The recent viral clips of a child's behaviour on a popular TV show have sparked intense debate on social media. While social media has been quick in condemning him and his parents, some have questioned the judgemental stand, suggesting that we should be more tolerant. Perhaps the TV channel should not have aired that episode or edited it out.
The truth is, we lack context about this family's circumstances or their parenting efforts. However, this incident highlights a broader pattern worth examining.
The parents of today often grew up under strict discipline, where expectations from children were rigid and punishments swift. In response, many parents created an anti-script and have swung to the opposite extreme, adopting overly permissive approaches—an understandable but problematic overcorrection.
If you are too strict and critical, you will create rebellious kids or blindly obedient children, who will not amount to much. If you are too permissive, that also does not work because you may create brats with a sense of entitlement, and that will not amount to much in life unless they learn from the hard knocks of life they get. So, as parents, what do we need to do?
Have a sense of balance. Parenting is not only about nurturing the child unconditionally but also giving the child a structure in terms of appropriate behaviour, value structure, and respect for heritage and traditions. The parents owe this not only to themselves and their children but also to the nation as a whole because we need well-adjusted, contributing citizens in the country, not children who are rebellious or blindly obedient or children who are brats or with a sense of entitlement, but responsible children who have an understanding of values, traditions and heritage and, at the same time, are contemporary enough to live in today's world.
So, parenting has a very spiritual side to it, including introducing the idea of God/Ishvara to the children in terms of their understanding. That will give them the much-needed stability in life.
The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com
