Taking note of several brutal attacks that have taken place across the island against the nation's children recently, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has repeated the Government's intention to pursue a national parenting policy.

Saying that many of Jamaica's policies were reactive instead of preventative, he said this would have to change to protect children.

"We are trying to address the question of parenting, because that is where it begins. We are establishing a national parenting policy; we are going to support that policy by legislation that establishes a national parenting commission with particular responsibilities," he said during the Caribbean Child Research Conference at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Wednesday.

A personal process

Golding, however, pointed out that parenting was a personal process, and that laws cannot teach individuals to love their children. He, however, said the new initiative would seek to inform parents of the responsibilities of parenting.

Golding said individuals cannot assume that parenting is a wholly natural, instinctive skill brought about by adulthood.

"What we are discovering increasingly is that, whether it is because of the way in which the society has progressed or the way it has viewed progress and the modern things of life ... we cannot assume that these things are inculcated organically," he said.

The proposed policy, which was first mooted in 2007, is reportedly before the chief parliamentary counsel.

The prime minister had not given a timetable as to when the policy would be finalised or rolled out, but Dr Rebecca Tortello, senior adviser/consultant to the minister of education, in a recent pronouncement had said that there was the hope that November would be the month for the implementation.

Creating right environment

Earlier in his speech, Golding called for the island to create the right environment for children to survive.

"The potential is wasted and destroyed in the early years of that child's life because of a lack of proper guidance, a lack of opportunity, a lack of the kind of environment that nourishes that ability for the child to develop," he said.

The annual conference show-cases research projects of teenagers from high schools across the island. This year's conference saw presentations on high school dropouts, teenagers and religion, legalising abortion in Jamaica, child abuse and an examination of the benefits of extra-curricular activities, among others.

These studies recommended interactive methods to get teens to stay interested in school, that extra-curricular activities should be mandatory in all educational institutions, and that churches need to make church services more interesting to keep teens hooked.