Old and abandoned, now newborn baby found abandoned outside house !

Rescued: The baby that was found in Kampung Sungai Sebatang in Alor Setar.

ALOR SETAR: A teenager was awakened from her sleep by the cries of a newborn baby outside her house in Kampung Sungai Sebatang off Jalan Kuala Kedah here.

Normawani Ahmad, 17, said she was awakened by the baby’s cries at about 3am yesterday.

“I looked out the window and saw the wailing infant, who was placed on a red plastic mat. I also heard someone walking away from my house while the baby was crying,” she said when met at the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital yesterday.

Normawani called her mother, who was sleeping at another daughter’s house next door. They found the baby with the umbilical cord still attached to the body.

“My mother cleaned up the baby and dressed him in my nephew’s clothes.

“We then lodged a police report,” she added.

Kota Setar OCPD Assist Comm Adzaman Mohd Jan said police were looking for the mother and the case has been classified as child abandonment under the Penal Code.

Sources: The Star/ANN

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What do fathers want?

FATHER’S Day is this Sunday and the “Sweet and chocolaty message for fathers” in The Star the other day has prompted me to put on my thinking cap on what a father wants for his children, the generations to come, and the fathers themselves.

After being a father for close to two decades, it sets me to think for the first time what is treasured most in my life as a father. Children. They are more than apples of my life. They are God’s most precious gifts that have been entrusted to my care.

Every aspect of their development, such as their health, education, emotional and spiritual growth, brings great joy to me. A father’s responsibilities are burdensome but worthwhile and rewarding.

Among them, education tops the priorities and this includes enrolling one in Austin Heights Private and International School and another in Singapore Polytechnic.

The decisions, though incurring a huge financial commitment, become easier after deliberating on their strength and weaknesses in studies.

Discipline comes in whenever necessary for sparing the rod will spoil the brats to achieve academically. The endeavour to nurture them requires, other than discipline, love and care plus lots of patience.

During school breaks, they are pampered with a holiday, either locally or once in a blue moon, an overseas trip, to enrich their lives and at the same time strengthen the family bond.

Most fathers desire a peaceful and politically-stable country for the children to grow up.

Political stability is important to ensure sustained socio-economic growth which promises brighter job prospects for their children.

Some parents, like me, are in our early 50s and very soon, our generation will be over but to our children and the future generations, it is just the beginning.

So, it is all the more crucial for our young people to be brought up in a society that is conducive and harmonious.

The country should also be free from political bickering and in-fighting for these will distract the leaders who are mandated by the rakyat to prioritise the country’s development, which includes seeing through policies like the Economic Transformation Programme and Iskandar Malaysia to fulfil the high-income nation status and Vision 2020.

Many views have also been expressed by various stakeholders, especially the PAGE and lately, Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai, to emphasise more on the English language, to enable our children to be competitive in this globalised world.

Mutual trust, neighbourhood security, transparency and efficiency in the delivery system and public accountability should prevail in a society that treasures meritocracy much more than ethnicity.

A desirable society values diversity in religion, custom and belief that are part and parcel of a multi-racial community. It is also a nation where the leaders lead by example and walk the talk of the 1Malaysia concept in their daily lives, and not only when the general election is around the corner.

The proverb “behind every successful man there is a woman” depicts the importance of a wife to the father and the children. Her role in a family is further highlighted in “home sweet home”, “home is where the heart is” and “the hands that cradle the cot rock the world”.

The father and children of such a home are the MOST blessed souls in the world when there is a wise and diplomatic wife at the household. Her words are soothing in times of weariness and refreshing when one wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

They could turn to her for words of advice or for second opinions.

Fathers should be treated as the head of households and be allowed to call the final shot if a compromise is difficult to come by. This will set examples for the children to emulate when they have their own families one day.

As the Chinese proverb says, jia he wan shi xing, which literally means that when there is harmony at home, every aspect of our lives will prosper.

