Outstanding Parents in St. Catherine and Clarendon Honoured

A total of 170 outstanding parents from St. Catherine and Clarendon were recently honoured for their exemplary parenting skills.
The appreciation function, held at the New Testament Church Convention Centre in Old Harbour, was organised by the Ministry of Education’s region six, in collaboration with the Coalition for Better Parenting and the National Parent Teachers’ Association (PTA). It was part of activities to celebrate Parent Month in November under the theme: ‘Parenting Right from the Start’.
Two of the honourees, President of the Denbigh High School PTA, Sharon Irons Francis and Vere Technical High School PTA President, Frederick Bryan, were named the most outstanding female and male parents of the region.
They each received weekends for two at the Bahia Principe Hotel in Runaway Bay, St Ann. In addition, 25 parents received certificates for being most outstanding.
Family Life Educator with the Central Jamaica Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, Anthony Gordon, who was the guest speaker at the function, said that “parenting must begin right from the start or it will be difficult to get it right in the end.”
“Parenting is a commitment you could live to regret. Think carefully as if you don’t start right, you could live to regret being a parent,” he said.
To emphasise his point, Mr. Gordon related the story of young man, who was being sent to the gallows and on being granted his last wish to speak to his mother, said to her: “If you had corrected me when I went wrong, I would not be here today.”
Mr. Gordon called on the large gathering of parents to assess their parenting skills by asking themselves these questions, “How have you been doing on the parental track?” and ” How have you been passing on the baton to your children, who will take over the parental race?”
He urged mothers and fathers to acquire the right knowledge and skills in order to raise their children to become useful citizens.