Could more knowledge being imparted to our youth protect them from tragic events that are in the papers every week? They are read, commented on, and then dismissed. Rarely do people think that anything bad could possibly happen to someone they know due to a lack of knowledge. Society seems to think that while things happen to people in books and on the news, it could never, ever happen to them. It is this inability to realise that people everywhere think the same way about the bad things that, perhaps, makes tragic accidents happen more often. If we take the example of “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry”, a book set in 1930’s Mississippi, where racism is everywhere. The main character, a black girl named Cassie, has not been told that there is any difference between white pole and black people. She doesn’t know about the situation in which she is living in. this leads to trouble when she demands that the owner of a store in a town called Strawberry, continues to serve her, and not, a white family.
Parental responsibility is a key issue. Parents must take more care with their children and what they tell them. Not telling children some things about life is a modern idea. There is a sense that parents are too embarrassed themselves to talk about some issues. Yet, parents can not just leave it to teachers to teach their children, they must take responsibility. It is far better for children to hear certain things from their parents than from elsewhere. Also teachers may have a certain expectation of what basic things children should be told by their parents. Children find it very hard to tell their teachers that they do not understand things, as if the rest of the class does understand; the child does not want to appear to be different. Sometimes, when children fall behind, they start to hang around, with more “undesirable” characters, and a gang culture develops, as has been appearing more and more in newspapers over the last few years. It is possible that children end up being told things by their peers in these gangs that are not appropriate nor allow them to feel good about themselves. While a parent always wants to believe the best of their child, sometimes they are blinded by what they want to see, and fail to tell their children to start to do things for themselves, to care about what they do in their life. It is not easy to think badly of ones children, and have no hope for their future.
While it is important that people make sure that children are well educated in how the world works, the happiness of the child is just as important, if not more so. The key is to have a healthy balance, and to have well rounded children. People often say that ignorance is bliss, and maybe it is true. However while ignorance in children will probably not lead to anything serious, ignorance in adults can lead to more serious incidents. Surely at some level we should be treating children, in some ways at least, the same as adults. Children are different to each other; they will react to different pieces of information in different ways. If parents know their child well, then this will not be problem, as they will know when their child is ready.
It is clear that what children are told is very important. There are different things that one can tell children of different ages. One should take into account how quickly the child is likely to come into contact with a topic, which maybe difficult to talk about. One needs to think about what knowledge one would like a child to have at a certain age and what would be the minimum amount. When children are ready to know something, they will ask. It is then up to the parent on what to tell them
The way that children are told information is just as important as what it is that they are being told. One could, but should not, just sit a child down and tell them everything. However, neither can one leave telling children things until the last moments possible, before they will need to understand a certain fact. There is a key difference that must be understood, between answering a question and just “splurging” information. The most popular school of thought encountered is that one should tell children what they want to know, but add little extra bits to it that will get them ready for more information. It is a common belief, that if the child is ready to ask the question, they are old enough to hear the answer. This sounds good in theory but when it comes down to telling one’s own children, it becomes much, much harder. There is an over riding sense to protect the young, and so even when parents know that they should tell their children something, they do not always do so.
One reason why parents might not try and tell their children something is that, they themselves do not have the emotional maturity to deal with it. Parents need to stop making up excuses as to why they have refrained from imparting certain knowledge to their children.
So the question is, does society want to raise a generation, that is blind to the wrong of the world. Or does society give what its youth really needs? People that can think and adapt when they need to, that are straight forward and precise when they need to be, are surely an addition to society t. One would be naive to expect all parents to think that telling some things to their children is a good idea. Of course some parents want to protect. It is, however, when the “protection” from the outside world runs out, and the children are hit with the hard truth that damage is done. Finding a mid-point between the two will vary from parents to parent. They should not be afraid of telling their children something. If a parent knows their child, and what they are like, it is unlikely that they are going to go wrong in the way in which they tell them, or for that matter what they tell them. Parents should not be influenced by society and what it deems acceptable all the time. Some children develop faster than others. Each parent should act according to their knowledge of the child.