At a recent forum, the issue of freethinking and independent behavior among our youth came up. Some parents were bemoaning the trend of robot-like behavior in the speech and thought processes of their young, especially as so much of this behavior was perceived negatively. Our society has undergone so much transformation in the past three decades, some for the better and some for the worse, that it now looks to its youth with questions. With more than two-thirds of the populace barely past their teens, have we taken the right steps to forge a better generation? As parents, the bulk of responsibility for the behavior of our youth must rest squarely on our shoulders. No government laws or Shoura Council legislation can be designed to enforce the kind of upbringing that breeds positive results. Parents play a major role in this evolving struggle. And parents are often at fault. One of the elements that serve to teach our children is the ability to foster the right to ask and question why. Aside from neglect or preoccupation in other matters, here too parents have failed their children. It may be expedient to blame the educational system for such faults, and God knows there are many faults there to be examined and questioned. However, this failure often begins at home. It starts with not encouraging the freethinking spirit within your child. The total submission to authority that is drummed into them from their very childhood may be right or wrong. While respect for elders and the learned is a good thing, it should not be cast in concrete. For elders, like our youth, can be misguided. They could have undefined agendas that may not translate into a positive source of inspiration. If the behavior today of our young is any indicator of our ills, quite a few of them may have fallen into such a trap. Perhaps parents have allowed others to do the thinking for them and are victims in this dilemma themselves. But to deny their children the right to question, the right to ask, the right to challenge what they perceive is wrong will not yield changes for the better. And in the dynamism of the world today, we must learn to swim on our own and quickly or we shall drown. Let us not suppress these young minds with holier-than-thou lectures, or with sermons from when time began. Let us deal with them in real time and discuss real issues with them. Educate them to live as citizens of this planet, to go beyond our borders, to seek knowledge wherever it may be, and to accept that as earth's citizens, we are all not the same, and that none is to be blindly judged as better than the other. And finally, they should understand that differences between people are not life threatening. It is when we shower the young with such support, that they will learn to define their positive roles. A freethinking society does not start from nowhere. Authoritarian rules in the upbringing of children have no place at home. These are critical times as bands of misfits have arisen and created mayhem in the region and in other parts of the world. They should be called what they are: terrorists whose agenda is evil. Our youth must learn to understand the difference and be prepared with the tools we as parents and society have provided to shun such ideology and meet such wickedness with absolute rejection. — The author can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
