Delayed development among Thai children remains a threat for Thailand, an official says

Dr. Somsak Chunharas, Deputy Minister of Public Health has expressed his concern over a delayed development of Thai children even though the problems encountering child development in the country have been existed for over forty years.

His concern was made while he was presiding over the 12th Asian Congress of Health Promotion today held by the Department of Mental Health at a hotel in Bangkok. The conference was held under the theme “Our Children Our Future” with participation of public health experts from China, Japan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Taiwan and Thailand.

He explained that the change in contemporary society causes a wide range of problems which directly affect child growth. Many countries have put high efforts to help all babies grow up with age-appropriate development in physical and mental health in the hope to produce high-quality human resource in the future.

In Thailand, main threat to child health is the delay in physical, mental and ethical development which currently affects around thirty per cent of children, Dr. Somsak said.

He revealed that Thailand has developed approaches to stimulate and follow up the development in three groups of children. Firstly, newborn babies until the age of three should be raised by parents who are required to pass the parental training to ensure they are able to observe babies’ development.

The second group is children aged three to five who are supposed to attend nursery schools. Development will therefore be focused on the quality of nurseries.

Teenagers who form the third group will be taught and instilled with positive attitudes in order to control the violence and drug use among them.

NNT

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