YOUNG EYES
Please Don’t Be Sad
We love to hear songs and almost all of the songs in India now come from movies. Then there are songs from outside India. Nowadays, all that you hear in songs is people crying that they did not get something, that they wish to have something, and that they are very sad because of all of this. No smiling faces, but only sad expressions. There is so much of pain in these songs. What happened to songs being sources of entertainment or songs being ways of cheering up oneself ? It is not just about songs though. Even movies are becoming difficult to watch. There is much violence, both physical and verbal. And there are the numerous problems shown on the screen. Movies made specifically for children or the teenagers also have so much negativity. Are we human beings becoming more and more negative? Have we lost the ability to take pleasure in all the small and big things that life has to offer? People talk less and less today, thanks to the general obsession with electronic handheld devices, and even the little that people talk is only about problems and quarrels. Kids have to endure the great suffering and torture of having to watch these fights, arguments, and complaining. That is another thing about the present-day society. Everyone seems to be complaining. If someone has a complaint because of a problem, what should one do? They should go ahead and fix the problem, but people rarely do that. Instead, they just complain. They cry and wail and the sound of all this is so troubling. Is it not the duty of the elders to ensure that kids get a joyous and all-round childhood? Instead of bombarding children with the problems of human life, why cannot the elders or parents be positive about the struggles of life and why cannot they give more and more positive examples of strength, courage, and wisdom? While children are nowadays exposed to all that is negative and sad in life, they are hardly shown role models, who have excelled in many facets of life in spite of having to struggle against all odds. For example, since a child starts understanding things, parents and others around the child warn about strangers and about many other unwanted personalities that one may come across. It is understandable that children should be made aware and protected from harmful persons, but should not a child also be taught about the importance of human relationships? Instead of constantly being afraid of new people, should not a child also be taught to be trusting and give the benefit of doubt to people? An unwanted result of warning children against strangers and predators beyond a certain limit is that children isolate themselves and it becomes almost impossible for them to mix with people. Does an adult, particularly a parent, know the amount of negative information and negative impact that a child gets through the presentday news and media, particularly the electronic media and Internet? It is always this problem, that issue, or some such other disturbing news that the media has to offer. And when the child turns to one’s parents or other adults for some relief from this onslaught of negativity, there is more negativity in the form of chastising advice, having to watch parents quarrel, or worse still, a cold treatment with the parents or adults glued on to electronic screens. All adults should learn to smile and if they already know how to do that, they have to show that on their faces. Those who were kids even a couple of decades ago, had much happier childhood. Life had problems even then, but there was more of contact with persons, more of interactions between family members. Kids loved to play with parents and parents showered their attention and love on their kids. Time spent with kids by adults was much more. And such times were moments of joy. There were chastisements, crying, and all other unpleasant aspects of life, but the moments of joy swept over these moments of despair. About a couple of decades ago, the average kid was not exposed to so much negativity as today. There are two kinds of negativity, one that is spread by the media and the other brought in through the environment. There is so much competition, expectation, and demands in the life of an average child today that the child has no time to think of frivolous things or to be mischievous or doing all other things that children have been normally associated with. It is probably the greatest and most unfortunate effect of seeing sadness all around that children do not behave or sound as children any more; they are so much like adults. The sadness thrust into their lives has shown them that this world is no place for playing, that toys are not much different from pastimes on the Internet or other modes of entertainment for the adults. The strained and sad lives of adults are robbing children of their childhood. What should adults and parents do to ensure that children do not have to get exposed to sadness?
First, they need to avoid being so sad themselves. They should be grateful to all the wonders that life brings us. They need to strive become role models of goodness and happiness and also models of resilience, people who can withstand the onslaught of any miserable suffering and yet cheerfully live with a buoyant spirit. Please don’t be sad. Please don’t flood your environment with negativity. There is much negativity already. We should at least do our mite and put out our ideas of joy and happiness, however little they might be, and spread cheer around. We should live the lives we want others to lead and be models worthy of emulation. Let us move away from the habit of denouncing every little thing and instead let us appreciate even the small achievements of children. Let us encourage them to understand and discover newer vistas of human existence. Let us smile and spread laughter. We should not hamper the free flow of the actions and ideas of children. We should only help them see their path. However, we should not completely leave children to themselves. We should guide and facilitate them to understand the boundaries one needs to keep in one’s life and the choices one needs to make and danger zones one needs to avoid. Though roses have thorns, one could be trained to negotiate one’s way through the thorns and reach the roses without getting hurt. Letting children know the heritage of one’s family, of their community, of their nations, and of humanity as a whole, is a good idea to let some good feeling percolate into their lives. Only such an approach would lead to children not ending up as stressed sad faces.
