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Saturday June 19, 2004

PM on parenting skills

BY LAM LI

PETALING JAYA: Parents should pay more attention to their adolescent children in view of the increasingly challenging social environment they are in, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

He said parents must be more communicative and understanding towards these children because they had a tendency to “create problems in the process of experiencing life.”

“Adolescents have a mind of their own and they want to try various experiences that worry their parents.

“It is very challenging to raise children nowadays as the social environment is getting more complicated with all sorts of problems, such as juvenile delinquency, gangsterism and drugs.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pressing a heart-shapped logo to set off a fireworks display when lauching the Penyayang Wholesome Family Carnival 2004 at the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park in Petaling Jaya last night.
“Parents must show love and care. They have to learn to handle the situation well,” he said when launching the Penyayang Wholesome Family Carnival 2004 at the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park last night.

Abdullah said parents should always be ready to lend a ear and offer a shoulder for their children to cry on.

“If we are not there for our children, one day they will no longer seek us out and we will feel sad that we have lost them,” he said.

Abdullah, who also called on Malaysians to make family their priority, said domestic problems would have an impact on an individual’s performance which would indirectly affect nation-building.

“Our family is our flesh and blood, it is the most important thing in life that we must treasure.

“A happy family creates happy people. A country of happy people is blessed with higher productivity,” he said.

The three-day carnival, organised by Budi Penyayang Foundation and Sunway Group in collaboration with Astro, is aimed at promoting and strengthening universal family values.

Abdullah’s wife, Datin Paduka Seri Endon Mahmood, is the chairman of the Budi Penyayang Foundation.

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