In his father’s footsteps.

On Tuesday, Star online had this story of a young boy who started gambling on foreign football bets over the internet at the age of sixteen. By the time he reached eighteen, he had lost money that ninety-five percent of the people in the world would not have been able to earn in one life-time, about eight million ringgit (about USD 2.3million)

It was only when he had lost a total sum of eight million ringgit that his father stopped him from further gambling by removing him from his college and placing him right under his nose in his office.

According to a politician, it was the fault of gambling agents who targeted the children of rich families. Of course, as long as there are gamblers, there will be gambling agents. Gambling agents find work only because people wish to gamble. It is easy to blame these gambling agents when things go wrong. To ensure that our children do not go wrong we ought to deal with people and matters within our control. Gambling agents are not within our control. Another point is that when the fault does not lie with the accused, in this case the gambling agents, the problem can never to solved or prevented no matter what is done to or with the gambling agents. In this case, the child grew up imitating a gambling father. The fault lies with the parent. Parents who have faults which they cannot overcome should hide such faults from their children so that the children cannot imitate them. There is also the possibility that the child could have got to know his gambling agent through his father.

A political party organized an ‘Anti-gambling at Internet Cafes’ campaign while the police urged the public to provide information on gambling dens which existed in internet cafes. Their intention is good and certainly everyone would agree that internet cafes should not allow gambling in their premises. However, even more important would be the need to educate parents on the evils of gambling, especially when all parents are role models for their children. By their gambling, parents encourage their children to follow suit and so they cannot blame their children for doing so. In their innocent little minds, what is perfectly alright for their parents must be alright for them too. So, they naturally imitate the gambling habit from their parents.

Parents with very young children must try to correct their faults and improve themselves for the sake of their children. And it is not only in habits that children imitate; children imitate everything from movement to behaviour and attitudes. Of course, it is difficult to change what has been with us for a long time but we need to try for the love of our precious children.