PALS commends student for refusing to fight

One female from a Corporate Area high school is getting the praises from people on social media for the courage and the bravery she showed when she refused to get into a fight with another female from a different school.

The video shows the student being antagonised by another but ignores the demand to react in a violent way.

General manager for Peace and Love in Society (PALS), Janilee Abrikian, also commended the student for refusing to allow her emotions to get the better of her.

"She made a good choice not to fight. That choice was based on her being emotionally intelligent. She showed high levels of emotional quotient," she said. "To be provoked means that she might be irritated which may intensify into annoyance; these are all the feelings that we can guess she went through. She may even be disrespected and when we get disrespected ... it may lead to anger."

Abrikian told The STAR that the home plays a very important role in how children deal with situations that may provoke them in a violent way.

"The home may have played a role in her reaction. In her home, one of the values may be not to fight because I teach my five-year-old grandson not to hit anyone even if they hit him first," she said.

She said that parents need to learn about being emotionally empowered to avoid situations too, so that they can teach their child the same.

Abrikian added that PALS also tries to help children from inner-city communities to learn how to deal with their emotions in order to avoid resulting to violence to resolve their problems.

"She [student in video] managed to get control of her emotions instead of allowing her emotions to control her. In Jamaica where we have bystanders telling people to fight, that was commendable," she said.