Almost every second day these days daily newspapers flash headlines of young American students perpetrating a mass shooting in malls, and often schools. The right to bear (own) guns is a fundamental right under the US Constitution and angry young teens often access their parents’ guns and go berserk. Nor is youth and child anger confined to the world’s oldest democracy. All over the world there is an upsurge of youth anger and violence.
India is no exception to the tidal wave of teens and youth anger that is sweeping the world and precipitating random, untargeted violence. Slow social mobility and the prospect of unemployment and/or low wages in the informal sector has created an angry Generation Z, i.e, teens and youth born between 1996 and 2010 and Generation Alpha born after 2010.
This anger is manifested in the outbreak of repeated communal, caste and tribal (as in the north-east) riots and violence in which youth are ready and often gullible, participants. Moreover in the new age of the Internet, social media and readily available cinema, sports and cricket tournaments, ‘crazy busy’ parents are increasingly neglecting children. In an economy which is growing at 6 percent when it should be growing at a minimal 8 percent to absorb the 12 million youth who enter the jobs market every year, anger within the large army of unemployed — or more accurately unemployable, youth short-changed by government schools and public universities with their obsolete syllabuses and curriculums — is rising.
Against this disturbing backdrop we present our cover story in which child psychologists, psychiatrists and nurturance experts advise teaching children socialisation and anger management skills from youngest age. With children’s access to streaming OTT platforms, video games, etc depicting incrementally violent action, teachers and especially parents, need to proactively teach children the virtues of restraint and discursive skills as they grow up. The days of glorying the assertiveness and domination of children in classrooms and playing fields are over. Especially in a multi-cultural society such as India, teaching children the life skills of inclusion, cooperation and teamwork from the early years has become an important parental obligation as highlighted in this issue’s cover story.
As usual, there is much else in this Dussehra issue of PW which is receiving excellent notices from across the country. Check out our story on the importance of eye contact in early childhood; Special Essay on whether it’s alright for parents to take their children out of school to go on holiday; and expert recommendations of best pregnancy and child rearing apps.
