment in La Romaine last Friday morning. An autopsy done on the body of the 31-year woman found she died of blunt force trauma and sustained …

Not unlike Shadow’s Bassman, Mystic Prowler in mih head, pleading with people to look beneath the surface. I have just read Vaneisa Baksh’s ‘Sins of the Father’ column. And not for the first time, I have told myself I’m not going to read her stuff. Not for the first time, …

I’ve been repeatedly invoking my belief that the clues to adult behaviour lie along the childhood spectrum. When I recollect my past in these columns, the responses tell me that I am touching chords. Many have written and called to share how they too have been affected.  I am always …

“[…] I can see my poor mother now, picking up the rotary phone and dialling the Ministry of Health to try to speak with the minister so she could personally apologise to him. And then she’d shove the phone in my hand to do the same. “This is after she …

“The womb is the home of beginnings.” Leroy Clarke, 2019 What kind of beginnings did 3,777 of our citizens experience between 2014 and 2018? 3,777 young women had children for whom they were neither psychologically nor financially prepared to nurture. 3,777 people have been born of trauma in a society which …

Trinidadians are amazing people. Glorifying each raid led by Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, we ignore his 21 November prophecy, in Chaguanas, of 100,000 new criminals in the next five years. “It is really important for us… to look at secondary crime prevention… If we do not deal with this …