Blue Whales, Pehredaar, Chotis and 1,2,3

What a sick world we live in, and we don’t realize it! We are surrounded by ‘pervertness’ and perverts because of which we have children being sexually abused by uncles, school teachers and serials like Pehredaar Piya Ki where a 9 year old is married to a 19 year old and they show their suhag raat! People watch this serial without any remorse which is leading to high TRP, isn’t that sickness that this kind of wrong content is being accepted by the audience? And what about the child actor’s mother? How did she allow her son to be used in such inappropriate content? What is this blind and senseless drive to make your child famous, successful and earn money, at what cost? It shocks me because the ‘subtle’ message that is going out to all sexual perverts is that it is acceptable for a child and an adult to have a relationship!!!

Sexual perverts, who rape girls and young women, chase them, hound them, and throw acid on them! We live in this sick world and either have no time to do anything about it or don’t know who to approach for the solution. So we have petitions, and marches and all, but have things changed? And then you have the other abusers- parents and teachers beating, threatening young babies and children. It is only a sick mind that can do all this and not feel remorse.

And how can we forget choti episode! Chotis being cut in the dark of night and spreading like wild fire, is it superstition? Or just a way to get free media attention? Who knows, but the more it is being reported the more it is spreading to other cities. I wonder what would happen if the media just stopped reporting about it? Let the police look into it if it is an ongoing crime. I feel the media should use precious broadcast hours to highlight real crimes and injustice instead of focusing on such choti news!

There is a video going viral on whatsapp of a little child who is being ‘taught’ by her mother/aunt/teacher (no idea) but the video is absolutely shocking and makes you cringe that a woman (where is the so called ‘motherly instinct’?) is threatening, slapping the child, all to make the child learn 1,2,3. The child is seen to be in a complete state of fear, depression and appeals to the woman to ‘please teach with love’ but the woman keeps terrorizing the child. As I watched this video and saw the child’s reaction flitting between violent anger and extreme helplessness, I realized that this child already has its future written for him/her, either he/she will grow up to be a child who will terrorize and abuse others or will grow up in extreme depression and take drugs or commit suicide. A wonderful life lost because of adult sickness.

And then we have teenagers committing self-harm and suicide because of games like Blue Whale. Agreed that teenage is a period when adolescents like the ‘high’ of taking risks but there is something called adult monitoring that parents and teachers should be doing to ensure that teenagers are not falling prey to self damaging habits. It is untreated depression and social alienation that leads to teenagers being addicted to drugs or online games like blue whale.

The common cause of all of these issues is this blind chase of ‘success’ at any cost.  Drilled into children from very young.  “Why didn’t you colour properly?” “Why didn’t you get full marks?” “Why didn’t you get the main role in the school concert?” And then start the comparisons, “your cousin’s handwriting is better than yours”, or “why cant you be good in math like your friend?” “Yash got into Harvard and you…” and ends with making the child bear the weight of your disappointment, “cant you do anything right?”

So when kids don’t get ‘recognition’ they try to get it on online groups, every human being needs ‘belonging’ and when the family, especially the parents and school are unable to do so then they find it in friends and to ‘belong’ they do all that their friends think is ‘cool’. Risk taking, logic, impulse control are all part of the prefrontal lobe- the thinking brain and it is this part of the brain that is not fully developed yet, hence teenagers need a calm, emotionally controlled ‘brain’ that knows how to communicate with them, but sadly we find teenagers brash, rude and tend to be brash, sarcastic and rude to them which drives them away…. to their ‘faceless friends’ on the net or social media.

Attachment is another key issue. Parents are quite attached to children till they turn 5, after that parents feel they ‘lost’ them to friends and so either drift away from them or try to ‘smother-mother’ them, both of which do not end well. It is important for parents to understand each stage of development and keep the ‘bond’ strong with their children, and then they would know when their children need them etc. In most of the Blue Whale cases the parents did not know about the child’s activity on the net. It means conversations and sharing was not there in the relationship because of fear of being shamed or shouted. Attachment is a term least referred to but is the strongest ingredient in the parent-child relationship. I appeal to all parents to have daily conversations with their children about what they see on TV or what is reported in the news, this will help your children see your point of view and will help you see theirs. Please remember that the parent is a child’s first counselor.

And the last culprit- screen parenting! From very early in life we are happy to pacify children, babysit children, and appreciate children with screen time. Children are growing up with listening to ‘screen’ voices more than human voices and no wonder they relate and react more to the screen voice that dictates to them what to do. Its time to move away from screen parenting and scream parenting. Social media is here to stay and we need to stop blaming it, it is a platform that helps in networking and connectivity. Just like we nurture children to understand how to make ‘real’ friends we need to educate them about ‘virtual’ friends too. It is our responsibility to make social media safe for our children. Just like we teach them road safety we need to cultivate ‘net safety’, just like we teach them etiquette we need to teach them ‘netiquette’.

Pehradaar, Blue Whale and the little baby being taught 1,2,3, are a revelation that today our society has lost its moral values.  When morals are lost with it is lost the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and that is what we need to give our children, the ability to choose between right and wrong and not accept wrong because others are accepting it. If we are blaming today’s youth for falling prey to Blue Whale then are not the adults falling prey to Pehredaar Piya Ki kind of serials?

Its time to move away from screen parenting and scream parenting, and time to make attachment and belonging the focus of our parenting and education and not success and failure.