The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Adults

  • Scatterbrain (add/addhd) children and adults (1)

    THERE are many “scatterbrains” around. I am not referring to politicians who just cannot stop trying to be spanners in the wheels. They go by another name. By scatterbrains, I am referring to those children and adults, even parents and grandparents,who cannot bring anything they start to fruition or to a reasonable conclusion.Their lives are jumpy or jerky.They cannot concentrate or focus on anything for enough time to make reason or meaning of it before the loop or hook up to another and make another huge mess of it before they move on and on and on again, in the end becoming rolling stones which gather no moss. Medicine classifies such people, young or old, as suffering from ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER (ADD). If they are boisterous in addition to this malaise, they are said to suffer from ATTENTION DEFICIT AND HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD).

    Surprisingly, food medicines can help to solve this malaise, which has disabled many people and made them unable to “gather” themselves, as we say.

    This is an interesting field in which many researchers have brought enlightenment. Is it not interesting that certain foods, which many parents give their children, believing they are feeding them well, actually impair certain cells in their brains which make them to hate learning and schooling? In this election season in Nigeria, appeal after appeal have gone out to “area boys”, urging them to delink themselves from politicians who use them to disrupt the electoral process.They are even told pointedly that the children of politicians are abroad, making meaning of their lives, while they are killing themselves out here for peanuts that would fetch their principals fortunes, they and their households cannot exhaust in many generations. But did not a flood of these appeals fall on deaf ears? Food medicine research suggest to us some reasons if this always happens.Why, patiently, we monitor the lives of children who dropped out of school on account of learning problems in the brain, it is possible to discover criminal bent, which flowers and fruits in adulthood. A common thread (nutritional damage and/or nutritional deficiencies) link both poles of life together,say some researchers.When in several studies, many criminals who were always back in jail were given those nutritional substances in which their brains were previously deficient, psychiatrists and psychologists found they could successfully rehabilitate about 80 percent of former criminals. I do not think this lesson has been well learned and incorporated into the Nigerian psychiatry practice. For all psychiatrists, I speak with lend to undervalue the role of nutrition in the healing process of their practice and give far too much play to drugs which some of their patients are forced to take throughout life. Isn’t it suprising that where, overseas, patients replace these drugs with the right diets, they bounce back to normalcy after overcoming the initial shocks of psychiatry drug withdrawal, and never have to return to the psychiatrist. Before we address this question further, let us further see, a picture of ADD or ADHD in the home, at school or in adult life.

     

     ADD/ADHD at home

     

    At home, the signs or signals are too clear, but many parents fail to catch them.They always assume, for example, that restlessness is a feature or hallmark of all children.Yes, it is true that children do not and cannot “sit in one place”. They are energetic and adventurous and need, through motion, to develop their muscles and bones. Indeed, parents become uneasy when a child is not flowing along like their peers. But what do we make of a child who sits awkwardly all the time, such as sitting at a dining table with his legs not right down in front of him, but strewn diagonally on the seat beside them? What of that child who is prone to damaging almost every gadget at home? What of that who does not make his or her bed, fails to wash dishes after meals, flings objects, screams without need, disarrange places, enjoys noise making, loud music and wear dirty clothes.They may be intelligent, but they exhibit poor social skills and are, in simple words, anti-social.

    But before I come to them, I would like to say that several studies suggest that this problem is caused by a heavy sugar diet, colourings and preservatives in food, among other sundry possibilities.This diet impairs the function of brain cells, which are involved with the learning process.Thus, while a child or adult so impaired may be intelligent, they have no interest in learning, having been destabilised in this regard.The medical profession attempts to correct this disturbance not naturally with healthy diet but with drugs,the star of which is called RITALIN, which, often, is too powerful for the children or adults who use them, may cause appetite crisis, developmental problems, such as stunting and even drug dependence.

