Some­where in or around 2023, I wrote for the first time on the need for some form of parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion. Based on the feed­back I re­ceived I formed the opin­ion that not every­one agreed with my sug­ges­tion. Our gov­ern­ment has now an­nounced that a parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty bill is in the draft­ing process, it stands to rea­son that the leg­is­la­tion will be on our doorsteps soon enough. The an­nounce­ment came on the heels of our Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion that par­ents must take charge of dis­ci­plin­ing their chil­dren, and, that the chil­dren who are dis­rup­tive or vi­o­lent should be re­moved from schools.

For clar­i­ty, we do have an el­e­ment of parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­vi­sions in ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion. Sec­tion 57 (1) of the Chil­dren Act em­pow­ers the Courts to hold par­ents re­spon­si­ble or be pe­nalised when their chil­dren (or child in their care) is con­vict­ed of an of­fence, the par­ent will need to show cause as to why they should not be held re­spon­si­ble. The con­cern, as it of­ten is in our ju­ris­dic­tion, is not a fail­ure to leg­is­late but more im­por­tant­ly a fail­ure to en­force.

Ad­mit­ted­ly, a more com­pre­hen­sive piece of leg­is­la­tion is need­ed. One that can be prop­er­ly en­forced to en­sure that there are con­se­quences se­vere enough to en­sure that par­ents are more mo­ti­vat­ed to re­view, re­con­sid­er and act on their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour.

While every­one is de­bat­ing whether the Prime Min­is­ter’s words and ap­proach is too harsh, or whether we need leg­is­la­tion or not, al­low me to de­vi­ate slight­ly.

Chil­dren do not sim­ply get up one morn­ing, when they are now in forms 3 or 4 or 5 and de­cide to walk in­to sec­ondary school and start a fight. Teenagers don’t sim­ply walk in­to sec­ondary school one day and de­cide that to­day is the day I threat­en a teacher, or use a chair as a mis­sile to launch at some­one. No one gets up one morn­ing and de­cide this is the sort of be­hav­iour I want to ex­hib­it.

The dis­re­spect for au­thor­i­ty fig­ures, the in­dis­ci­pline, the knowl­edge that we have par­ents who will con­done such ac­tions, is some­thing that is in­grained in these chil­dren from a young age, so that, the ‘we don’t care’ at­ti­tude, did not de­vel­op overnight, it took years of bud­ding, nour­ish­ing and grow­ing for us to have the delin­quents we see to­day.

Let us con­sid­er for a mo­ment pri­ma­ry school, and the things many of us are guilty of as par­ents. All pri­ma­ry schools have gen­er­al par­ent teach­ers’ meet­ings at least once per term when par­ents and teach­ers meet as a uni­fied body to dis­cuss is­sues in school. From at­tend­ing these meet­ings over the years, I have gauged that per­haps 10 per cent of par­ents at­tend.

Two years ago, my chil­dren’s school held a con­fer­ence af­ter work where the Po­lice Ser­vice, guid­ance coun­sel­lors and Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion per­son­nel were in at­ten­dance to dis­cuss vi­o­lence in school, bul­ly­ing and how par­ents can work to­geth­er with the per­son­nel to iden­ti­fy and re­solve such is­sues. Per­haps 15 per cent of the par­ent body at­tend­ed and I be­lieve I am be­ing gen­er­ous with the es­ti­mate.

Yes, I know the ex­cus­es, I have heard it many times. Par­ents must work and due to this the nec­es­sary time off or even ad­di­tion­al time to at­tend at the school is al­most im­pos­si­ble. But some­how when CPL is play­ing in any sta­di­um in Trinidad, the same par­ents can get half day off from work and make all arrange­ments to be the first ones in­side. When Car­ni­val sea­son is around, in the words of Farmer Nap­py, “..dis fete not missin me”, time off and days off are read­i­ly avail­able. Par­ents pri­ori­tise their time in ways that on­ly they can ex­plain.

We are faced with new age par­ent­ing. Par­ents who are un­fa­mil­iar with teach­ers, who do not at­tend meet­ings and who treat the school as a glo­ri­fied day care and home-work cen­tre. There are par­ents who would de­mand a change of teacher be­cause their child’s teacher is too strict and they do not ap­pre­ci­ate any­one be­ing that stern with their child.

There are al­so par­ents who show up in front of schools and are open­ly con­fronta­tion­al with teach­ers be­cause they spoke to their child in a man­ner that the par­ent did not like or sought to dis­ci­pline the child in the pres­ence of oth­er chil­dren.

This be­hav­iour em­pow­ers chil­dren in­to be­liev­ing that teach­ers are not an au­thor­i­ty to be obeyed, that, their par­ents will sup­port their ac­tions whether it is right or wrong.

Leg­is­la­tion, will pun­ish cur­rent be­hav­iour. Leg­is­la­tion is not nip­ping the is­sue in the bud or sti­fling the de­vel­op­ment of delin­quents. There is a lev­el of in­dis­ci­pline start­ing from ear­ly school­ing that no one is at­tempt­ing to rec­ti­fy. I un­der­stand.

We can­not en­act leg­is­la­tion man­dat­ing par­ents to at­tend meet­ings at school or to con­duct them­selves bet­ter. But, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can cer­tain­ly im­ple­ment cer­tain poli­cies to en­sure that ear­ly signs are caught and man­aged.

Aside from that, boards need to be cau­tious in their ap­proach where teach­ers and prin­ci­pals are eas­i­ly re­port­ed and rep­ri­mand­ed be­cause par­ents are un­hap­py with their dis­ci­pline ap­proach rather than these per­sons ac­tu­al­ly be­ing guilty of some mis­con­duct. We are en­abling chil­dren in their be­lief that they are above the sys­tem.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is Head of Cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com