Rise in juvenile crimes in Kerala.

Reports and statistics prove that there has been a steady increase in juvenile crimes in Kerala. Many of these children have left studies to pursue their 'desires' which have been instigated by movies and the programmes on the small screen, to a great extent.

I've also seen, much to my surprise, parents being scared of scolding or using corporal punishment on their errant children - I'm speaking from what I've seen within my own family where my cousins show varying degrees of helplessness in dealing with their children's mistakes. What makes matters worse is that there are quite a few amongst them who're single child parents and to even scold or correct their child, for a genuine mistake, is unthinkable to them. On the contrary, the gratification process - for a silly thing like doing the homework soon after returning from school and before the evening games - has attained costly overtones and the children take advantage of the situation!

Parents resort to these gimmicks due to the following reasons, as I reckon:-
(a) They'd felt restricted by their parents during their younger days and many of them feel having got a raw deal for themselves. They'd no freedom of choice as family traditions and trends came to play when the choice of a career or marital relationships fetched up.
(b) Thanks to the tremendous amount of information available, the children of today are much more evolved and hence require careful handling.
(c) Many of the parents give in to their children's tantrums to cover their own inadequacies and their inability to project themselves as role models.
(d) As the children enter their teens, there's hardly any communication within the house as each of them spins a cocoon around.

I'm reminded of the 'Tiannenman uprising' of China, in the not too distant past, that had similar overtones in character - the uprising was engineered by a generation that were single children to their parents thanks to the country's drive to curb population! The point, of course, also needs to be conceded that in China 'freedom of speech' is wishful thinking for its populace!!