ALTHOUGH the city has it’s attractions, it also has its pressures and temptations, especially for teenagers.
One of the major differences I have noted is that the teenagers in Zululand are generally more innocent than those in the city.
In the metropolitan area, particularly in the more affluent suburbs, teenagers are pressurised to wear labelled clothing, have their hair coloured, straightened or curled to perfection and ‘smeer’ on the make-up, all set to hit the clubs they should not be going near.
The city teens want only top-of-the-range laptops/phones/ipads , NOW!
They swan around the malls with their parents’ credit cards, and know little about the real world and its problems, although they think they do. They demand instant gratification. Fast food, fast texting, fast lives and they are only 14 years old .
Having been exposed to the often unrealistic or idealistic TV programmes, movies, the Internet and so on, they feel age-ready, equipped and mature to venture into the murky waters of young adulthood, but emotionally, at least, they are far from ready.
Parents can be blamed only in part because they, themselves, feel overwhelmed at the advances of technology and the rate and direction their children are growing up in.
The old style of parenting in this new world has to change to keep up with the kids. The kids assume superiority as they are natural users of technology, and often have to explain how devices work to parents.
Marketing people say children have more say on how the family budget is spent than before, and choose where the family goes on holiday, the make of car the parents buy and so on. The result is children are becoming more autocratic.
It’s time to teach the modern parent some of the old school ways which provides security and allows children to be children for longer.
The bottom line is that children are growing up too quickly, and they need to, to keep up with their world and peers. All we can do to try and keep them grounded is to instill manners and values in them from early on, and hope these penetrate enough they will practice them on instinct.
