How broken families, Internet disturb childlike innocence

Devanshi* is just like any other cherubic 11-year-old, with chubby cheeks and an angelic voice. Today, she confides that she is excited about her sleepover with friends. So are they having a pajama party, you ask? “No no, that is so childish” she says. “My friends and I will have dinner and then watch porn,” she giggles. It apparently is a common practice these days for  many children of her age, if she is to be believed.

The Internet revolution, along with rapid urbanisation of the city, has brought in a new set of problems, but the most disconcerting are those faced by children these days, particularly ones in the 10 to 15 age group. Broken families, parents’ busy careers, peer pressure and stiff and intense competition on the academic front have lead to a whole big set of issues, including greater material demands (for branded products, expensive games, and the likes), sexual intimacy at a young age, drug and alcohol indulgence, and porn addiction among others.

Consulting psychiatrist Biswaroop Dey, says, “Smoking (especially among young girls), attempted suicides, drug addiction and alcoholism are the most common. With both parents working, parental control is negligible, and with personal computers and cellphones, Internet pornography is another concern. The most common addictions include those to the cough syrup Corex, and sleeping pills. Greater academic competition is the prime cause of suicides.”

“Many international schools, which charge exorbitant fees, have come up in the city. The students here stay away from parents and often get huge sums as pocket money. With little monitoring and control, a lot of this money is spent on alcohol,” adds Dey.

He says children have sexual experiences at a young age because of the images and stories they see in the media. “Sex columns in newspapers are the worst. They should be banned. They are terribly inappropriate for schoolchildren,” he adds.
Parents’ guilty conscience, according to him, is also responsible for a lot of these evils, since they compensate for the lack of time they spend with their children by indulging them excessively and fulfilling all their materialistic demands, no matter how extravagant.

Beautician Soni Gandhi, who has a 14-year-old son, feels that television and malls are the biggest factors responsible for children becoming more demanding. “My son’s demands mostly centre around video games, which are incredibly costly, along with wanting to eat at expensive restaurants,” she says, adding that when he meets his friends in their housing society and hears of their travels to different locations, he starts demanding the same from her.

Prakash Rao, who is an account director at Xebec Communications has two daughters aged 16 and 10. His 16-year-old is TV actress Vaishnavi Rao, who plays the role of Renu on the show Bhagyavidhata. She also models for Fair and Lovely and Maybelline cosmetics. “Competition these days is incredibly intense. Every other day, there are tests and exams at school, with the pressure to outperform their peers. Our parents hardly knew which class we were in!” he exclaims.

About concerns like smoking or drinking, Prakash says that he isn’t bothered on the front. “My father was in the army, and offering guests a drink is the army style of entertaining. So, we’ve always had alcohol at home. My elder daughter says that if she ever feels like sampling alcohol, she’ll just ask for some, and drink with our consent,” he says.

Teachers, who spend the most amount of time with children, deal with their issues by engaging in open dialogue and discussion with them. Sharmista Guha, a teacher at The Bishop’s Co-ed School, says that the biggest responsibility of a teacher is to make children see the right path, without being judgmental and making them feel guilty. “Children these days are bombarded with images and material that are highly unsuitable for someone at an impressionable age. Can we shelter them from these? No, we can’t. But we can surely counsel them to make the right choices. I tell my kids that once you’ve made a choice, you have to handle the consequences. There is no running away from them. So, make your choices sensibly,” she advises.

“We often give moral lectures at school, where we tell children that being attracted to someone of the opposite sex is perfectly normal, but there is an age and time to experiment with options,” Guha continues. She also witnesses rising cases of children coming from broken homes, who’re often scarred by the experience. “We try to channel a child’s energies positively in creative pursuits, so that he can apply himself in these and get rid of his angst,” she says.

* Some names have been changed to protect identities