Appeal to parents: V Please protect yourchildren fromoverwhelming rot

 

“My daughter just refuses to listen to us. Whenever some family elder tries to tell her a word or two of wisdom, she just flares. She shouts. She throws tantrums. For a 19-year-old, such a conduct is not proper, but she just just does not bother. A friend also scared me by telling that he saw my daughter smoking cigarette. I was shocked beyond words. When I confronted her, my daughter about that, she threw a tantrum that really scared daylight out of me. She said, she was free to behave the manner she liked. The family has gone into first a terrible shock, and then into a shell. We just do not know how to confront this reality.” THE ugly truth in this lament will sadden anybody. And though the affected family would feel very bad about it, the reality is that at some level, it has failed to offer right sanskaars to the child. The very purpose of this series is to bring home the truth of a larger societal failure to give our youngsters the right direction. And that is mainly because the institution of familial conversation has gone missing from our lives -- affecting our youngsters more. To use a modern lingo, we as a society appear to be failing to keep our youngsters “in the loop” (meaning in our close connect). That is the reason why our youngsters have become easier preys of silent attacks of wrong narratives. If we had kept the familial conversation alive and vibrant between family elders and youngsters, then we could have saved countless numbers of young people from getting into the wrong grooves of youthful uncertainties. This is not being too simplistic.

 

The loud-thinker is fully aware of the complexities of today’s life and living. He realises that certain sly influences on our kids are too strong to be countered easily. Yet, that cannot ever mean that we have to give up and only remain hapless, ringside watchers of how our kids get gripped by wrong things. The loud-thinker has known by his own experience and that of others that if a family keeps a healthy and open conversation alive, youngsters are least likely to fall prey to wrong thoughts and habits. The 19-year-old girl mentioned above -- let’s call her Pinky -- obviously got under the influence of wrong narrative of personal liberty. So, smoking is not a matter of moral conduct, but a matter of her personal choice. Pinky can be helped out of the wrong habit before it becomes an addiction. But in most such cases, the child generally has gone out of hands already. This is, of course, a dangerous situation -- and very scary. And here is another example: A family elder -- grandmother -- found in her grand-son’s backpack certain merchandises indicating dangerous possibilities of immoral conduct. Such examples showcase our general failure to keep family conversation alive -- because of which the youngsters are quite likely to become rudderless ships. There is no doubt we may never be able to stop or stall the wrong narratives that are being fed to young minds through countless channels and digital platforms. With their smartphones in their hands, the young people have an easy and unchecked access to many wrong influences.

 

Then, how do we protect our youngsters from all those shady influences? The answer is certainly not easy to come by. Yet, the universal experience is that if the family has a mature culture of healthy and open conversation among all members including youngsters, a lot of wrong influences can be kept at bay. In a way, the solution is easy to be implemented, provided the family does not try to establish such a culture when the youngsters has already moved into the outer space of society. That would be too late in the day, one must say. But if the culture of easy, healthy and open conversation between elders and youngsters is alive right from the beginning, then the chances of keeping our youngsters safe from wrong influences are strong and good. There are many other narratives, too, that are being dished out to our youngsters -- with a clear idea of misguiding them. But those can be discussed at a later date. Suffice it is at this stage to state that many of those narratives are aimed at weaning the unsuspecting youngsters away from their Indian identity as well. (To be continued) (Readers’ response is welcome)