Someone needs to do research into the correlation between how children were raised in the past (like free-range chicken) and their better resistance to NCDs (non-communicable diseases) compared to today’s phone/TV/home-work raised child and their susceptibility to NCDs.
Probably that research is even already out; someone share it widely please. It is concerning how many children as young as eight, are being diagnosed with diabetes, not to mention depression!
When it comes to teenagers, I think two in five teenagers I know, have had a session with a therapist at some point, because they were depressed, self-harming, harbouring suicidal thoughts, or the like. What is going on? Why can’t our children handle stress at all?
Even in church, young girls and boys are approaching pastors for help and counseling because they are depressed, angry with God, or they simply cannot cope with the fast pace of life. My teenage nephew recently asked to be picked from school, because he needed‘time-out’ and felt at break point.
Luckily, the parents and school took him seriously and complied. When he got home, he asked to go to church for a session with his pastor, where they spoke in confidence, but we watched in confusion as tears poured down his face as he talked about what was plaguing him.
Luckily, the talk and prayer helped and he returned to school. I am seeing so many teenagers of both sexes going through this. For some it is pressures of passing with good grades, for others it is issues with body confidence, and others are responding to bullying.
One Ugandan teenager in the diaspora even committed suicide after being bullied. So, what did our parents do for us, that we are not doing for our children? I can only think of how much we were allowed to play and just be children. Even at school.
Today’s obsession with good grades is giving us broken, socially inept little Einsteins. All they know is how to talk to their virtual friends on those tablets that babysit them, and fear the feel of grass on their feet.
But we can be intentional and herd our children back to being more mindful of the elements, more prayerful and playful as demands their ages and more exposed to healthy avenues to vent all that energy. Otherwise, we are poisoning them slowly; ironically, with opulence.