That is something that every father wishes to have for himself and family but has always been elusive.

New models after new models have been launched but are often beyond their reach.

The high taxes have put many fathers in the “day-dreaming” gear and hopefully, the 20%-30% reduction in prices over a period of five years as promised by the Government can be shortened to say, two years so that a teacher like me can start saving from now on and be in time to pursue my dream of owning the Toyota Altis to replace the 13-year-old faithful Toyota Unser before the retirement.

Cheers to all fellow fathers on this coming Father’s Day!

TING LIAN LEE Johor Baru

Life like video games?

Video games may be considered adolescent, but imagine if our lives were like video games where you constantly get rewarded for small accomplishments? Great, no?

ALWAYS looking to validate my gaming addiction, I checked out TED talks – everyone’s go-to source for out-of-the-box, forward-thinking smart talk to drop at dinner parties – to see if I could find any ammunition.

As usual TED talks didn’t disappoint.

A speaker named Jane McGonigal, an American game designer (and a woman as well, meaning she gets her choice of gaming geeks), not only argues that video games are good, but goes as far as to advocate spending more hours playing video games because that will make the world a better place.

That’s definitely an argument that I can get behind.

McGonigal argues that games like World Of Warcraft encourage users to tackle seemingly insurmountable tasks, and not only do players accept these epic mission but they work hard to achieve it. She then hits us with the crazy-sounding stat that collectively we have (some of us more than others) spent 5.93 million years playing World Of Warcraft.

Did you know that homo sapiens have spent a total of 5.93 million years alone playing World of Warcraft? Makes you wonder what Darwin would have thought of this feat

McGonigal then puts that in perspective by saying 5.93 million years ago, humans stood on two legs for the first time.

Playing video games for the same amount of time that it takes a species of primate to go from dwelling in trees and dining on insects to building metal mega-cities and flirting with space travel really does put things into perspective. Yeah, suddenly that seems like a heck of a lot of wasted time on gaming.

But McGonigal is undaunted, saying the amount of time a person spends on video games by the time they are 20 years old is 10,000 hours, the same amount of time that that person will have spent in school – and also, incidentally, the same amount of time author Malcolm Gladwell cites as necessary for someone to become really good at something. To quote rapper Macklemore, who was basically quoting Gladwell, “The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint; the greats were great because they painted a lot.”

Well, McGonigal is saying we’re playing a lot of games, but what is it exactly that we’re getting good at?

She’s not quite sure but she knows gamers are Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals. Yeah, SEHI is the acronym for that. That doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

She then goes on to conclude, somewhat uninspiringly, that if we could only create educational games we could start to harness some of the millions of years we’ve wasted on games.

Yeah. Except McGonigal forgot that educational games are pretty much terrible across the board.

It may seem like I’m denigrating McGonigal’s talk but what I really found interesting was the idea that we are in a period of mass exodus into gaming. There are 500 million gamers in the world, and this number is only growing.

McGonigal talks a bit on why games are so inviting, basically saying that it’s because reality sucks. She’s right.

In games, at any moment you could gain any number of seemingly random achievements.

Your characters can gain in skills any time. Maybe you’re attacking zombies, and suddenly get a +1 strength. Jumping over barrels, +1 agility. Read a science book, +1 science. Basically video games give us a ton of positive feedback. What if life was like that, McGonigal quips. The crowd laughs.

But seriously, what if life was like that?

What if when I submitted this article, I received the 60th Article Submitted but only 4th prior to the Official Deadline Achievement? What if we could get the Constant Bus Rider achievement for taking the bus for the 100th time? What if at work we didn’t get rewarded for huge seemingly unachievable goals but for small daily completed tasks?

Wouldn’t it feel great to field a call from an irate customer, hang up, and get the 50th Complainer Customer Achievement? At least it’d put a positive spin on an experience that is otherwise fairly unpleasant.

