Don't blame kids for everything

Unruly children, street kids that shout abuse and then run, the firecracker brigade that wakes you up in the early hours of the morning then stops you from sleeping at night -- and we ask why! Why don't they have any manners? Why don't parents control their kids? Where is the discipline and the respect?

I would say to those questions, "why do we make such grown-up statements when the answers are perhaps fairly obvious?"

You can teach your children manners at an early age and these will hold firm until schooling begins. With schooling comes the mixing of children, and with the mixing comes a playful defiance. That is quite normal, as our children are growing up. But as they get older our answers to their questions become more difficult to justify.

Their young minds are obedient and controllable, but from 12 years onward they become streetwise and seek their own independence. Not only that, but they learn very quickly, more often because they must survive in a rather harsh environment. It's "dog eat dog" out there. It is this demanding and stressful environment that begins to greatly influence the thinking of the child, thus the parents become secondary and not really in control.

What does the Indonesian environment offer children? Drugs and sex for sure, then street fights and petty theft, and goodness knows what else goes on when the sun goes down. They are growing up in a climate that offers them very little in the way of job opportunities, unless of course you are happy to be a zombie, willing to work six days a week for all of Rp 250,000 a month. This is OK for a while, but offers the young no real life or opportunity, only a pittance of a salary in a job that is repetitive and boring. "Better than nothing," people will say -- well is that a good answer? I don't think so.

With 40 million unemployed and over a million youngsters not attending school at all, parents now face a rather difficult honest reply. The kids just want something that is worthwhile and interesting. So, grown-ups need to provide that opportunity. If they don't, kids will hit the streets, as there is nothing else for them to do.

DAVID WALLIS

Medan, North Sumatra