Indisciplined children aren't the main problem; it's us the adults

It is an undeniable fact that today's generation is growing up with unprecedented access to information. [iStockphoto]

The Good Book says, "Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it". This passage is more relevant today as we grapple with the growing challenges surrounding the upbringing of our children and the increasing unrest, anxiety and confusion among many young people.

This past week, I came across a social media clip that left me, and I am sure many other parents, cringing. A teenage girl was reviewing a popular television series with such detail and colour, one would have easily mistaken her for an adult media critic. It was unsettling that a child had been exposed to such content in the first place.

It is an undeniable fact that today's generation is growing up with unprecedented access to information. Thanks to technology, children no longer learn exclusively from parents, teachers and books. With a few clicks, they can access opinions and ideologies from every corner of the world. The Internet has become both the classroom and playground without supervision. And this is where the adults in the room need to put their foot down.

Growing up in the '80s and '90s, there was a clear understanding of who a child was and what childhood entailed. Our primary contribution to humanity was to exist, eat, play and go to school. Neighbours knew each other and parents embraced a collective responsibility of raising the children. Scenes of adults converging in the home of a truant child were not uncommon.

Children understood that wrongdoing would be met with instant correction be it from the parent, teacher or even a neighbour. Evening routine was predictable. We took a bath, ate dinner and went to bed before adult programmes came on air, where adult programme meant the evening news or some harmless soap operas.

Then we grew up and somehow convinced ourselves that our parents had no idea what they were doing. 

Today, we buy our children gadgets before they can learn to read. We punish our children by denying them TV time and taking away their gadgets as though the default expectation is for them to have unlimited access to them. We fight with neighbours who point out troubling habits and attack teachers who raise concerns about our children’s behaviour. We treat with suspicion the very village that once helped raise us.

The challenge we are facing today is not so much about the children but the adults raising them. While we have adapted to the many changes of the modern world, embracing technology while leveraging it to make life and work easier, we have largely failed to interrogate its impact on the children in our midst.

We are so bedazzled by innovation we rarely ask what this easy and constant exposure to unnecessary information is doing to their young, developing minds.

Our parents were far from perfect, but they understood that childhood was a fleeting phase that required protection. They understood that some conversations, experiences and responsibilities could wait.

Today, however, we seem so keen to fast-track children into adulthood and then wonder why they are dysfunctional.

We need to call out wrong for what it is and stop romanticising every questionable behaviour. When a child talks back to an adult, that child is not bold, they are disrespectful.

When a child bullies other kids, he is not assertive, he is cruel. When a child misrepresents facts, they are not ‘owning their truth’, they are lying.

When a child lacks empathy, courtesy and kindness, they are not self-aware, they are selfish. The danger of rebranding bad behaviour as self-expression is that we eventually stop correcting it. When adults refuse to draw clear lines between right and wrong, those lines, with time, disappear.

Every generation has faced unique parenting challenges but some responsibilities remain timeless. Children still need adults who can say no. Parents who will love them enough to correct and guide them even when it is unpopular.

Before we ask what is wrong with this generation, we should first ask what happened to the generation that was supposed to raise it.

- Ms Wekesa is a development communication consultant