With smartphones and their ability to track our movements and activities, it’s not very far-fetched to think that this sort of reward system could become possible sometime in the near future, while employers would probably be able to implement some sort of reward system right now. Not that I want this kind of reward system to be used by corporations to manipulate people into work, but it’s sort of inevitable, isn’t it?

It works so well in video games to hook people.

The entire idea of “gamifying” life may sound nuts but if we’ve spent 5.93 million years playing video games, games are doing something right. Maybe it’s time for life to imitate art.

And if this idea sounds like something that would come from a Super Empowered Hopeful Individual, then maybe McGonigal is on to something.

Big Smile No Teeth
By JASON GODFREY

> Jason Godfrey can be seen hosting The Link on Life Inspired (Astro B.yond Ch 728). Write to him at star2@thestar.com.my.

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Why do some youngers resort to extreme violence?

Child serial killers”, “Kids murdering their parents” – these are the headlines we are increasingly seeing in the news.

Last month, a 19-year-old Japanese teenager allegedly killed and dismembered his mother because he did not like her apparently, and also because he wanted to know more about dissection.

It’s shocking that a teen who is still considered a minor under Japanese law would resort to murder for something as mundane as “not liking his mum”. I’m sure we have all disliked our parents at some point of our lives but letting that be the reason to do away with someone who gave birth to you in cold blood is absurd.

Two other recent cases of alleged parental murder and harm were sparked by computer use and gaming.

The first, reported in China Daily (chinadaily.com.cn), happened in Ziyang, Sichuan province. The 14-year-old boy is said to have mixed farm chemicals into the family’s cooking oil, which led to his parents, elder brother and sister-in-law suffering stomach problems and vomiting. The boy later confessed to his crime and said he was upset over his mother banning him from playing computer games.

Another 18-year-old boy – from Yuen Long village in Hong Kong – was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his father to death and wounding his mother. According to a source at the scene, a fight had broken out when his father tried to stop him from playing video games.

Why has it become so “normal” for teens to solve problems with violence?

In New Mexico in the United States, 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego allegedly shot his parents and three younger siblings in January. The incident left the public wondering how a sweet, home-schooled teen described as a doting older brother – who has no history of violence or anti-social behaviour – could commit such an act.

According to a New York Daily News report (nydailynews.com), Griego appeared “unemotional” when confessing to the murders but turned animated when discussing his favourite violent video games.

Could it be, then, that overexposure to blatant violence in the video games caused him to “go rogue” and violently kill his family?

It’s not unreasonable to assume that repeated exposure to violence on television and in games might have an impact on youth development. It is true that exposure to violent media results in desensitisation to violence. Furthermore, media violence rarely shows the consequences of violence.

However, the media-violence link isn’t as simple as a headline would have us believe. The teens’ personality is a major factor in determining whether screen aggression will lead to aggression in the real world. A recent article in the Review Of General Psychology journal asserts that exposure to violent media has a much greater impact on those who are more emotionally reactive and less agreeable, careful and disciplined than their peers.

In addition, teens who are isolated and have few connections to healthy adults and a lack of identity and purpose (what one of the researchers, J. Kevin Cameron, calls “empty vessels”) are at higher risk of identifying with perpetrators of violence in television and video games, and might therefore be more likely to engage in violent behaviour.

This conclusion seems more plausible than the notion that violent media invariably leads to an increase in violent behaviour.

Therefore, it makes sense to limit exposure to media violence, but it is not realistic to completely shield our teens from it. Parents should be aware of the TV programmes, movies and video games consumed by their teens. Talking to teens about the things that they see on the screen is also important.

However, I believe the bottom line is to build a strong relationship with our teens. It is this meaningful connection with our teens that will enable them to empathise with others and make sense of what they watch on screen.

If you notice your teens exhibiting signs of anti-social behaviour or a sudden change in their lifestyle and behavioural patterns, find a way to talk to them so it won’t reach a point where they just “snap”.

