At-Risk

Beyond Parental Control

Delinquent

What does a dad look out for?

Your teenager is at-risk if he is involved in activities or groups that are anti-social in nature.

He is isolated from mainstream activities such as going to school, and participating in community groups that promote personal growth

Look out for loss of interest in studies and CCAs, a fall in grades, truancy, and a lack of respect for authority or outright defiance.

Find out whether he is spending time with other youth or adults who are not engaged in mainstream and productive activities.

Is your teen smoking, displaying aggression and use of violence, or sporting tattoo marks? Do you wonder how he can afford clothes or items that should be beyond his means?

Is your teen experimenting with smoking, binge drinking or taking “soft drugs”?

Is he aloof, isolating himself, expressing violent thougts, bullying, involved in gang activity, or sustaining injuries consistent with violence or use of weapons?

If you have on prior occasions, tried to reach out to your teen through various means such as:

• providing him with love and support;
• providing school- and community-based services;
• arranging for counselling;

but he does not respond, you may consider filing for Beyond Parental Control (BPC),

Teens who regularly and consistently engage in high risk and even criminal activities fall into this category. However, they do not have any criminal record. For example, shoplifting without getting caught.

Examples include repeated truancy, running away from home, stealing from parents to feed an addiction and/or sexually risky behaviour.

The main reason to file for BPC is to help the child or youth break away from his habits and environment before he becomes a juvenile delinquent.

A child or teenager found guilty of a criminal offence is a juvenile delinquent. Offences may include shoplifting, theft, drug abuse, being a runner for illegal activities, gang involvement or under-aged sexual activity.

More often than not, this does not take place in isolation. The child or youth may have been involved in at-risk behaviour before his run-in with the law.

Nonetheless, some are caught the first time they commit a crime. For example, a teen who is caught during his first attempt at shoplifting.

If your teen has broken the law, he has to face the consequences either by paying a fine and/or being placed under probation, entering an institution, or imprisonment.

How does this differ from ‘average’ teenage angst?

Teens seek identity and acceptance. As they try to exercise their autonomy, there may be conflict with family, friends and authority figures, but it does not compromise their physical, social and emotional well-being.

An average teen has a lot to deal with, but his choices and actions are not spiralling out of control.

Alongside the provision of good family support, youth at-risk can be reached through school- and community-based services.

As much as teens try to test boundaries at this stage of life, they must also be able to value and respond positively to structure in their lives.

Unfortunately some teens struggle to engage with their families, communities, and society proactively. Their lives are spiralling out of control and affect the lives of others.

However, alongside the provision of good family support, such teens can be engaged through highly structured programmes either in an institution or in the community (through probation programmes).

The advantage at this point in time, is that the child or youth does not have any criminal record as yet.

Teens who are delinquent have overstepped certain legal limits that call for serious consequences such as fines, institutionalisation and imprisonment.

However, alongside the provision of good family support, such teens can be positively reformed through various community-based, prison rehabilitation programmes and religious counsel.

What can a dad do?

Your goal is to re-connect with your teen so that he can have the motivation and strength of character to break away from his habits, activities, and even friends who are exerting a bad influence in his life.

You also want to help him fraternise with a group of mainstream youth who are engaged in meaningful activities and who engage him to develop physically, academically, emotionally and socially.

Avoid “rescuing” your teen when he makes unwise choices or gets into trouble. For example, instead of paying for his debts, work out a system for him to pay his debts via deductions from his allowance. If he is working, facilitate payment out of his salary.

Your main goal is to help your teen break the cycle of unwise habits and addictions. You want to prevent him from incarceration for a criminal offence.

At this point, you need to find out more about BPC: the procedures and what will happen next. Do what you can to stay involved in his life even if there are tensions.

You may struggle with feelings of fear and guilt as you file for BPC. You will have concerns for your child’s future if BPC if filed. Therefore, gather the information you need to decide whether this is the right option for your youth and family.

Find out more about probation programmes and homes for children and young persons.

Your main goal is to help your teen negotiate the legal system, face up to the consequences and let him know that you will not abandon him.

Be there for the hearings. Though you are disappointed in him, let him know that you will not give up on him or abandon him.

Work with your teen’s probation officer getting him back to school or work.

Visit him in prison or at the reformative training centre as often as you can.

Help him integrate back home when he is discharged.

Who can dads turn to for help and support?

Poor academic performance is often an early sign of at-risk behaviour. Provide him with additional support to catch up with schoolwork and to build up his self-esteem.

Otherwise, it will be likely that he turns to someone outside school, possibly to gangs.

If the teen has dropped out from school or left the formal educational system, seek out back-to-school programmes or alternative educational systems that will allow him to carry on with his learning.

These include:

1. NorthLight School
2. Jamiyah Business School
3. Touch Youth Learning Centre

Take time to examine your family situation. Oftentimes, the behaviour of youth at-risk is merely a symptom of problems in his family or personal life. Here are some places that can help you do that:

1. Family Service Centres
2. Fei Yue Community Services
3. Eagles Mediation and Counselling Centre
4. Counselling and Care Centre

Speak to your teen’s school counsellor, social worker, or teacher-in-charge for Pastoral Care and Career Guidance for feedback on his behaviour. Community- and School-based programmes include:

1. Time-Out
2. Enhanced Step Up
3. StreetWISE
4. Youth GO!

Seek out recognised mentoring programmes for at-risk youth, such as:

1. Youth Guidance Outreach Services
2. Architects of Life
3. Teen Challenge (for drug-related issues)

Approach youth workers or leaders in your religious or social support group to get your teen involved in group activities, or for mentoring.

Encourage your teen to seek out and join uniformed groups, clubs and community groups in which he can belong and contribute. Get a mentor or trusted family friend to help him get started.

Shift out of the neighbourhood if necessary or possible.

Approach the Juvenile Court to file Beyond Parental Control (Friday afternoons only), at the Juvenile Court of Singapore.

After the hearing, your teen may be

1. put on probation
2. placed into a home

After the hearing, be consistent in showing love to your teen. For example, visit him in the juvenile home, write letters, and remember his birthday. Reinforce his value in your family.

Work with the probation officer and officers at the home to prepare for his discharge from the programme or home.

Work with your teen’s probation officer, social worker, counsellor or prisons officer to achieve the goals of the rehabilitative programmes.

Find out more about prison rehabilitation programmes.

As you prepare for your teen to return home, find out more about after-care programmes, support groups and half-way houses that can help him to successfully reintegrate.

Prepare the rest of the family to help him return home. Help him seek opportunities to, study, learn a skill or work.

Why there is always hope.

You want prevent your teen from going down a criminal path. You believe that he has the potential to be a contributing member in the family and society. Reach out to him with your belief. You can seek help from community-based organisations to help mentor your teen.

You want to prevent your teen from getting a criminal record. You believe that he can be helped with the right services. You can help him with a more structured rehabilitation programmes. You can remind him that he is valued and worthy in your eyes.

You want to give your teen a new start. You believe that he can be rehabilitated. You can be part of that rehabilitative process if you remain available for him and work together with his officers.

Often, those who have been rehabilitated rise above their past to become inspirational role-models in society.