‘The child is the
father of man’ never was this adage as true as it holds today. Given the fast
paced changes in the socio-cultural milieu with the rapid technological
upheavals, the task of bringing up children is becoming all the more daunting. The
best way one handles situations is on the basis of prior experience. The
parents of today would go back to their experiences of being parented and try
to imitate the disciplining measures that they had to go through. But sadly
today, they say, things have changed. They are told that the parent should be
friends of their children and so in an attempt to toe the line and be a ‘friend’
of the ‘modern techno savvy child’ the poor parent falls prey to buying the new
age toys for their kids – gaming consoles, mobiles, ipads, iphones, the list takes an increasing upward curve on
the pocket. The worst situation arises because we the parents are not aware of
the hazards that this internet enabled mobiles or these addictive gaming consoles
are to our kids. These are new to us, we do not understand the ‘new’ ways of
the world, and so in an attempt to be called our kids’ ‘friends’ we fall prey
to these baits. The problem worsens when we have then to monitor their gaming
time for by then they are addicted to them.
The ‘Facebook’ is the
new social world that our children are living in and now with ‘Whats App’, everything
that my teenager does is broadcast to the world. We the ‘outdated’ parent
either are oblivious to the happenings of the internet world that my youth is
engrossed in or to make things worse some of us are so enamoured by these
gadgets that we ourselves are immersed in self proclamation through these
social networking sites.
The ‘I, me, myself’
culture is the predominant culture of the times and it is indeed very difficult
to free oneself from enticing clutches of this culture. To teach the youth
today is much more difficult when I myself am not following what I try to
preach and thus the youth of today do not find a role model to emulate. We have
not left them enough role models in the outer world and thus the task of
becoming the role model for my ‘child’ is all the more an arduous task.
We complain of our
youth clamouring for more, we grumble that they are not satisfied with what
they have, that they are never ‘happy’ with what they have. I would suggest let
us as parents reflect if ‘we’ have ever been ‘happy’ about what we have had.
Have been ‘content’ with what life had to offer me. If I never cribbed about
the world around, if I always had a smile on my face no matter what I faced in
my personal life only then will my child learn these things from me. I cannot
expect them from my kids if I do not give it to them.
I would make only one
resolve as a parent today let me ‘mend’ myself if I wish to transform the youth
of tomorrow. For the words of Carl Jung, the famous psychologist cannot be
slighted: “Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.”
