Article written by Ken Barnes.
While so many of today’s adults are trying everything from plastic surgery to the newest skin creams to revive that youthful glow, our children are doing everything they can to look and act older.
There is a passage in the bible that reads "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child, I thought as a child”.
Do the children of today speak like children? “You can’t tell me what to… I am not listening to you”. – Do they listen or respect adults?
Do they understand like children? “I know what sex is like and I’ve taken drugs, so what” – Have they experienced too much… too young?
Do they think like children? “I am not going to try, it’s no use, life has nothing to offer me”. – Have they given up on life before their lives have really started?
Where have all the children gone… I believe we have a generation of children who are suffering from a tragedy of ‘lost childhood’. Although they may have many material luxuries, they lack the most essential ingredients of a good childhood, playfulness, innocence, respect, ignorance and at times love, they are children with everything, except a childhood.
Our children are growing up too fast. I have watched children as young as 6 & 7 gyrate sexually at parties, in front of an audience and lapping up all of the attention. What kind of mindset does this kind of behaviour create, especially when that kind of behaviour continues up to when they reach 10, 11 & 12? This public display of sexuality transfers to the way they dress… skirts to tight and short, tops cut low to accentuate their figures and trousers worn around their thighs exposing what ever name brand under pants they are wearing. There are many dangers in our children growing up too fast. An 11 – 12 year-old who looks, dresses and acts like a 16 – 17 year-old tends to draw the attention of 18 to 20-year-olds that often have adult activities in mind.
A child that thinks and acts like adults can pay a high price, there are some very real dangers associated with a child’s desire to test the waters of adulthood. With no respect for guidance and direction of an adult because they feel they are grown up already… they face very adult questions too soon, with little or no preparation. Should I take drugs? Should I engage in sexual activity? Should I become violent when I am angry?
Children have become so isolated they find the answers to their questions not from adults but from media images and the interaction with their peers, who are all too ignorant themselves.
Our children are being sold an adult-like way of life continuously every day by the media. Our children’s programmes today contain adult-like themes… boyfriends – girlfriends – kissing – sex – drugs & violence. This indoctrination at an early age creates curiosity and interest in the mind of a child and with the freedom of expression our children have today… especially through their mobile phones and the internet, real dangers and concerns are raised in my mind as a concerned parent.
Just as our natural habitats are being destroyed for the sake of economics and financial gain, so are the minds of our children.
Do we apportion blame for this tragedy to the media, government, parents or the children themselves? Or do we all have a collective responsibility to bear as there seems to be a lack of moral and social governance by society as a whole. Tolerance within our society has changed what we deemed unacceptable a number of years ago, has now become ‘the norm’.
We have a generation of children lost, left to fend for themselves - isolated from real moral guidance. As concerned adults we cannot isolate ourselves from our obligations or from the necessity to attempt to fill the moral values vacuum created by what our children as a whole are being exposed to. For as we see in the actions of some of our youth today, our inability to act and our lack of a positive plan of action, will manifest itself and come back to haunt us later.
As a concerned parent, adult and mentor I say the time has come to ‘give our children back their childhood’.