(An article in Prabuddha Bharata.March, 2019)
Please Don’t Be Sad
We love to hear songs and almost all of the songs in India now come from movies. Then there are songs from outside India. Nowadays, all that you hear in songs is people crying that they did not get something, that they wish to have something, and that they are very sad because of all of this. No smiling faces, but only sad expressions. There is so much of pain in these songs. What happened to songs being sources of entertainment or songs being ways of cheering up oneself ? It is not just about songs though. Even movies are becoming difficult to watch. There is much violence, both physical and verbal. And there are the numerous problems shown on the screen. Movies made specifically for children or the teenagers also have so much negativity. Are we human beings becoming more and more negative? Have we lost the ability to take pleasure in all the small and big things that life has to offer? People talk less and less today, thanks to the general obsession with electronic handheld devices, and even the little that people talk is only about problems and quarrels. Kids have to endure the great suffering and torture of having to watch these fights, arguments, and complaining. That is another thing about the present-day society. Everyone seems to be complaining. If someone has a complaint because of a problem, what should one do? They should go ahead and fix the problem, but people rarely do that. Instead, they just complain. They cry and wail and the sound of all this is so troubling. Is it not the duty of the elders to ensure that kids get a joyous and all-round childhood? Instead of bombarding children with the problems of human life, why cannot the elders or parents be positive about the struggles of life and why cannot they give more and more positive examples of strength, courage, and wisdom? While children are nowadays exposed to all that is negative and sad in life, they are hardly shown role models, who have excelled in many facets of life in spite of having to struggle against all odds. For example, since a child starts understanding things, parents and others around the child warn about strangers and about many other unwanted personalities that one may come across. It is understandable that children should be made aware and protected from harmful persons, but should not a child also be taught about the importance of human relationships? Instead of constantly being afraid of new people, should not a child also be taught to be trusting and give the benefit of doubt to people? An unwanted result of warning children against strangers and predators beyond a certain limit is that children isolate themselves and it becomes almost impossible for them to mix with people. Does an adult, particularly a parent, know the amount of negative information and negative impact that a child gets through the presentday news and media, particularly the electronic media and Internet? It is always this problem, that issue, or some such other disturbing news that the media has to offer. And when the child turns to one’s parents or other adults for some relief from this onslaught of negativity, there is more negativity in the form of chastising advice, having to watch parents quarrel, or worse still, a cold treatment with the parents or adults glued on to electronic screens. All adults should learn to smile and if they already know how to do that, they have to show that on their faces. Those who were kids even a couple of decades ago, had much happier childhood. Life had problems even then, but there was more of contact with persons, more of interactions between family members. Kids loved to play with parents and parents showered their attention and love on their kids. Time spent with kids by adults was much more. And such times were moments of joy. There were chastisements, crying, and all other unpleasant aspects of life, but the moments of joy swept over these moments of despair. About a couple of decades ago, the average kid was not exposed to so much negativity as today. There are two kinds of negativity, one that is spread by the media and the other brought in through the environment. There is so much competition, expectation, and demands in the life of an average child today that the child has no time to think of frivolous things or to be mischievous or doing all other things that children have been normally associated with. It is probably the greatest and most unfortunate effect of seeing sadness all around that children do not behave or sound as children any more; they are so much like adults. The sadness thrust into their lives has shown them that this world is no place for playing, that toys are not much different from pastimes on the Internet or other modes of entertainment for the adults. The strained and sad lives of adults are robbing children of their childhood. What should adults and parents do to ensure that children do not have to get exposed to sadness?
First, they need to avoid being so sad themselves. They should be grateful to all the wonders that life brings us. They need to strive become role models of goodness and happiness and also models of resilience, people who can withstand the onslaught of any miserable suffering and yet cheerfully live with a buoyant spirit. Please don’t be sad. Please don’t flood your environment with negativity. There is much negativity already. We should at least do our mite and put out our ideas of joy and happiness, however little they might be, and spread cheer around. We should live the lives we want others to lead and be models worthy of emulation. Let us move away from the habit of denouncing every little thing and instead let us appreciate even the small achievements of children. Let us encourage them to understand and discover newer vistas of human existence. Let us smile and spread laughter. We should not hamper the free flow of the actions and ideas of children. We should only help them see their path. However, we should not completely leave children to themselves. We should guide and facilitate them to understand the boundaries one needs to keep in one’s life and the choices one needs to make and danger zones one needs to avoid. Though roses have thorns, one could be trained to negotiate one’s way through the thorns and reach the roses without getting hurt. Letting children know the heritage of one’s family, of their community, of their nations, and of humanity as a whole, is a good idea to let some good feeling percolate into their lives. Only such an approach would lead to children not ending up as stressed sad faces.
(An article in Prabuddha Bharata.March, 2019)
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