     

    Ritalin

     

    According to the PILL BOOK, the editor-in-chief of which is HAROLD M. SILVERMAN(Maria Wasilik and Judith I. Brown are consultant): “Ritalin… prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children. Also prescribed for psychological, educational or social disorders, narcolepsy and mild depression of the elderly. Methylphenidate is also used to treat cancer, to help stroke victims recover and with variable success with treating hiccups after anesthesia…it should be used only after a complete evaluation of the child, not only on the presence of one or more behavioural characteristics. Common symptoms of ADHD are short attention span, easy distractibility, emotional instability, impulsiveness and moderate-to-severe hyperactivity. Children who suffer from ADHD will find it difficult to learn. Many professionals feel that methylphenidate offers only a temporary solution because it does not permanently change behaviour patterns. It must be used with other special psychological measures. Stimulants like methylphenidate are not for children whose symptoms are related to environmental factors or to primary psychiatric conditions, including psychosis. Methylphenidate should not be used to treat a primary stress reaction…chronic or abusive use of methylphenidate can lead to drug dependence or addiction.This drug can also cause severe psychotic episodes.Take methylphenidate with caution if you have glaucoma or other visual problems, high blood pressure, a seizure disorder, if you are extremely tense or agitated, or if you are allergic to this drug…possible side effects (for adults are) nervousness or inability to sleep which your doctor generally controls by reducing or eliminating the afternoon or evening dose. Rare: skin rash,itching,fever, symptoms similar to rhythm, headache, drowsiness, changes in blood pressure or pulse, chest pain, stomach pain, psychotic reactions…effects on components of the blood and loss of some scalp hair …child, most common: appetite loss, especially during prolonged therapy, sleeping difficulties and abnormal heart rhythm…”

     

    ADHD in the classroom

     

    There are many ADHD children in Nigerian schools.Trained teachers recognise them, but there is so little they can do to help them, according to some of them I spoke with. First, parents are upset when they are told their children are abnormal in behaviour. They believe it is the teacher’s job to correct any behavioural problem in children they teach.They do not understand that healing requires dietary changes and food supplements and, perhaps, special education under teachers who are specially educated to teach such children. If the teacher presses too hard out of concern for the child, the parents may take their case to the proprietor, if the school is a private school. School owners are too scared to sit such parents down and tell them the bitter home truth. For there may not be enough children in the class to justify the wage bill and parents easily move their children to another school where, erroneously, they believe a better deal would await them and their children. In public schools, it is rare before parents and disturbed children obtain help or support. And, for children who overdo, the chances are that they would be pumped with ritalin. Their parents probably have never heard of this drug,which has been the subject of bitter debates in the united states and Europe for decades now. It is in the light of this that I wonder if these children will not be better helped by dietary supplements, which have been known to protect the brain, improve brain health and function, support interest in learning and help to improve academic and social behaviours. Among these herbs are  gotu kola, the brain and nerve energiser and longevity herb, magnesium therapy, primrose oil, black currant or borage oil, phosphatidyl serine, calcium,vitamin B complex and other vitamins.

     

    Back to healthy kids

    Mary Anne Shearer and Charlotte Meschede say: “Charlotte my co author,was faced with the option of treating her son with ritalin some years ago. Like so many parents she had been relatively unaware of the drug and it was only when it was recommended for her son that she sat up and started some personal investigation.This is what she has to say about her experience:

    ‘’I must mention that virtually everyone who recommended Ritalin for my own son when he was in grades 1 and 2, including doctors and teachers, assured me that Ritalin has no side effects. However, as soon as I did even the most preliminary research into the drug, it became apparent that this was not the case.The mere fact that it is a controlled substance, a schedule 7 drug, caused both my husband and myself great concern. My research did not stop there. I knew of several parents whose children had been prescribed Ritalin some 15 to 20 years earlier. In the one instance, the particular child (now an adult in his 30s), had only reached a height of five (feet) six (inches) whereas his two older  brothers were 6’4″ and 6’3″ tall. His mother and father were 5’10” and 6’4″ tall.

    ‘’In another family, the child given Ritalin had also not reached his potential height as his father and mother were 6’4″ tall and 5’11”. At 27, this particular young man was found dead of a heroine overdose. One of the more common anecdotes that keeps surfacing is the high percentage of drug abusers among adults who were prescribed Ritalin as children. For me, this was proof enough that drug therapy was not the answer. It was the conviction that led me to discover other solutions, dietary modifications being the first among them.”

    The authors of HEALTHY KIDS would appear to agree with some medical authorities that junk food is behind ADD and ADHD,which may fruit as criminal tendencies when they grow up.

