The involvement of students in undesirable behaviours hit the headlines with depressing frequency. So is the suicide or some other tragic loss of life of young people in general.

The news last week that two students were apprehended during the shootout involving criminals and our law enforcement officers in Prashad Nagar is yet another grim reminder of how far down the road our young have gone out of our grasp.

There never is going to be one hundred success in whatever is done to instill character development in children. There will be cases in which our best efforts to reach at-risk youngsters will be insufficient.

But since training and advising and nurturing require civic participation as much as they involve the education sector, adults and the school system must be geared to be better able to reach out to children’s homes and ensure the growth and success of home/school collaboration in the proper upbringing of children.

In a bid to give them a benign sense of the future, churches, schools and social organizations in both the public and private sector usually implement summer youth camps, conscious that discipline that is developmental engenders maturity in children. That’s most encouraging.

But as we intimated several weeks ago, the Guyana Teachers’ Union and the Ministry of Education can and should strive, singularly and in collectively, to ensure that schooling passes on the culture of responsibility, and therefore reasons for wanting to live, to our young people.

Educators strongly advise that adult - including parental - support for each child’s growth into meaningful adulthood is essential. And they reiterate that it is in schools - more than any other societal institution - that young people come into close daily contact with adults.

For some parents, the school offers a welcome break from the responsibilities of the home. If things don’t go right for their kids at school, they happily point to themselves (the parents, that is) as victims of circumstance, and their children as the casualties of a non-caring society.

Perhaps taking all of this into consideration, consensus is growing among sociologists, and the better for it, for the education system to devise programmes where parents can learn how to care for children and be more responsible.

Parents must demonstrate an interest in their children’s homework. This will give their children an extra incentive to complete their homework and hand it in on time.

Parents should also make time to talk with their children, about homework certainly, but also about public policy issues. They should show their child or children that they value learning and education as much as their offsprings. Children are more likely to study if they see their parents read, write, or research a topic themselves. So in addition to helping their child or children with homework or a job assignment, parents should give their off-springs the chance to practice similar organizational skills: set goals, keep a calendar, or make “to do” lists.

Experts also advise that parents should provide opportunities that allow their children to develop initiative and self-discipline. “When your child comes to you with a question,” one expert suggests, “first ask, ‘what do you think?’ or ‘what have you been able to work out?’”

Teaching children character development should go a long way in helping them to see living as more than wanting to have money and, therefore, to “hook up” with whoever seems to have what they crave.