Should I start to believe that innocence has lost it’s way and never heading back.? Children have now switched their preferences from ground to chain of game stations in malls.

They don’t keep a toy collection but they are keeping a heavy collection of video games and computer games that are full of violence, sex . And all the things which are enough to make them what they not really are or what they shouldn’t be like.

I wish that games were the only change I could see, but we also find these kids in a restaurant/hookah lounge enjoying out with friends, dating, bunking.

And when asked about it one said proudly : 13 is the new 18 brother.

The Change

Young people today process more knowledge,information in a year than one generation ago had done throughout their entire adolescence. They know the world more than any other generation did at this age. They are more exposed, more aware, more travelled, more skilled (with technology).

And also children are a new market for the companies with their slogan ” Get the young, the parents will follow”.

And if all the above points don’t make you bother much, lets discuss more. Firstly that violence is being imitated by them from television and games at a wide range now; not only the urban areas are affected by it, but we have hundreds of cases of violence in our country from the rural villages with less resources.

 Exposure

Secondly,Kids today are exposed to more sex than ever. Racy television shows, ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ and explicitly naked images are freely disseminated to younger audiences. The puberty and the first sexual experience ages are sliding downward. Pregnant tenth graders and scores of teens with post abortion trauma are becoming less of an aberration.

And might these kids will become independent early like in the west . But this cannot make them an adult, dressing up like one or doing grown up chores are not just enough. Transition into adulthood requires a coherent sense of self, vocational commitment, moral conviction and emotional maturity.

In Udaipur

But then in a city like Udaipur which is not a metro, if here we can find all of these miss outs mentioned above, then something is really to be taken care of. But then are the kids to be blamed really?

How Fast It goes

NO, because it is not that “Children are growing fast rather Parents are parenting too fast”. Sometimes parents are also forcing them to achieve too much too soon. Parents like to transform them to their dreams . Attempts in transforming their kids into stars and child prodigies, even though they are not naturally gifted, have disastrous consequences.

On the other edge, they are now exposed to latest tech gadgets soon, which somewhere might is a new thing, a new change. Seeing a eighth grader using an iPhone might be weird. But we will have to live with it. May be this is not bad if the parents keep an eye. Parent must maintain the delicate balance between protecting children from over exposure without intruding into their lives.

Fleeting innocence and early maturation isolates kids from their peers.