Children of this generation are not as resilient as the previous ones, one of the reasons is that they get depressed so easily and parents must take a fair share of the blame for the way they raised them. In the current fast paced and instant gratification world, parents do not give their kids a chance to work hard to achieve something that is why when parents say “No” they do not know how to take it’ with no coping skills and low self-esteem will so lead to depression and fall back on technology and gadgets engaging in social media such as intstagram, Facebook etc. which offers temporary relief for solace instead of turning to people as they have not developed any lasting relationship due to lack of social skills and interaction with others.
This is the millennium generation for those born after 1984 are tough to manage and they are accused of being entitled, narcissistic, self-interested, unfocussed and lazy. This millennium generation was told they were special all the time and they can have anything they want just because they want it and not have to work for it. Parents have the attitude that since they were deprived “I did not have it as a child so my child will have everything I didn’t”. In this current fast paced world of instant gratification, almost anything can be ordered online and delivered in a few hours to days, movies, TV programmes can be downloaded.
That is why when parents say “No’ the children do not know how to take and in a minute their entire self-esteem is shattered, leading to high incidence of substance abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies, further compounded by increasing technology and engagement with social media and cell phones releases a chemical dopamine so that one feels good to get a text message. Dopamine or ‘feel good’ chemical is also released when smoking, drinking or gambling, that is why these are highly addictive.
All this can be attributed to poor parenting skills. Parents need to take a fair share of the blame for the way they raised them. Parenting the new generation of smart children takes involves of set of skills and techniques that are age appropriate and how best to deal with crisis in each developmental stage so that children grow up with confidence, high self-esteem and coping skills to overcome stress they face without resorting to substance abuse, gambling etc. Children need to be taught patience, not just have everything they want, and that they need to earn their privileges and that some things that really matter like love, or job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self-confidence for which there are no apps, skill sets that need to be developed over time, is arduous, long and difficult.
Parenting today’s children in the right way requires skills and certain techniques applied at the right time in the right way reaps rich dividends in raising healthy, happy, self-confident children who are the future leaders and pillars of the society. The millennial generation raised with almost no parenting, are now parents themselves are clueless on raising their own children hence to important of being knowledgeable and equipped with information on how best to effectively parent their child based on scientific