This is my first time writing to you and I would like you to give me your thoughtful advice. I am a boy who is 15 years old and in grade 10 at a high school in Manchester. From I was a little boy around age seven or eight, my mother usually blamed me for everything and beat me even when I was not guilty of doing anything wrong. My mother is a miserable person at times.

When I was in grade 7, I did excellently in both Christmas and summer break exams. I was placed second and third. In grade 8, I did badly in both end-of-term exams, and for that whole summer everything I did my mother would say that was why I did so poorly in the exams. When school reopened, I said to myself each day that I am going to do my best because I don't want my mother to pass remarks about me.

At times I would feel sad and depressed. Sometimes I would even say that I would soon die. When I sat down and thought about it, tears would just run down my face. Since recently, I started thinking about killing myself.

Pastor, I just don't know what to do. I attend a shift school and I am on the morning shift. Every day when I come from school I have to stay in the shop. I am not saying that I can't help in the shop but I am really tired most times. If I ask her for a few minutes to go and rest, she is always saying no, and that it is for my own good because I am eating out of the shop and I must go to my bed early. She likes to shout at me like I am a dog or something. She doesn't know how to deal or talk with someone.

Pastor, my mother always tells me bad words. Everything she says to me has a bad word. She even says that when there is PTA meeting at school she is coming to tell the teachers that I only behave well at school because when I am at home I am not nice, and they should take away the prefect position from me. Pastor, how am I to be nice when she doesn't even show me any kind of respect or love? I respect her.

She called my father and complained about me. I am not saying I don't want to live a little longer, but everything is a problem. I can't take so many problems. I am just too young. I am very stressed out right now. I have exams coming up and I really want to pass them and get recommended for the CXC next year.

Pastor, please help me because I can't live a life with being stressed out and wasting my parents' money.

D.J., Manchester

Dear D.J.,

Perhaps your mother means well but she needs some help in parenting. You should talk to the principal of your school and the guidance counsellors, and ask them to visit your home and talk to your mother, or invite your mother to visit the school to see both the principal and your guidance counsellor.

You need not worry about the school taking away the position of prefect from you. You know that you are trying your best, but your mother needs to be a little more understanding.

In the meantime, try to cooperate with your mother. I will be praying for you.

Pastor