    “A well known paediatrician once wrote: ‘’If school authorities want to stop discipline problems and vandalism in the classroom, they should close all tuck shops within a kilometre of the school. More and more these days, we hear of children who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and/or Hyperactivity.Why is this problem escalating? Earlier in this chapter, we saw how additives and refined carbohydrates like sugar have been found to cause learning difficulties and behavioural problems. Candies are practically a symbol of our culture.They come in so many colours, shapes and flavours and are freely available wherever we go, just waiting to be picked up by eager children and adults.When a child is bombarded with such tantalising displays, logical explanations about the health risks of these products fall on deaf ears.Children respond to emotion and not logic. And so it becomes the difficult and unpopular task of the parents to enforce healthy eating habits at home.”

    Once again, I suggest that all parents who are bringing up children have a copy of this book at home. The authors have been in it and  successfully emerged from it all.Their experiences are priceless.They teach you how to deal with children who do not wish to give up junk food which may damage their lives.They also give you references about other books which would be of help as well.

    When a Nigerian parent reads this book, he or she may become more alive in the environment which surrounds the school which his or her child attends. From the school gate all the way down home are purveyors of all kinds of foods and drinks and snacks which children enjoy. Many of them are sugared white flour foods, such as doughnuts, meatpies, egg rolls, fish pies, pork, sugared zobo drinks, ice cream etc.They are laden with damaging chemical additives and preservatives.That is why the authors, having been mothers of ADD and ADHD children, support the idea that the school environment be cleared of this stuff.

    The second part of this series will, among other features, lead us to the experiences of a mother whose ADHD child was placed on Ritalin. But before then, ask the teacher of your child if he or she exhibits in the classroom any of the following traits which teachers often observe in ADD/ADHD children…

     

    ADD/ADHD at school

    They appear to have no respect for books.Their handwriting betrays emotional highs and dips: Concentration on class work is not constant. For example, a child in primary school may know the process of simple addition in arithmetic. If given five sums to solve, using the same process, he or she may solve the first two correctly but flounder in the others.This betrays a straying of the mind, short attention spans, irritability at being asked to sit behind a desk,working longer than he or she has the capacity for. Such children enjoy disturbing other children. Under the desk,they may pinch their neighbours with fingernails or with lead pencils.They tear the books of other children, dare them to fights. They change seats or seek to occupy more space than they should where they share seats.They are willing to do their home work but fail to do it well, unless they are assisted by their parents or private home teachers.While a class is in progress,these children like to play with objects and disturb attentive children. They do anything other than learning.

  • Nurture children to become good adults, Aregbesola’s wife tells parents

    Wife of Osun State governor, Alhaji Sherifat Aregbesola, has advised mothers to nurture and give directions to their children to become good citizens with high civic responsibilities.

    Mrs Aregbesola spoke at this year’s end-of-the-year party she organised for children at the Government House open ground.

    The governor’s wife urged mothers to always ensure that their children imbibe virtuous characters and attitudes.

    According to her, mothers need to continue to inculcate the virtues of Omoluabi (the thoroughbred) in their children to make them become useful and responsible adults.

    Mrs Aregbesola noted that good character had been at the centre of “how we have been nurturing these children and sustaining our state”.

    The governor’s wife called for collaboration in fighting child abuse, violence against children, trafficking and female genital mutilation.

  • ‘94.4% of adults have no insurance cover’

    ‘94.4% of adults have no insurance cover’

    About 94.4 per cent of the country’s adults have no form of insurance, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), has said.

    The Commission, citing the 2016 EFInA research findings, said insurance uptake of the adult population remains low at 1.9 per cent.

    This means that only about two million of the adult population have one form of insurance or the other.

    Speaking at the just concluded 2017 Annual Seminar for Insurance Correspondents organised by NAICOM in Kaduna, Kaduna State, Commissioner for Insurance, Mohammed Kari said there has been challenges and barriers hindering insurance penetration in the country.

    Stating reasons behind the low insurance uptake, he said the distance of the insurance providers to the rural areas or the unreached is a common challenge.

    He pointed out that most companies are based in the city pursing corporate and government accounts.

    In a paper presented by NAICOM Director, Authorisation and Policy, Agboola Pius, a large population of adults are financially excluded.

    He said while 58.4 per cent are financially served, 41.6 per cent representing, 40.1 million adult are financially excluded.

