20 Apr 2008 Erkelenz, Germany
Category: Western culture
We went to the street fair in the town today. There were carousels and stands with food. While we were watching Carolin on the carousel, we saw a boy and a girl, both about twelve years old, standing near us and smoking cigarettes. This kind of scene you can see very often here and I feel sad about this. Teenagers, not even fifteen years old, sitting outside and drinking beer. Sometimes I have heard that thirteen year old girls come home from school and are drunk. Why is it like this?
I feel that the parents need to feel more responsible for that. In this age young people haven't learned yet what is bad or good. In the teenage time the mind is developing and they need some guidance, some good influence and some control. Otherwise they harm their body and mind. They may realize it years later but until then a lot of damage is already done. The parents need to set limits.
In India the western culture is bringing this problem, too, but it is not that bad yet. There is still so much respect for the parents that it cannot be this bad. I appreciate the freedom in the Western world very much. However sometimes I feel it is on the wrong place.
I would like to tell my own story from that time. When I was fourteen I had already been traveling with my father and alone to give lectures and seminars. I was away and in other cities very often so that I could not attend school regularly. I was in tenth grade in that time and one day when I came to school after some time that I had been in another town, the teachers asked me why I did not leave the school. They said that I was anyway so busy that I could hardly be there. I went home and told my father about this and my father gave me this reply: It is your choice how you want to live your life! If you choose to continue learning then you stay and go to school. If you want to continue your work, your lectures, then you leave the school. You can imagine that this was a very big decision for a fourteen year old boy. I am so thankful that my parents gave me the freedom of this decision and I knew in either way they would support me. So I chose to leave school and I am so happy to have made this decision in full freedom.
Here it happens often that the parents put pressure on a child because they want the child to fulfill their own dreams. The father might have the wish that his son becomes doctor. That's why the son has to be good in school and study medicine although he would have liked to be musician or carpenter. Maybe a mother wanted to be a famous singer but did not and now her daughter should realize this dream and has to go to singing lessons which she does not like at all. Where is the freedom in this? On one hand they are putting their child under this pressure and on the other hand it is fine if the young boy or girl goes out until late, smoke, drink and perhaps even takes drugs. Here is some control missing. There should be freedom, no, there has to be freedom. But in the right way, at the right time. I have many thoughts about this topic and I will continue writing them down tomorrow.
We had a nice fire ceremony in front of the house and soon I will go into meditation for the distance healing. Ramona has prepared the pictures and I will make the connection with all participants wherever they may be on this planet.
Tags:: Children, Expectations, Western culture, Freedom, Decision, Parenting, Alcohol, Pressure, Responsibility, Smoking, Teenagers
5 Comments
Posted By Swami Balendu
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Drinking especially is a big problem in the UK as people are kept under such tight control when its suddenly legal they binge. It isn't half as much a problem in other European countries like France or Spain where families are more relaxed about alcohol earlier, and so people grow up having a better respect for it.
Reply By Hamish on April 26, 2013 04:36
When parents are strict, they think they can avoid, that their children do bad things. But education doesn't mean to forbid everything. What is more important, is education. This can be about addictive drugs, but also about interhuman relations and sex. If they know the effects and details about these things, they won't try to find it out so quick.
Reply By Mirela on August 23, 2012 03:16
I know lots of children who have gone behind their parents backs and smoked, but their parents were loving and in the end the kids just didn't want to anymore. I was scared of my parents, I never smoked but I definitely do now. control is an easy word to toss around but it's an impossible thing to achieve. I think the best we can hope for is being an example and using the very real power of love. Then again I've never had kids so I only have my opinions in theory. I don't know how it would be.
Reply By Timothy Jones on December 28, 2010 01:36
I think children should be able to drink. smoking... it's just so harmful, i'm not sure what I think about that.
Reply By Sally on November 08, 2010 06:41
There is a great deal here to think about. I am at a loss for words.
Reply By Sushi on October 22, 2010 08:25
Today was the last day of the school year 11/12. The children got their report cards, the olde...
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