Loss Of Childhood Innocence – Are We Pressurizing Our Children Too Much?

A few days back, I was watching an “elimination episode” of a kid’s dance reality show on television. And I clearly remember feeling uncomfortable seeing the reaction of kids who got eliminated. Embarrassment, defeat, hurt, sadness, and disappointment were some of the emotions that were hiding behind their tears. It got me thinking. Are we failing to understand our kids? Are we indirectly becoming responsible for the loss of childhood innocence?

Is putting too much pressure on them to excel and stand out in a crowd, taking the fun out of everything they do? Are we making our kids a bunch of stressed, competitive rats? Sadly, the answer to each of these questions is yes.

Factors Behind The Loss Of Childhood Innocence

1. Preparing The Perfect Kid Prototype

As soon as the kid’s born, most of the parents already have an image of what they see the kid doing in the future. This infection of “deciding what your kid will do, 10 seconds after he’s born” is particularly prevalent in Asian parents.

They want their kids to be nothing but the best – the best footballer, best doctor, best dancer, best athlete, best engineer, best pilot, etc. It’s like the kids are born in a home where their existence is solely defined by how good they are at something. Kids from a young age are made to join tuitions and classes to excel at a particular skill.

The thought that it’s either perfection or nothing at all, is fed into their impressionable heads. They begin to see everything as a competition. The tagline of this perfectionist upbringing is generally – “If you don’t win, then nobody will value you. You won’t have a bright future and you will lead an unhappy life.

Preparing the perfect kid prototype is fuelled by what the kid won’t or can’t be rather than what he can. Therefore, the foundation of this vicious cycle of perfection itself is based on negativity. This negative ideology is majorly responsible for the loss of childhood innocence.

2. Treating Kids Like Mutual Funds

Poor kid comes back from school and he has a line up of tuition appointments that’d put a busy industrialist’s schedule to shame. Studies, swimming, sports, dancing, singing, handwriting improvement, public speaking, painting, calligraphy, martial art, playing a musical instrument – you name it, and the kid’s already undergoing training to learn it.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with making kids learn something. But the problem lies in the motive behind it. Making them learn a skill, only so that they can monetize the skill in the future or make a career out of it is plain selfish on the part of the parents.

It’s like a sword constantly hanging over the kid’s head to yield some return for the investment that his parents have done on him. We, therefore, instill this thought in the kid’s head that anything that he does for enjoyment is a sheer waste of his precious time as the activity isn’t productive enough. At the end of the day, we need to stop treating our kids like mutual funds.

3. Kids Maturing Too Early Due To Parental Pressure

As an actor, I regularly go and give auditions at casting offices. There I see 4 and 5-year-old kids standing in a queue with their parents, waiting to give an audition. If a kid fumbles or makes an error while delivering a line and doesn’t get a second take to correct his mistake, I’ve seen parents scolding their kids.

What a parent sees is a failed audition but what that kid sees in him is a failure. His little brain is processing competition, failure, the desperation to excel, and the pressure to perform at an age where he’s just supposed to be a playful carefree kid, away from any kind of stress. We’re making little kids experience adult emotions and then wondering where their innocence has disappeared!

I’ve seen kids on reality shows sharing how they are the sole source of income in their families. Now such circumstances shape their psyche in a way that the fun or joy of childhood goes out of the window. To bear the humiliation of losing in public or even further – on national television isn’t “child’s play”.

We, as adults, are so conscious of our image and standing in the society that we hide our failures and our vulnerable side from people. But we expect kids to accept their failure in public. We expect kids to quickly move on from failure and assume that they’re fine. Well, no they’re not. They didn’t ask for this!

As it is, the internet is pushing the younger generation towards maturity a bit too early. Add to that the burning desire of the parents to make their kids stand out in a crowd, and we get a world where the loss of childhood is inevitable.

Bringing Back The Childhood Innocence

1. Avoid Convenient Parenting

You must’ve noticed that some parents leave their kids – either with nursemaids or with expensive gadgets so that they can attend a meeting and work in peace. It’s understandable that work is important but not to the extent that you compromise on parenting and have no time to talk to your kids.

Such parents just stuff their kid’s schedule with one tuition/training after another and satisfy every materialistic need of their kid to cover their own guilt of poor parenting. The kid, as a result, is more attached to the gadgets than his own parents. And these gadgets, in partnership with the internet, rob him of his childhood innocence.

Parents have to stop this style of parenting as it creates a communication gap between their kids and them. It leaves the kid feeling insecure, uncared for, vulnerable, and wondering if he has anybody who’ll listen to him. So talk to your kid, get to know what he’s feeling, be sensitive to his needs, and stay receptive.

Remember that if your kid is not able to share the little things with you when he’s young, then he’s definitely not sharing the bigger issues with you when he gets older. Don’t blame him later for not opening up to you and having a detached attitude. Instead, spend time with your child and get to know him. Make him feel that you are there for him, no matter what. That’ll make your child feel confident, protected, and secure.

2. Stop Pressurizing Your Child To Be Perfect

Stop pressurizing your child to be the epitome of perfection at whatever he does. Let him be if he doesn’t want to be the best or even a jack of all trades for that matter.

You wanting your child to be the centre of attention in your social circle for his achievements is your wish based on your perception of what a perfect child should be. Don’t make your children suffer to live up to your expectations.

Let your child choose a field that he fancies and has a natural inclination for, without making it a rat-race for him in his head. Let your kid enjoy the game rather than making it a do-or-die affair for him.

Your child’s income-earning potential or his probability to find the right match for his marriage doesn’t depend on whether he gets medals in whichever competition he participates during primary school. Save those parameters of judgement for when your kid matures and turns into an adult.

At least then he’ll be mature enough to understand and explain to you that the concept of “perfection in life” is beautifully garnished bullshit.

3. Let Your Child Enjoy The Beauty Of Doing Nothing

Do you remember children from your generation? They didn’t seem to be as stressed about life as today’s children are. And they weren’t suffering from the kinds of diseases that the children of today have unearthed, thanks to extreme pressure, stress, and the loss of childhood.

And it’s all because children today are boxed. They aren’t having real fun. Enjoyment seems to be the last thing on their agenda. Whatever they do has to have a motive behind it. A motive to extract something – excellence, victory, or appreciation. And that motive creates pressure, which in turn causes stress.

Children today are stuck to their gadgets and have forgotten the little pleasures of playing in open spaces, with real people. All they do is go to classes so that they can perfect some skill which they can later use to create a career around. What that does is that it takes away the beauty of doing nothing.

Childhood memories are usually made of beautiful nothings. A little child doesn’t need to know about time management. He needs to be doing whatever he wishes to, without being made to feel guilty about it. So let your child roam around freely and enjoy himself, wastage of time be damned!

Conclusion

Childhood is the most precious, enjoyable, and impressionable phase in a person’s life. How we treat children during their childhood determines, to a large extent, how they’ll treat people around them in the future. It shapes their thoughts and moulds their personality.

So let’s not rob the children of their childhood innocence with our perceptions and unrealistic expectations. Let the children just enjoy this glorious phase of their lives to the fullest. After all, when they grow into mature adults, wouldn’t you want them to remember their childhood with a pleasant smile on their faces?

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