    Quoting the 2016 EFInA research findings, he added that banked population is 38.3 per cent, representing 38.9 million.

    He stressed that while 14.9 per cent said they have nothing to insure, 10.1 per cent said they have no reason to insure.

    He said out of those who do not believe in insurance, 12.2 per cent do not know the benefit of having one while 6.8 per cent believe insurers do not settle claims.

    But some, he said, cannot afford to pay for insurance. In this category, 10.8 per cent do not know where to go to get one and three per cent believe God will take care of what they would need to take a cover.

    He said apart from distance which is a challenge to getting many people insured, there is also the issue of inappropriate products, insurance distribution, low income and unreached customers; low awareness, and inadequate services and deployment of inappropriate technology or no technology at all.

    On initiatives needed towards enhancing insurance access to the unreached, Agboola noted that there was need for the transformation of the informal and quasi–informal group into a formal group through appropriate distribution channels.

    He said: “There must be appropriate and sustainable distribution channels that recognise these groups as necessary. The regulator (NAICOM), having noted these gaps and has started developing appropriate framework and guidelines in many areas such as NGO/Community Based/Trade Associations; Microfinance Banks; independent agents, among others. The Commission has exposed few of the Guidelines.

    “Other initiative needed is minimum documentation and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirement; collaboration between the regulator and state governments and other Federal Government agencies; innovative and appropriate technology; and co-ordinated insurance consumer awareness and education.

  • ‘Why we need improved literacy for adults’

    Wife of the Governor of Benue State, Dr Eunice Erdoo Ortom, has promised to partner with the Benue State Agency for Adult and Non-Formal Education (ANFEA), towards ensuring literacy for adults in the state.

    Dr Ortom, who stated this during a courtesy call on her by the agency at the Benue People’s House, Makurdi, said the agency’s mandate to ensure literacy for all coincides with one of the cardinal points of her foundation, Eunice Spring of Life Foundation (ESLF), which is anchored on education, health and empowerment with special emphasis on agriculture.

    She acknowledged the importance of education in the society and assured that her office would work in partnership with ANFEA with a view to providing more effective and efficient education for adults, especially women in the state.

    According to her, the more literate a society is, the more developed it would be. she noted that the older generation that could not have access to education in their prime age should  be supported to acquire same.

    Earlier in her address, Executive Director of ANFEA, Mrs. Hembadoon Orkeghen, while soliciting for partnership with ESLF, said the main vision of the agency was to eradicate illiteracy among youths and adults who for one reason or the other could not have access to formal education.

    She identified programmes undertaken by the agency to include basic literacy, post literacy, women education programme, as well as continuing and vocational education.

    Orkeghen listed challenges confronting ANFEA to include shortage of instructional materials, lack of vehicles for monitoring of their programmes, mobilising rural dwellers for the programmes and inadequate personnel/facilitators, among others.

    Earlier in her remarks, Chair of BENGONET Rural Development Initiative, Mrs. Rachael Ityonzughul, said the coalition comprised over 100 member organisations and was established to undertake advocacy in the areas of policy influencing and monitoring of the implementation of people-oriented programmes.

     

  • Why some adults hurt children with words

    Dear Harriet, I am an undergraduate and your fan. I must say that I have learnt a lot from you. Your column is educative and informative. Please, why do some adults hurt children with words and make them feel so bad?

    Emeka, Lagos.

     

    No one knows for sure why some adults do this. They may have problems of their own that they can’t cope with. Some may have grown up being abused verbally or otherwise themselves. Could be that they really don’t understand wrong and right words.

    Words can hurt our children deeper than a blow. Out of frustration and anger, harmful words so easily pop out of our mouth when we are dealing with children, for example, a statement like this: ‘Why can’t you be like your sister’.

    A statement like this can cause emotional injury and low self-esteem. The words parents use form the basis of a child’s sense of self. Words are like a mirror, reflecting back to children vital information about who they are and what they will become. It is very easy to verbally hurt our children in subtle ways, often in the mistaken intension that we are doing what is best to teach them to behave.

    Most children are resilient and can handle an occasional hurtful comment from their parents. The more we are aware of the implication of harmful statements, however, the more likely we will be to find other ways to influence our children.

