Sascha Wil­son

A 13-year-old Form One stu­dent was yes­ter­day ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter al­leged­ly in­gest­ing a meal laced with poi­son. A 43-year-old fe­male rel­a­tive has been de­tained as the po­lice de­ter­mine whether the poi­son­ing was de­lib­er­ate or ac­ci­den­tal.

The teenag­er be­gan froth­ing and vom­it­ing af­ter in­gest­ing a meal of chick­en and rice giv­en to him by a close fe­male rel­a­tive, at his New Grant, Princes Town home around 3.40 pm on Thurs­day. It is al­leged that there was lan­nate in the food.

An am­bu­lance took the teenag­er to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed and trans­ferred to the hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said be­fore he was giv­en the meal the teenag­er and the fe­male rel­a­tive ar­gued. A male rel­a­tive, who can­not be iden­ti­fied to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of the teenag­er, re­called that he was at home when the child fell ill.

Claim­ing that the teenag­er who was sit­ting on the couch was re­luc­tant to eat the food, he said: “He say he fed up. He just go­ing to eat the food and call it and he fed up. That is what I heard him say.”

He said the fe­male rel­a­tive grabbed the food and threw it out the win­dow and shoved her fin­ger in his mouth in an at­tempt to make him re­gur­gi­tate the food. The teenag­er be­gan to froth and vom­it. He said the rel­a­tive had been frus­trat­ed deal­ing with the teenag­er’s be­hav­iour.

“I don’t know yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) he get in a fight and he get sus­pend­ed but for the longest while (name called) has been get­ting him­self in­to prob­lems in school. That led her to de­cide to threat­en him that she put this food for him to eat, not ex­pect­ing he will eat it to fright­en him and dis­ci­pline him,” he said.

De­scrib­ing the woman as a good per­son, he said the teenag­er’s at­ti­tude had changed since he en­tered sec­ondary school. He claimed the teenag­er was bul­lied and sus­pend­ed a few times.

The male rel­a­tive is call­ing for ur­gent ac­tion to ad­dress school in­dis­ci­pline and vi­o­lence.

“I hope that these teach­ers and po­lice for bul­ly­ing in school could take a bet­ter pro­tec­tive (ap­proach) to see about these chil­dren. When chil­dren talk, at least, let po­lice and deans come out and lis­ten to these chil­dren. Things hap­pen­ing and this lead­ing to more frus­tra­tion to chil­dren.”

Up to yes­ter­day, he had not spo­ken to the fe­male rel­a­tive, but he is “hop­ing for the best” out­come for her and the teenag­er.

Deyals­ingh: Get help with dif­fi­cult chil­dren

A psy­chol­o­gist is urg­ing adults to seek help if they can­not cope with a delin­quent or in­dis­ci­plined child.

Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh re­mind­ed them that coun­selling and sup­port are avail­able through the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty or as a last re­sort the po­lice.

He said the child could be tak­en be­fore the court and made a ward of the state to be placed in a state-run in­sti­tu­tion where the child could be mon­i­tored and get the nec­es­sary help.

Dr Deyals­ingh said peo­ple are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a lot of psy­cho-so­cial stress and those close to them should un­der­stand their strug­gles and not add to their prob­lems.

“Some per­sons who are feel­ing frus­trat­ed and help­less can get an­gry and de­pressed and may build up re­sent­ment to­ward a dis­obe­di­ent or delin­quent rel­a­tive and some­times in a fit of rage they may think that they may be bet­ter off with them out of the way,” he ex­plained.

Deyals­ingh said they may feel that “end­ing the source of it can give you that lev­el of peace and con­trol.” He said some peo­ple may al­so have an un­der­ly­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­or­der and may lose ra­tio­nal thought and act out a delu­sion think­ing it might solve their prob­lem.

“Hav­ing a dif­fi­cult child is al­ways chal­leng­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when chil­dren are go­ing through their pu­ber­ty pe­ri­od and their hor­mones are surg­ing and they may act out in a cer­tain man­ner and if you have poor par­ent­ing skills you may not be able to han­dle your­self prop­er­ly,” he said.