Student behaviour: The kids who turn out well despite the odds

As a student of univercity, I have noticed a rather disturbing trend or style of parenting among parents these days.

These parents tend to leave all matters relating to their children's development -- physically and mentally -- to the teachers, especially if the child is in a boarding school.

So teachers get to be in charge of everything, from teaching students academic subjects and coaching them in sports, to educating them about the facts of life and other taboo subjects that parents are shy of discussing.

Thus, not everybody receives the treatment they deserve, as teachers cannot monitor students 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Also, some students feel that as teachers are not their parents, they adopt an attitude of defiance towards them because their own parents have not criticised them for a particular behaviour.

Therefore, there's no need to heed the teachers' advice or criticism.

I have to say that often the students do get away lightly; many even manage to get their parents to back them up when they are caught red-handed.

Many parents would never believe that their little "angels" could do such things.

We also cannot ignore external influences like the Internet, the media and other forms of entertainment as, most often, students tend to imitate the behaviour they see on screen and TV.

However, I disagree with Hamdan's comment that "dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional children".

I have seen many who come from problematic and broken homes, who turn out to be excellent and exemplary students because they were determined to change their families' conditions and lives for the better.

Let's not undermine their abilities to think sensibly; not all of them follow the bad examples set by their parents.

Missing mail: No letters from home in this part of the country

I dealt with it by telling friends and family not to send anything any more as complaints to the post office were totally futile.

At least, I received most of my other mail.

For the past one year, however, I have not received any mail from overseas.

No matter which country it had been sent from, it never arrives.

I live in the Ampang area and have heard the same complaint from other expatriates.

I tried to get to the bottom of this by calling my local post office branch, but they were not able to help me nor tell me who to complain to.

It upsets me a lot to think that my friends and family have lovingly selected cards for a special occasion, which will then be carelessly discarded by thieves at some stage of the postal journey of the cards.

How do you expect foreigners to make Malaysia their second home when something as basic as the postal service for their overseas mail is as good as non-existent?