On the other hand, we, as parents, must recognise that we may not always have all the answers. Whenever we are in doubt, we should seek professional help, so that situations do not turn too “dangerous”.


TEENS & TWEENS
By CHARIS PATRICK

Charis Patrick is a trainer and family life educator who is married with four children. Email her at star2@thestar.com.my.

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Leaving a financial and parenting legacy

BEING a parent is a challenging job. It's a job that requires lifelong commitment, and you cannot resign from it even if you feel you can't cope. And what's more, parenting requires skills that are not obtainable from school, college or university. Parenting and managing money are the two most important skills that we learn from our parents or adults with whom we grew up, be they our grandparents, nannies or guardians.

As you go through the process of considering how to communicate with your parents and siblings about managing family wealth, you will realise the need to teach your children about money so that you are able to leave your own legacy behind for your children to communicate and manage money harmoniously as a family.

There is really not one proven or standard method of parenting and teaching children about money because of different personalities, behaviours and attitudes. We teach children about money based on how we were taught about money by our own parents or guardians, and from the environment in which we were brought up. Recall your childhood days, and how your parents taught you about money. Were you taught to save your pocket money or to spend it wisely?

Think about the environment you grew up in. Were there times when your parents had money problems and you often heard them argue about it? Or did your parents hide the fact that money was hard to come by in the family? Or were you pampered by your parents with toys, clothes and going out for fun activities and holidays?

Some parents have told me that because of the poverty they experienced during their own childhood, they now try their best to give their children a better life by lavishing them with the material goods and experiences that they themselves never had. By indulging their children, they are not allowing their children to experience financial responsibility.

Different parenting styles

While most parents learn parenting skills from their own parents or by observing others, they will accept some practices and discard others. Effective parenting requires interpersonal skills that can create some emotional demands. Experts in early childhood development say an important dimension of parenting is the style parents adopt when they interact with their children. According to Maccoby and Martin's parenting style typologies, there are four different parenting styles. Depending on the child's character, different parenting styles lead to different results:

1) Authoritarian parenting is a restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions. The authoritative parent places firm limits and controls on the child, and allows little verbal exchange. These parents tend to be very strict and may control the children by limiting their wants and desired wants. In this case, the children may either grow up to rebel' by spending beyond their financial means to fulfil their childhood desires, or they may become very good at managing their money.

2) Nurturing parenting is a style that encourages the child to be independent but still places limits and controls on the child's actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing towards children. These parents often communicate and teach their children to spend their money wisely by explaining to them the importance of money.

3) Neglectful parenting is a style in which parents are uninvolved in the child's life. Children whose parents are neglectful often develop a sense that other aspects of their parents' lives are more important than they are. Children who grow up in this environment are often deprived of parental love and a sense of belonging in the family. As a result, they may grow up spending lots of money to fulfil their need for love from friends, and from their life partner. Or they may spend money to boost their self-esteem because of the lack of parental love.

4) Indulgent parenting is a style in which parents place few demands or controls on the children. These indulgent parents will let their children do what they want. Children with indulgent parents may often be spoilt by a variety of material things or an impressive lifestyle. The spending behaviour of indulgent parents may condition the children to spend more than they need or more than they can afford when they grow up.

Imagine a situation where the father is indulgent towards a child and provides gifts, toys, fun and pleasure, while the mother, on the other hand, is a disciplinarian with strict rules about gifts, toys, fun and pleasure. Who will the child prefer to be with, and who will the child learn more from? You and your spouse should decide on a best way to handle your children's money expectations. It is important to be consistent and fair to lessen potential family strife.

Communication

According to experts of child psychology, even from a tender age of 2 or 3 years old, a child learns by observation, and from conversations and experiences they have with adults. Hence, effective parenting warrants a tremendous amount of proper learning methods and communication skills. Understandably, today's parents are faced with more issues compared with their parents; the fact that today's younger generation is growing up in an era of media influence, technology advancement and the Internet makes parenting an even more challenging job.

