For human beings it is very easy to miss simple truths such as the absolute inter-relatedness of life.

So, while we may readily appreciate that bad childhood experiences, including prolonged emotional and physical abuse, can lead to life-long mental and emotional ailments and inadequacies, we may not see the link to lifestyle diseases.

This is why we should all heed the warning from head of community health and psychiatry at The University of the West Indies Professor Wendel Abel that childhood trauma can cause such ailments as diabetes, strokes, heart failure, lung failure, etc — all among the leading causes of death.

The experts say that loss of self-worth is often a consequence of abuse at an early age. It’s that lowering and denudation of one’s own perception of the value of self that can trigger self-harming use of drugs, tobacco, or excessive alcohol consumption. That’s despite knowing that such habits can have very negative consequences, including lifestyle ailments mentioned above.

Reduced self-worth — born of the lived experience of childhood abuse — is also that which often takes individuals over the edge to crime, antisocial behaviour, and flagrantly irresponsible ‘don’t care’ attitudes, endangering self, other individuals, and the wider society.

All of which brings us to a pet peeve of this newspaper: That, as a nation, as a people, as individuals in Jamaica, land we love, we do not pay nearly enough attention to taking care of our children.

There are too many communities in urban and rural areas where parents — some still children — never learnt to be good parents because they, themselves, were not brought up properly. We refer to parents whose first and last resort, for example, is to give the child a ‘murderation’ if he/she commits a perceived misdeed.

There are too many children who go to school only sometimes or not at all, often because there is no money for bus fare or lunch; and sometimes simply because the adults at home don’t care.

How to change behaviour is an elephant-sized task that can’t be under-emphasised.

We have repeatedly pointed to the need for revitalisation of the values and attitudes programme of three decades ago which sadly died on the altar of political opportunism.

We take heart from evidence that our leaders are seeing the value of proactive social programmes exemplified by last evening’s scheduled celebration of zero murders in Norwood, St James, during 2024.

Long stigmatised as crime-prone, Norwood benefited from the Government’s targeted zone of special operations (ZOSO), which not only improved infrastructural and other material needs, but sought to show people a better way at communal and individual levels.

The State-run Jamaica Information Service tells us of a mentorship initiative by the Community Safety and Security Branch of the Jamaica Constabulary Force that is helping to change behaviour among previously maladjusted school-aged children in St James.

Beyond Government and organisations, all well-thinking Jamaicans can help, as individuals, by simply reaching out a helping hand to a struggling child next door or to a neighbour who may be too proud to ask, but who obviously needs help to send a child to school.

Sometimes a helping hand and even neighbourly words can actually change lives.