Thursday, August 17, 2017

Are the children of today, brittle?

Often people tell me that the children of today are introverts, do not open up with their elders and are utterly disorganised in handling failures. I beg to disagree with them because I find the children, generally, to be healthy in their thoughts, loaded with pranks, ask their doubts and are technology savvy. In fact, it's amazing and a treat to watch them handle the state-of-the-art-technology with ease!

During the last ten days, I was at my aunt's to be with her and the family during their stressful times consequent to the passing away of her son-in-law, Suresh. It was then that I'd the opportunity to interact with the children - my numerous nephews and nieces and it was a great eye opener. Conversing with Geethu(Doing post graduation in Economics) was an eye opener and a pleasure as I found the young lady to have a clear idea over most issues and articulated her thoughts well. I'm now gonna speak with reference to the threesome viz. Madhavan(Class XII), Kripa-shankar(Class XI) and Ramu(Class IX) who were together for over thirty six hours.

They listened to their variety of music - and I must say that I enjoyed it too - pulled each other's legs and played pranks. Together, they saw a horror movie, 'Conjuring', closeted in one of the bedrooms after lights out(I was reminded about my friends and I reading Bram Stoker's Dracula during our class XI times in the early '70s! As part of a running bet among us, a few of us even walked through an unlit stretch of handmade track, within the school campus, to prove to the others that such stories didn't scare us at all).

What I'm trying to say is that the children of today are normal in their outlook but, perhaps, more knowledgeable about things - like religion and castes - that were unknown to us during childhood. Probably, this is our contribution(?) for them as their elders. Many of us spend hours on What'sApp and Facebook chatting with our friends, forgetting the fact as to what a bad example one's setting, in the bargain.

The recent case of a teenager in Thiruvananthapuram committing suicide, supposedly instigated by the 'Blue Whale Challenge - an online game that preyed on teens with a moderator giving each participant a set of escalating challenges, eventually leading to suicide - is a sad tale. If it were to be investigated thoroughly, I'm sure the disconnect that existed between the lad and his parents would come to the fore.

Parenting in this age and time is intricate and a full time job and there are no short cuts. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the children of today! You can rest, assured on that singular aspect if you please!!


Tailpiece.

What I desist about today's education is the ''all pass'' system so that 'the children do not get disheartened by failures'. This is the most ridiculous argument that I've come across. Remember the adage, "Success introduces you to the world while failure shows the world to you". It's an essential part of growing up and it enables the child to learn from the failure to open the key to success - a must for building up a wholesome personality........ otherwise, you'll end up producing wimps!     

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