Drug Prevention | Scholar advises migrant parents to stay alert

Suzette Munoz-Agcaoili speaks during yesterday’s seminar

Filipino parents working abroad have to pay extra attention to the parenting of their teenage children, who are at risk of becoming engaged in various sorts of hazardous behaviours back home warned Suzette Munoz-Agcaoili, a scholar from the Unversity of Saint Joseph (USJ) at a parent-targeted talk yesterday afternoon at the centre of Radiance for Christ Ministries International.
According to the Filipino scholar, drug and alcohol abuse, gambling addiction and early intercourse with multiple sexual partners are common issues facing teenagers. These behaviors are probably unknown to their migrant parents.
The scholar said that the Internet now gives teenagers easy accesses to information that might lead to unhealthy behaviors. “As you know there’s Internet, cyber sex, so many things on the Internet the parents cannot even see,” Suzette Munoz-Agcaoili argued.
“If you empowered your children, they’d know what’s right and wrong in terms of moral development, so even though they’re exposed to the outside, they’d know it’s illegal and not right, [and won’t] do it,” said the scholar, adding that a person’s value set is most likely to form at home.
She also suggested that parents stay positive in communicating with their children and try to gain respect from them to consolidate their bonding, which would make it easier to be involved in their children’s daily lives.
The talk held yesterday was the second in a series of activities under the Be Cool Project, organized by the Association of Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers of Macau. Staff reporter