It can be painful for parents to discipline and teach children about saving money, particularly when their children are easily influenced by their friends even as pre-schoolers. This is further compounded by the barrage of advertisements on television and online media that tempts your children with attractive toys, pretty clothes and accessories.

It does not really matter how much money you have or how much joy you derive from showering your children with material things. As parents, you have got to show some restraint and boundary. You don't have to feel guilty about scaling back on spending for your children. Your children may already have more than they need more clothes and shoes than they can wear, toys and games than they have time to play with.

Be mindful that while you are conscious of good money habits for your children, you need to ensure that your children's grandparents, godparents, aunties, uncles, or other adults around them do not indulge them too much with gifts. This may send your children the message that if they cannot get what they want from you, they can get it from them.

Family values 

In some situations, a couple may bring different views and values about money and parenting to the marriage. Because of personality, character, family and life experience differences, couples do face conflicting personal and family issues where money is concerned. Therefore, teaching a child about money really begins with teaching your child about the importance and meaning of life values as a family.

Honesty, integrity, teamwork, helpfulness, trust, love, family support, accountability, unity, filial piety, commitment, communication, sharing, spending time with parents and siblings are some of the most important family values that your children ought to know, even if they may be younger than six years old.

Constant messages to your children about how good family values are important in life, and that money cannot buy such values, are more important than parental love expressed in the form of material things for your children.

Teaching them important life values and let them know that money is a means to an end, and not for self-gratification.

Other than sending them to school to gain knowledge and social skills, the money skills that you teach your children from an early age are the most important life education you can provide them with and it actually starts at home. It is as simple as how you and your spouse manage money and communicate about money at home. Your good money skills will rub off on your children.

May this be your new resolutions for teaching your children good money sense!

MONEY & YOU By CAROL YIP

Carol Yip, founder of Abacus For Money, believes that if people understand their money mindset, behaviours and money psychology, they can be financially happy and successful. She actively promotes financial literacy and intelligence within families and for women, youths and retirees.

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Are you raising selfish kids?

Most children are egocentric, more so in these modern times. There are ways to get them to see the world beyond themselves.

YOU often hear parents complaining about how today’s children are not as obedient, thoughtful and polite as those of previous generations.

This is especially true in Generation Y and Z kids, who are also known as “Generation Me”. Generation Y and Z includes those born in the digital age and who have been familiar with using smartphones, the Internet and digital gadgets from a young age. There are varying opinions on when exactly the generation began. Some say those born in the 1980s onwards while others point to the 1990s or even the noughties.

Gen Y and Z children have a greater sense of entitlement, demand for instant gratification and generally disregard others’ needs. In simpler terms, they appear to be more selfish than kids in generations before them. It used to be family first, community’s interests, and country’s pride. Now, it is “me” first.

Get this: The GoGetter — Land & Water puzzle will be yours if you come up with the best story on ‘Games/puzzles my kids love to play’ for June.
 

With all manner of advertising being thrown at us these days, it is not surprising that children don’t always know how to separate wants and needs. They seem to think they need a lot of things, with some even believing they have the right to demand for materialistic possessions. Parents who overindulge their children will give them the impression that they are entitled to these luxuries.

If a child is selfish in nature, he or she will not know how to care for others and this will eventually lead to social and relationship problems.

ParenThots shares some methods to ensure your child sees the world beyond himself or herself.

Book reviews 

Geronimo Stilton is the Famous Five of the 21st century. The comforting news is that the English in the book series is sound, the stories set in various countries offer lessons in Geography and culture, and at least your kids are reading! Definitely recommended.

Childhood Allergies is written simply so that parents can get a clear idea of what allergies are about and what symptoms to look out for.

Bully stories 

There are quite a few bully stories this week, including one from a man in his 60s who says he still can’t forget what happened when he was six years old as well as a letter to bullies from a former victim.

The voting for the best bully stories ends tomorrow. So, do click on Like at the end of the story or on the post about your favourite bully story on the ParenThots Facebook page (facebook.com/parenthots).