    Parents in most cases love their children. I cannot recall any parent telling me they don’t love their children. Therefore, most of them do not intentionally want to harm their children physically or emotionally.

    Still many parents think nothing of using words that affect their child’s psyche as painful as if the child has been beaten physically.

    Let’s look at this case together. A mum is in school to pick up her son after school and the first statement that comes out of her mouth is “I know you were bad today, weren’t you? You were bad”.

    No smile, no hug. This parent I know love her son and did not wish to destroy her child’s self-esteem. Yet that is exactly what is going to happen if care is not taken.

    A lot of parents need to understand the cognitive and emotional development of children. We take our children to the clinic for their physical checks and the paediatrician tells us all about their physical growth which is one aspect of the whole lot.

    Just as the physical growth is very important, we must not rule out the importance of the child’s cognitive and emotional growth as well.  The question that comes to mind is this: How successful is a healthy, full grown person whose psychological development is ignored?  Look around at the adult you know and you will understand what I am saying. When a child keeps hearing that he/she is bad, trust me, in no time that child will start thinking that he/she is really bad.

    Furthermore, name calling:  like lazy girl/boy, no brain, stupid, idiot, or fool.

    Parent’s words are like gospel to a child. If you label a child as a fool, an idiot, the child is likely to believe it’s true. Negative labels attack a child’s personality rather than specific behaviour. Name calling can be seen as self fulfilling prophecies. A child who is called clumsy, dummy, or lazy will definitely act like one. Mean words truly hurt children, cruel words destroy them.

    What to say instead: Direct your child’s attention to particular behaviour that needs changing. Be specific when you are correcting your child, make it clear that you are upset with his/her action not his person.

    Comparisons like why can’t you be like your brother? When I was your age, I use to…….. When you tell your child that she is not as well behaved or highly achieving as her brother, you sow a seed of resentment and bitter rivalry between your children. Children should not feel they are in competition with other family members because one will inevitably feel devalued and inferior to others. Even positive comparison can backfire. Comparisons instill competitive feelings and discord among siblings.

    What to say instead:  Comment on your observation, discuss with your child about your expectation, point out their strength and encourage the child on ways of improving.

    Cursing, for example, good for nothing!  Children depend almost entirely on their parent’s reactions to know whether they are good or bad, smart or dumb, loved or unlovable. They are very vulnerable emotionally. A child is likely to internalize her parent’s hostility and conclude the worst about him/her.

    What to say instead: As parents, we should learn to avoid cursing our children; we should correct them with love, bless them with our mouth and remember there is power in spoken words.

    Finally, I leave you with the incredible poem written by Dorothy Law Nolte:

    “If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn

    If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy

    If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty

    If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence

    If children live with praise, they learn appreciation

    If children live with acceptance, they learn to love

    If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves

    If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal”

     

    Harriet ogbobine is a counselor and a motivational speaker. Send your questions and suggestions to her on bineharriet@gmail.com or txt message only 08023058805. You can also follow her on twitter: @bineharrietj

  • It’s the Lord of the flies again, but now with the adults present

    For money and power, we are showing our young ones that life in all its sacredness must bow its lovely head; sacred blood can flow irreverently

    In the Lord of the flies, for those of us who have not read that classic by William Golding, a group of British school boys are marooned on an island during a raging war because their plane is shot down. At first they are afraid. Soon however, they begin to organise themselves as they think the adults would have done under the leadership of the reasonable boys among them. Very quickly though, all the boys fall under the influence of the not so reasonable ones who lead them all down the path of certain destruction but for the timely arrival of a naval ship to rescue them. The novel symbolises resident evil in man’s heart.

          That evil seems to have gone abroad in our midst here where stupid games are playing out with people’s lives as stakes. Sometime during the last couple of weeks, someone reported something that happened in his quiet neighbourhood in one of Nigeria’s quiet cities. It certainly was very far from your boko haram territory. In the early afternoon of that day, a young man ran into the neighbourhood, apparently running away from someone or ones running after him. Soon, those ones caught up with him right about where our reporter was and, there on the street before everyone’s eyes, descended on him with machete blows, cutting and cutting until he was dead. To make sure he really died, one of the young men was said to have stood over him, superintending the taking of the last breath.

