Peer Pressure Makes Teens Rebels, Parents Rue Lack Of Communication.
‘Kids will be kids’ has become an obsolete expression now. Not because it has aged into a cliche, but because kids are, well, no longer kids. That’s when 16-year-olds party till 3 am, 14-year-olds guzzle beer at birthday parties and nine-year-olds chat online. And that’s when generation gap is no longer the phrase that bothers parents the most.
Because, as more and more urban parents try to strike a friendship with their teenaged children, the two words that keep haunting them are peer pressure. For peers, as it has turned out in Adnan Patrawala’s murder case, can cause the most unforeseen and dire consequences sometimes. While teenagers strut from a tuition class to tennis practice, cafe meetups to parties, parents have to use all options to keep a tab on their activities, acquaintances, pocket money, cellphone talk time and internet usage besides, of course, routine matters like academics.
They would rather listen to their friends than their parents. They don’t want to be left out of what their friends are doing, says Supriya Gujral, a stayat-home mother of two, fretting that her 14-year-old daughter loves to wear new clothes, click her pictures on her cellphone and upload them online. Gujral’s son, younger to his sister by five years, is a regular visitor to chat sites. ‘‘While we have blocked porn sites, it’s difficult to know who they’re chatting with,’’ says Gujral, who visits the online history on her children’s computer to keep track of the websites they have visited. But then, the kids delete the history too.
Nivedita Chatterjee recalls how when she used the childlock facility to lock some cartoon channels which her 10-year-old son had got hooked to, he retaliated by locking some popular channels that she and her husband were fond of watching.
While internet usage bothers most parents, monitoring it gets more difficult when parents don’t know their way about the computer. ‘‘When my son chats, I don’t have a choice, because I’m not computer savvy,’’ says Arti Jain, the mother of a 15-year-old boy.
Blogs of two Delhi students talk of scrapbooks and headgirls in the same font as admitting having made out. One of the 17-year-old girls claims she got her first kiss at 14, while the other talks of ‘‘a kiss in the rain as the one I’ll never forget.’’
While the kids want to have a good time, the parents are left to their own devices to find out exactly how good will it turn out. Jain recalls a birthday party at a restaurant where the host mother objected to her daughter’s friends ordering beer. The 15-year-olds retorted, ‘‘Aunty, we’ll pay for it.’’
Kids these days just inform, not ask you, about their plans, Gujral says. Her daughter once attended a birthday party where the teenager spent Rs 8,000 on treating four friends, and buying a top worth Rs 2,800 for his girlfriend.
Jain’s son has admitted he tried smoking but hated it. And her husband lets the 15-year-old take a few sips out of his glass once a while, so that he doesn’t experiment outside home till he comes of age. It’s not as if parents are completely oblivious of what teens are up to. And most of them try to lend a sympathetic ear or even support them in difficult situations. ‘‘I know some of my son’s friends are dating,’’ says Madhvi Swarup, mother of a 14-year-old. “I have told him that as long as he talks to me about everything, its fine.’’
“Talking is the most parents can do to know their child. You can’t dominate them,” says Divya Gurwara, who has two sons aged 17 and 16. And yet, no amount of bonding can be enough. Guwara has met most of her son’s friends and their parents, and does not sleep until her sons get back home, even if it’s 3 am. But her elder son did a rebel act once when she tried to stop him from visiting some place. He didn’t pick up his phone for two hours.
But such incidents are the least of the worries for parents. ‘‘My major worry is that a situation shouldn’t arise when they get into wrong company,’’ says Gurwara. Ensuring that is an incessant job, where one can’t afford to bat an eyelid. ‘Mothers have eyes at the back of their head’ seems to be yet another old phrase. Now they need several pairs of all senses — working all the time.
Because, as more and more urban parents try to strike a friendship with their teenaged children, the two words that keep haunting them are peer pressure. For peers, as it has turned out in Adnan Patrawala’s murder case, can cause the most unforeseen and dire consequences sometimes. While teenagers strut from a tuition class to tennis practice, cafe meetups to parties, parents have to use all options to keep a tab on their activities, acquaintances, pocket money, cellphone talk time and internet usage besides, of course, routine matters like academics.
They would rather listen to their friends than their parents. They don’t want to be left out of what their friends are doing, says Supriya Gujral, a stayat-home mother of two, fretting that her 14-year-old daughter loves to wear new clothes, click her pictures on her cellphone and upload them online. Gujral’s son, younger to his sister by five years, is a regular visitor to chat sites. ‘‘While we have blocked porn sites, it’s difficult to know who they’re chatting with,’’ says Gujral, who visits the online history on her children’s computer to keep track of the websites they have visited. But then, the kids delete the history too.
Nivedita Chatterjee recalls how when she used the childlock facility to lock some cartoon channels which her 10-year-old son had got hooked to, he retaliated by locking some popular channels that she and her husband were fond of watching.
While internet usage bothers most parents, monitoring it gets more difficult when parents don’t know their way about the computer. ‘‘When my son chats, I don’t have a choice, because I’m not computer savvy,’’ says Arti Jain, the mother of a 15-year-old boy.
Blogs of two Delhi students talk of scrapbooks and headgirls in the same font as admitting having made out. One of the 17-year-old girls claims she got her first kiss at 14, while the other talks of ‘‘a kiss in the rain as the one I’ll never forget.’’
While the kids want to have a good time, the parents are left to their own devices to find out exactly how good will it turn out. Jain recalls a birthday party at a restaurant where the host mother objected to her daughter’s friends ordering beer. The 15-year-olds retorted, ‘‘Aunty, we’ll pay for it.’’
Kids these days just inform, not ask you, about their plans, Gujral says. Her daughter once attended a birthday party where the teenager spent Rs 8,000 on treating four friends, and buying a top worth Rs 2,800 for his girlfriend.
Jain’s son has admitted he tried smoking but hated it. And her husband lets the 15-year-old take a few sips out of his glass once a while, so that he doesn’t experiment outside home till he comes of age. It’s not as if parents are completely oblivious of what teens are up to. And most of them try to lend a sympathetic ear or even support them in difficult situations. ‘‘I know some of my son’s friends are dating,’’ says Madhvi Swarup, mother of a 14-year-old. “I have told him that as long as he talks to me about everything, its fine.’’
“Talking is the most parents can do to know their child. You can’t dominate them,” says Divya Gurwara, who has two sons aged 17 and 16. And yet, no amount of bonding can be enough. Guwara has met most of her son’s friends and their parents, and does not sleep until her sons get back home, even if it’s 3 am. But her elder son did a rebel act once when she tried to stop him from visiting some place. He didn’t pick up his phone for two hours.
But such incidents are the least of the worries for parents. ‘‘My major worry is that a situation shouldn’t arise when they get into wrong company,’’ says Gurwara. Ensuring that is an incessant job, where one can’t afford to bat an eyelid. ‘Mothers have eyes at the back of their head’ seems to be yet another old phrase. Now they need several pairs of all senses — working all the time.
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