Growing Up

The pains of growing up today and the yesteryears are quite different.

In the past, adolescents used to respect their teachers and elders a lot more than the present generation. Teachers were highly respected and if you were to get a bad report from your teacher, rest assured that your parents would give you a hard time over it.

However these days, youngsters do not really hold their teachers in high regard, for whatever reasons best known to themselves. They post nasty comments on the internet. In the past there was no internet; at most we would just whisper among ourselves. Last year, some secondary school students posted on the internet the sordid details of their school principal's private life. Where did respect come into this?

In my experience as a teacher and principal, I have come across cases of students and parents having fist fights!! It wa
s certainly a sorry state of affairs. I also had parents calmly telling me that they shared their cigarettes with their young sons. We were having an anti-smoking campaign in school and a couple of boys had been caught smoking. So their parents were called in and that was the answer we were given.

Doesn't it make you wonder what these parents thought about their responsibilities towards their children?

It is no surprise though that some children are having a harder time of growing up and adjusting to the changes going on, not only in their bodies and minds but also in the world around them. They are exposed to so many unsavoury things and even with some degree of parental guidance, the rites of passage are not easy for them.

Mentors who are caring and patient can help them, especially if they can build a relationship of trust between them and their mentees. For some this would be a godsend especially if they come from dysfunctional homes where parents are too busy or unable to communicate with them.

Somehow,they have to cross the divide or build a bridge if parents are not to lose further ground with their erstwhile offspring. Perhaps it should begin right from the first years of a child's life. Gone is the time when a parent demands respect. Now he has to earn it. A relationship fostered in love and understanding coupled with a lot of patience combined with firmness, will see the bond of friendship between parent and child. I believe that this friendship bond is very important so that any issues that arise can be settled without any unneccessary pain. The two-way communication is very important and only love and understanding can bring this about.

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