Generation Gap

Attended a friend's Raya open house a few days ago. It was a great gathering as we shared views and experiences with each other on the current issues besides the good foods.

Those parents with kids finished their UPSR seemed to be relieved while others whose kids were not done yet with PMR and SPM seemed to carry mountain of burdens. One of the topics that we touched was the peers pressures that influenced the behavioral of the teenagers. As I was not an experienced one, I became a good listener and took their mouth of words as precautions for my future undertakings.

They also warned me that I have at least a year to spare before my eldest, who is 11 currently, turns me upside down. Well, it was not the first time, I've been fed with this sort of information as the medias also highlighted the social problems among the youngsters from time to time. The only different was this time it was from the parents directly.

I ponder what went wrong with the new generations...was it the hectic and modern lifestyle cycles that we went through that deteriorate the family institutions or this is the challenge of modern parenthood? I don't have a good answer or solution for this, but one thing that is certain is that the situation is getting worse...

I noticed that kids are no longer have the kind of respects that we used to have towards our parents, teachers and elderly. They also been exposed to the cyberspace where information are easily available at the finger tips. On top of this, they also make either local or international artist as their idols. They will imitate each angle of their idols lifestyles without having clear conscious on the impact to their lives.

The experiences had become nightmarish to the parents and well projected through their choices of words and facial expressions. I really pitied them and hopefully they would find some solutions towards the problems.

I also came across a very interesting article "Skimpy outfits" by Ruth Liew in the Childwise column (Star, October 14 2009) which touched on how kids dressed up.

She suggested that as parents we should help the kids to find their inner qualities and focus on who she is rather than the outfits she represent. We also should show and secure the love to the kids. In case the dressing styles is totally bothering, try to compromise and come up with good solutions. Also, set a limit on what kind of clothes that are permitted.

Hopefully, the tips would be useful when my kids are demanding to look like their idol celebrities...