The only constant thing in the world is change, and more and more changes in these days are challenging the teaching profession and the society as a whole. An article in the book Successful Family (Tumangday 2015) presented facts supporting the claim that today, we are raising an “ANGRY GENERATION”. Sadly, the researchers found out that it is the lack of parental discipline that is to be blamed for this aggressive and antisocial behaviour of children. Throughout my more than 20 years in this field, I have observed and personally encountered children who lash out in the classroom; and their population is growing!
It is commendable that our region is producing a growing number of parents from the different professions. However, most of them fall in the pit of lavishing their children with material possessions but are distant and barely involved in their upbringing. Moms and Dads would just let their children watch TV all night or just use their gadgets because the busy schedule for ‘official business’ steals the time and energy supposed to be for family practices such as sharing bedtime stories, singing and chatting with children. Moreover, mothers with less formal education were found more likely to resort to negative parenting. Marital conflicts and mothers suffering depression were also linked to poor supervision of children’s activities which lead to their bad behaviour.
May this not be taken for granted because, while it is true that parents are busy working for their children, they are missing out a more important thing. Anti-social children are at risk of underperforming at school and even turning to crime and drug or alcohol abuse.
All of these, I believe, point us to the need of educating not only the children but the parents too, urgently and importantly. There is still chance to improve our children’s life chances if we intervene through programs that would effectively turn faulty parenting styles to positive ways of rearing up. If our government believes that the family should be the strongest unit in the society then it must be reasonable to fund parenting lessons to teach mothers and fathers across all sections of society on how to discipline their children. If we were to build a better generation than ours, we should teach our fellow parents well.
By Janet G. Coria-en