Parents must constantly be vigilant.

Each year, we notice children who,instead of attending school as intentioned by their parents, play truant and loitered the streets or gathered in some places to avoid studying.

The cause of this could be an inability to follow the lessons any longer due to one reason or another. It could also be due to bad influence from the wrong people, possibly fellow students of the recalcitrant.

Whatever the reason for such behaviour from a student, the parents play an important role to prevent the child from sinking to a level where help may be a little too late. If, for example, a child had started taking drugs in the company of some bad influence, it could be difficult, although not impossible, to help the child out of problem.

Some children who play truant even change out of their uniform into ordinary everyday clothes so as to escape detection by any observer. In such a case, should not the parents realise that something must be amiss when each day that child must be putting extra clothes into the schoolbag or giving extra clothes to wash? Certainly, the child cannot be involved in some kind of physical exercise everyday of the week! Even if some plausible excuse could be given, parents could contact the school, school authorities are just one phone call away, to inquire about their child's presence in the school.

Then, there is the report card for each semester which parents are to scrutinise and know how the child is progressing in the school, know the child's strength and weaknesses in academic subjects as well as the total number of days he had attended school. Just a look at that report card merely twice a year is sufficient for the parent to realise how the child is progressing in the various subjects being studied and how constant the attendance has been. It certainly does not require a lot of work and effort to obtain such valuable information about one's child. And, even if the child does no produce the report card but forge the father's or mother's signature required in the report card, six months without a report card's appearance should certainly be a warning that something was obviously wrong and an investigation through just one phone call to the school authorities must be made.

If we find out early the problems of our children, it would be easier to help them to overcome those problems. Knowing this will not help unless parents take action to know how their children are doing in school. If it is truancy, a talk with the children to find out the cause may be reveal the truth but the children would understand that they have been found out and would most probably stop the truancy. Of course, once the problem is known, parents must monitor the activities and movements of their children to ensure they are safe from the many traps and dangers that awaits unwary children.

If it is weakness in certain subjects, then parents could get people to help with some tuition on the subjects concerned. Even if the children are unable to eventually catch up in those subjects, such an act by parents is clear indication to the child that the parents love them. That love is a major weapon against any danger that threatens from outside the home.

As it can be seen, it does not take a lot of effort to ensure our children are safe and not enticed by outsiders into undesirable activities. All that is needed is loving attention to them each and every day.