          Reader, I would like to report that someone made an attempt to stop them in the act but I cannot because nobody did. Everybody was afraid of the devil that was afoot during the noon day that made some able-bodied young men not to be afraid of spilling another young man’s blood. Rather, the neighbourhood did the most natural thing: people ran inside their houses or shops and motorists sped by.

           Reader, we the people of Nigeria have become very casual about lopping off our neighbours now. No one’s life appears to have any sacred value anymore; so no one’s blood is too precious to shed. For me, the height of the insult to our collective sense of humanity was the audacity, intrepidity, boldness and insouciance of the one who stood over the slain man to make sure he was really dead. That insult just stings for two reasons.

            The young men represent the crop of young ones we are breeding and teaching now to have no respect whatsoever for living humanoids. The sense of value we are upholding now respects only two things: money and power. For these things, we are showing our young ones that life in all its sacredness must bow its lovely head; sacred blood can flow irreverently. We the adult ones are showing these young ones that a life that is not holding either money or power is not worthy to draw any air. That is the cave man for you all over again, whose cudgel was his bargaining chip.

            Worse, the young men did what they did because they had no fear of the nation’s police or law. Clearly, between the law and order, they have found their niche: disorder. As a matter of fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that you can walk the entire Nigerianery without fearing the law. For one, there are so many unsolved murders, so many headless corpses, bodiless heads, ritual killings, etc. No explanation has come to us little ones to clear the muddled air on many of them. This was why the young men had all the intrepidity to wait and ensure that their comrade dutifully drew the last breath in their presence. As always, the police came to remove the body with a great deal of silence.

          Sometime in the week, the story broke somewhere in Lagos that a couple’s quarrel over valentine allegedly ended violently with the man falling down from a one-story building to his death. Then the story ended with the fact that the wife, a party in the quarrel, had travelled to her hometown. Wonderful, I thought; where was the police to give this woman the third degree inquisition on the matter? Even if she would be declared innocent at the end of the investigation, we should at least see that efforts had been made to account reasonably for the man’s death.

           Seriously, there are just too many cases of death going unaccounted for. Take the riot that broke also during the week in a Lagos park between rival gangs. Throughout the recounting of that story, there was no indication that anyone was investigating anything. Yet, weapons were used, people were involved, the scene of action falls under the jurisdiction of Nigeria, and four people died.

           It seems now that everywhere you turn, people are playing games with other people’s lives. None of the incidences recounted so far warrants the loss of a single soul. Take the first story. It turned out that the participants were all cult members who decided to visit every infringement with machete. I don’t know, but I think that whatever might have caused the disagreement could have been taken care of by the limping laws of the land.

           I used to think that life should be casual (because you have little control over much of it) and death should be scarce (because only the Almighty has control over it). Now, many Nigerians are playing god over the lives of others for unearthly reasons forgetting, quite forgetting that NOBODY, BUT NOBODY, GETS AWAY WITH MURDER. Even for partaking in the decision to commit the blasted thing, nature will recompense through that which we love most when we least expect it, if the police will not.

            I am positive I have told this story before but I will repeat it anyway for those of us who missed it the first time. A radio station aired the story somewhere in Lagos some years ago. A retired police officer had gathered his relatives together to celebrate his child’s graduation from a Nigerian university. The plan was that the young fellow would come with his friends to join the family who left earlier for the graduation grounds. After waiting in vain for the young one to join them, the restless relatives demanded that the father find out what was delaying the celebrator from coming to enjoy his day of glory.

           After calling all around, the father eventually found out that his son had been felled by a police bullet at a checkpoint. Stunned, the crowd broke into different crescendos of wailing but the father held up his hand and asked that no one should wail on his behalf for he believed that what happened had come from the throne of justice. Some twenty something years before when he was a young policeman, he said, it was his bullet which felled a student during a students’ riot. Only the family of that student grieved the act at that time. The act, he said, had come home full cycle as his own son was felled by the bullet of another policeman.

            Space and time will not permit us to tell the stories of other young men felled by bullets from their fellow cult members’ guns on their wedding days, or graduation days or one day of glory or another. There is certain truth in the saying that he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind, but the point is that the absence of deterrents in the land is not helping these young men curb their exuberance, enthusiasm and wild, tempestuous natures in their Island games. Let us all begin to do our work to help these young ones grow up properly.