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What are we doing to our children today? Forbidding chocolates and sweets because they are laden with sugar, forbidding biscuits and chaats because they are unhealthy or having useless calories, forbidding children from playing with crackers during Diwali because they pollute the atmosphere, forbidding everything that is enjoyable and loved by children. Fear of too much Technology makes parents prevent them from watching TV, using laptops, mobiles, iPad and the like as well.
Aren’t they missing out on the joys of childhood? What will they grow up into? Mental freaks, psychological patients? I may be sounding too harsh but this is today’s reality and unless we do something about it, we will be raising a generation of freaks.
Whether it is the urban upper middle class family in India or the one in the US, parenting has taken a wide turn. The older generation punished and scolded the children, forced them to eat and have regular habits and timings for sleeping, eating and playing. But today good parenting consists of discipline through long explanations, healthy food, and enrolling them in various online and offline courses, participation in various contests and the like.
Many children today are single ones with no siblings and working parents, families are smaller so there are no cousins, the fear of corona and other contagious diseases, means no meeting friends or playing too close to them. What can and should they do? In urban places, lack of open spaces and garden confine them to homes where adults have no time for them. Some may be creative and play by themselves, others may read books but the majority may just twiddle their thumbs, becoming cranky or trying to attract attention through stubbornness, naughtiness or being plain irritating.
There are classes of various streams, various timings and various payments. Parents tend to make their wards join so that they can utilise their time effectively. Some are educational like art classes, drawing and painting, music, playing, science experiments, brain quiz and the like. But they cannot replace real friends or play mates. Football, roller-skating, swimming and other sports classes which often cost a bomb are a good option but they do not have the spontaneity of natural sports and games.
Children today have limited physical activity. They have information culled through google and other devices but there is a difference between knowledge and information. Even a five year old today can rattle off information regarding many things. But is it proper knowledge?
We are to be blamed, at least partially, for our children losing the charm and spontaneity of childhood. In our zeal to perfect children, we are raising tense and cautious ones instead of the innocent and free ones that once were called children.
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