Slow down - a solution to childhood travails?

Slow down - a solution to childhood travails? 

The bringing up of children in modern times has become a difficult task. Childhood in contemporary terms means fast food, fast life, computer games and living on the competitive edge. Gone are the days of leisure when we adults enjoyed our childhood with memories to cherish for a lifetime which is quickly forgotten by the changing lifestyles. Childhood depression and anxiety seem to be on the increase. This is the direct result of the demanding conditions of today and the expectations of parents ruling very high. Advertising and films promote an exaggerated vision of achievements and desires of children and computer games and Internet only compound this problem as it not only leads to childhood health disorders but also seriously affects the emotional well-being and development of a child into a healthy adult with an open mind and right attitude to life. Our houses today are virtual prisons where we rear our children behind locked doors. Fed with contemporary food and with entertainment on computer games children are confined to homes with the fear of an exaggerated danger. And how safe are our houses and our children in them from the fear of an unknown stranger with sinister intentions?

There is however another angle to this problem. There is a corrupting influence on the innocent & vulnerable young minds due to the changing lifestyles. Many programs made for children and telecasted on channels have ample portions of violence not to mention that many other channels on the TV and the Internet give children easy and unchecked access to sex and violence that are glorified and sometimes justified. Media hype has played heavily on the psyche of the children by projection of adulthood as a sign of freedom to do whatever they want and hence children & in some cases their parents too desire that their children act and dress like adults but the downside of the issue is that these so called adult like children rarely understand or associate themselves with the responsibility of an adult towards their families and society while they enjoy all the freedom that money can buy there are a lot of problems specially in the west making children who are barely in their teens indulge in serious crimes. Clearly prosperity, commercialisation and open markets have made life much more complicated today than what it was a few decades ago.

Many parents often keep an eye on the children's movement and their company even neighbourhoods watch out for trouble when kids of a block or a street assemble at a corner even if it is for a casual chat or socialising, the mirage of freedom and adulthood is thus shattered when parents and guardians constantly keep a watch on their children's activities. Experts recommend that we need to engage with the children and help them to develop strategies to cope up with modern technology and socialising it would be wise to talk to them rather than talk about them on issues concerning their life, do not be surprised if you find many genuine solutions to the above discussed problems coming from their sides. Young minds are free of boundaries and inhibitions that we as adults develop over a period of time.