13/02/2026

FRIDAY | FEB 13, 2026

10

Under One Roof

Parenting a work in progress Q : Sometimes I feel like a complete failure as a parent. I try to be consistent with my children but there are days when I just don’t give them encouragement to do better next time. Either way, it is all about extending grace and forgiveness. married life – and a reality check. Stress can often cause us to function in an out-of-balance mode where we end up operating in the extremes of our personalities. This perhaps occurs most often when we feel pressured.

Sometimes gender differences can seem pretty stereotypical. This scenario may look somewhat different in your marriage but researchers have found it to occur in many relationships. How you respond to your spouse when they are under stress has a direct impact on their behaviour towards you and, of course, vice versa. Create a calm and safe space to express what you need when feeling stressed. Share what makes you feel supported and allow your spouse room to do so too. As you understand each other better, you can love more fully. If you would like a safe space to talk things through, you can schedule an appointment with a counsellor on our website. This article is contributed by Focus on the Family Malaysia, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting and strengthening the family unit. It provides a myriad of programmes and resources, including professional counselling services, to the community. For more information, visit family.org.my. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

Here is the crazy thing: as mums and dads, we need that grace and forgiveness from our children, too. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Sometimes – maybe even much of the time – we make mistakes. We lose our temper, we fail to make time for our children or we may accuse them of something they didn’t do. Thankfully, children are resilient. If we are honest and humble when we mess up, they are more than happy to come running back into our arms and forgive us. There is always room for second chances within a loving family. Let grace flow freely in your home. Hug and reconcile whenever patience is lost and mistakes happen, this will keep connections close even when the children are older. Q: I am recently married. My husband and I are discovering – the hard way – that we deal with life stresses differently and we are struggling to understand each other. What can we do?

the attention they deserve or have the patience with them as I should. I am afraid that I am going to mess things up and lose my connection with them by the time they are grown. Focus on the Family Malaysia: We know how you feel because most parents have been there, too. But that is one reason we love this time of year. The new year is all about renewal, new resolutions, new habits and new challenges. It is a chance for people to start over in various areas of their lives, including parenting. As parents, we know that second chances are a part of everyday life. We struggle and strive to help our children do the right thing. But sometimes, they fall short of the mark. When that happens, it is our job to help them get back up, dust themselves off and try again. Sometimes, if they have been disobedient, they may need appropriate correction to get them back on track. Other times, our children simply need an arm around them and a word of ROMANCE scams have entered a “dark age”, evolving from disorganised individual actors into a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise. New research and firsthand accounts reveal that scammers are now leveraging “frontier” and open-source AI to scale predatory operations within specialised forced-labour compounds. According to the Federal Trade Commission, investment scams, the primary “endgame” for romance fraud, resulted in US$5.7 billion (RM22.28 billion) in losses in 2024, a figure experts believe is a conservative estimate. The availability of powerful frontier AI models has provided digital gold for scammers. For the price of a cup of coffee, predators can now leverage these tools to generate linguistically perfect, emotionally resonant messages designed to ensnare victims across the globe. Industrialisation of deception: Four key trends There are four critical pillars currently driving this new era of fraud: 0 AI frontier: Scammers now use Large Language Models (LLM) to eliminate traditional “red flags” like broken grammar and inconsistent narratives. By automating the “grooming” phase, they can maintain dozens of highly persuasive, persona driven conversations simultaneously. 0 AI room: Sophisticated operations now utilise dedicated “AI rooms” where deepfake technology enables real-time, face-swapped video calls. This allows a scammer to “prove” their identity visually, effectively dismantling the old advice to “just hop on a video call” to verify a match. 0 Investment pivot: Romance is now simply the hook for “pig butchering” schemes. Victims are systematically “fattened” with trust and staged financial success on fraudulent platforms before being “slaughtered” for their life savings. 0 Open-source threat: While frontier

Research shows that men and women deal with stress differently. As a man’s stress level increases, his body produces more oxytocin hormone, which is further influenced by testosterone. These chemicals trigger a fight-or flight response. In other words, when stressed, men either act more aggressively or withdraw – we like to say “go into their caves”. Women also produce more oxytocin but it is coupled with oestrogen and has a different result. When stressed, women tend to lean into relationships, either protectively nurturing their children or seeking out other female friends. Researchers have called this the “tend-and befriend” response. Basically, these chemical reactions set men and women up to respond differently during times of stress – the perfect combination for conflict. Women want to connect while men may feel more ready to pick a fight or withdraw. Understanding that contrast can go a long way towards helping you find common ground.

Focus on the Family Malaysia: Welcome to

Romance scams: A multi-billion-dollar deception

COMMENT by Satnam Narang

Scam compounds utilise specialised AI rooms to bypass visual verification. These setups use virtual camera software to intercept video feeds on platforms like WhatsApp or FaceTime. – ADAM AMIR HAMZAH/ THESUN

“According to the Federal Trade Commission, investment scams, the primary ‘endgame’ for romance fraud, resulted in US$5.7 billion in losses in 2024, a figure experts believe is a conservative estimate.

servers. This allows scammers to remove all guardrails, enabling the generation of unlimited, unrestricted predatory content without fear of account suspension or detection by the AI provider. Statistical context The US$5.7 billion figure cited for 2024 refers specifically to investment fraud, which is the secondary phase of a romance scam, known as “pig butchering”. Total losses are estimated to be significantly higher as many victims do not report losses due to the perceived social stigma associated with romance based deception. Satnam Narang is a senior staff research engineer at Tenable with over a decade of experience in identifying and exposing social engineering trends. He is a leading expert on the intersection of AI technology and modern cybercrime. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

solution is simple: cut contact, unmatch and report. Technical mechanics of the AI room Scam compounds utilise specialised AI rooms to bypass visual verification. These setups use virtual camera software to intercept video feeds on platforms like WhatsApp or FaceTime. Real-time face-swapping software, such as DeepFaceLive, maps the scammer’s facial movements onto a high-resolution target persona. Technical artifacts or glitches in the AI are often masked by the scammer claiming a poor internet connection or using low-light environments. Role of open-source models (DeepSeek and Qwen) While frontier models – for example, ChatGPT, Gemini – have built-in safety filters to refuse requests related to fraud, open-source models like DeepSeek and Qwen can be run locally on private

models have guardrails, free open-source models like DeepSeek and Qwen allow scammers to operate without ethical restrictions. These models now reach near-parity with paid services, providing a powerful, unrestricted toolkit for malicious use. These scams are the engine of a multi billion-dollar industry often built on the backs of trafficked individuals. Inside these compounds, victims are forced to work sales floors governed by strict quotas. They even ring bells and gongs to celebrate when a victim’s life savings are stolen. While the technology is new, the psychological manipulation is as old as time; it just happens at a scale we have never seen before. Consumers are urged not to be swayed by screenshots of earnings or claims of insider expertise. If a match brings up investments, whether aggressively or coyly, it is a scam. If the conversation turns to money, the