Father’s Day contest 

This is the last week to win a netbook computer for your dad through the Dad Deserves An Asus contest. Just log in using your Mystar ID, answer the three objective questions and complete the sentence: “Dad needs an Asus netbook because ...”

You can enter to win for your husband, father or even yourself (if you are a father). The prize should go to a father. We will check!

The contest closes June 3.

Win a puzzle 

If your child loves puzzles and games, you will want to know about the Win A Puzzle promotion. Just write in about the topic of the month (the topic changes every month) and you stand a chance to win a puzzle. There is only one puzzle to be won every month. The puzzles are sponsored by educational toys company BRAINet.

For June, the title to write on is “Games/puzzles my kids love to play” and the word limit is 700. The prize for June is the GoGetter – Land & Water.

The last day to send in entries is June 20. Go to ParenThots for more details.

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Oct 18, 2010 

CEO at Home

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How would you like to be CEO at home?

Monday Starters by SOO EWE JIN

A FRIEND, Syed Mohammed Idid, posted on his Facebook last week, “Cleaning house, doing laundry, clearing old stuff with kids … and you thought a CEO’s job was tough. Try becoming a home-maker!”

I could not resist making a comment on his wall, “I was a home-maker for some years which is why on the job, when I get to meet CEOs, I often smile when they say their work is tough.”

In my two stints as full-time househusband that stretched a total of six years, I gained much insight into the home environment that most of us simply take for granted.

At home, the working hours are 24/7, no question about that, especially when you have two young boys (and plenty of their friends, I must add) who clamour for your attention.

I had to be driver, tuition teacher, cook, swimming instructor, football coach, kite-flying maestro, story-teller, and a whole lot of other things besides. Neighbours also conveniently assumed that I could run errands, pay their bills, and fix up things as well. Which I was most happy to oblige, pro bono.

But, as I have mentioned in previous columns, my time away from career has been the most meaningful and treasured stints which money simply cannot buy.

My wife remarked that I must be getting quite tired of her these days, noting that we have been in a 24/7 situation with each other for nearly six months now.

My stint at home this time around is necessitated by a medical journey which is coming to an end but staying at home to rest and recuperate has made me realise that there are still so many things in the home environment that we take for granted.

Take the weather, for example. We have always subscribed to the principle of living simply, and an air-conditioner would be considered a luxury.

But 25 years after we set up home together, we finally caved in and installed an air-conditioner a few months back.

“Now you know what it is like to stay at home under such hot conditions,” the “home minister” remarked. I concede that most of us who work in air-conditioned comfort will never experience the stifling heat at home.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s funny, but I am sure the weather was a little kinder in those years I was at home.

The other thing I upgraded during this period was my Internet speed. It was excruciatingly slow when compared to what I had in the office so I doubled it.

But beyond such matters, staying at home is not particularly advantageous in terms of benefits that we take as a matter of course when we are in the workforce.

For example, when my wife decided to improve her education status and do her masters, I had to take care of all the bills and yet was not able to make a claim on my tax returns. The taxman said only she could make the claim. But how could she do so, if she does not have an income?

I am sure many home-makers, especially the women who gave up their careers to jaga anak-anak, would appreciate being able to make claims for books, short-term courses, and even holidays, because they truly deserve it. And we are not even talking about medical expenses here.

Think about it. If they were at work, they would qualify for allowances and paid leave but once they are at home, these are taken away from them.

In my opinion, many of these issues will not be understood by the mainly-male policymakers that predominate both the public sector and Corporate Malaysia. Unless they become home-makers first.

I would like to suggest that all male CEOs take a six-month leave of absence and be CEOs of the home. I am confident that this will lead to many interesting special allowances in the next Budget speech and guaranteed to ensure that all home-makers will vote a certain way.

● Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin has been on a long journey and is thankful that he can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. He looks forward to a normal office routine soon.