'Underage' Parenting

Responsibility, as a value, is not something that can solely be taught. It is actually caught by the youngsters from the environs they live in. The first exposure to values, for the kids, is the family. First in the firsts – Parents.  But parenting doesn't come easy. At least not in the times we live in. It is now a skill to be learned. Some days back Kashmir received a real shock when a video of a road accident went viral.

Two, too young lives were cut short on the spot. Among many other things it brought focus on the phenomenon of parenting.  Accidents otherwise also happen. The loss of lives in such accidents is also not anything unknown. What unsettles the societal mind is the way our younger ones are raised. That is the concern. Our poor parenting is not reflected in just one way. There are many ways that our wrong parenting is harming our children.

Take the case of those brilliant boys and girls who become victims of a performance pressure. We have seen many such youngsters committing suicide and ending their lives. We have seen many cases of attempted suicides. And we have no count of those who are later afflicted by mental ailments. Reason, wrong parenting.

Now take the menace of drug addiction. Among many other reasons, wrong parenting has a sizeable contribution to it. It is time we as a society get conscious about this and do something concrete and effective. In all cases of large scale problems the first and the most effective way of countering it is the awareness. In this case also we need targeted awareness campaigns, asking parents to understand their role and deal with children accordingly. We are now living in a changed world. It is no longer the time when we could be strict, in a particular sense, with our children and expect the desired behaviour from them.

It is no longer a world where our children were exposed to a limited number of influences outside family and we could track them. These are changed times, and parents need to grasp the change. Parents seriously need to learn new things to handle the matters related to their children.

They need to update their knowledge about the influences around, about how the children are impacted by those. In many ways our society is yet to come of age when it comes to parenting. Beyond love and affection, beyond control and punishment, parenting is a serious task. Learn the skill.