On a typical Parents’ Day, most parents expect updates on grades, behaviour and attendance. But across three Corporate Area primary schools this term, parents left with something far more lasting—a renewed way to talk to their children.

Through Red Stripe’s Drink and Live Responsibly programme, parents at Marverly Primary and Junior High, St Richard’s Primary and St Jude’s Primary took part in Colouring Your Choices—a therapeutic, colouring-based initiative designed to strengthen communication between parents and children ages six to 12. The sessions were led by Jamaican artist and author Shawn Ashman and deliberately placed parents, not children, at the centre of the conversation.

The initiative comes at a critical time for Jamaican families. According to UNICEF and national child-protection data, more than three-quarters of Jamaican children experience some form of violence or harsh discipline during childhood, while educators and guidance counsellors continue to flag emotional regulation challenges and communication breakdowns among children well before adolescence. These early experiences are widely linked to later difficulties, including risk-taking behaviour and problems managing peer pressure.

Against this backdrop, Colouring Your Choices positions parents as key agents of change. Using guided colouring pages and reflection exercises, the programme encouraged parents to examine how everyday interactions, including tone of voice, emotional responses, and personal habits that shape how children make decisions long before adolescence sets in.

For Tammisha Laing, a parent at Marverly Primary and Junior High, the experience was unexpectedly powerful. “I didn’t expect to learn so much from a colouring book,” she said. “It opened my eyes. Choices really do matter, and we must set the best examples for our children.”

She admitted that communication with her child had often been strained, but the workbook has since become a practical tool for starting conversations she previously avoided.

At the heart of the initiative is a simple but often overlooked idea: children learn far more from what they observe than from what they are told. During one exercise, parents worked through a Fact or Myth activity on responsible drinking, reinforcing how adult behaviour, even when children are not directly involved, sends lasting messages.

At St Richard’s Primary, Red Stripe’s Communications Manager Daika Mitchell struck a deeply personal chord when she addressed parents. Drawing from her own experience as a mother of a teenager, Mitchell acknowledged the exhaustion many parents feel after long workdays, while stressing the importance of staying emotionally present.

“My daughter is 13, and there are days I come home completely tired,” she said. “But I remember how secretive I became as a child because I didn’t feel I could talk to my mother. As parents, we don’t want that for our children. We want them to feel safe enough to talk to us about anything.”

Ashman grounded the discussions in her own upbringing in Grants Pen, reminding parents that communication is not built through one-off lectures, but through small, consistent moments at home, from how frustration is handled to how difficult topics are approached.

One parent reflected quietly after a session, “It’s not just about providing and protecting. It’s about teaching children how to make the right choices in the small moments.”

At St Jude’s Primary, the message resonated just as strongly. Mitchell, a past student of the school, spoke about how open communication influenced her own upbringing, while Ashman guided parents through practical examples highlighting how household routines from tidying a room to handling peer pressure, shape children’s decision-making skills.

“We want our children to make good choices, but it starts with us,” Ashman said. “They watch how we live, how we speak, and how we respond. That’s where learning begins.”

Across all three schools, Colouring Your Choices evolved into more than a creative exercise. It became a space for parents to pause, reflect and reframe how they connect with their children, particularly as they approach the vulnerable pre-teen years.

By placing parents at the centre of behaviour change, the initiative reinforces a powerful truth: national progress does not begin with policies alone, but with conversations around kitchen tables, during car rides home from school, and—sometimes—through the pages of a colouring book.