Is the Young Generation Really Able to Enjoy Childhood?

-By Muskan Bhatnagar

Childhood is the best phase of one's life. The phase of life where there is no stress, no worries, no sorrows, but only enjoyment, innocence, and joy. Every time you recall those free happy days, all you'd wish is to rewind your life and relive those moments. Right?

Remember those weird yet fun outdoor games that we used to play all day long? Those little fights with friends? Crying over the smallest scratches we would get while playing? And how a bar of chocolate could give us all the happiness in this world? Those happy days are now long gone.

Nowadays, the idea of childhood has completely changed. Seeing parents forcing their kids into tuition classes at the tender age of 5 or 6 completely surprises me. Parents are so busy in their schedules that they tend to think that their kid might not be able to grasp everything at school. And due to lack of time and attention, they enroll their children into tuition classes at a very young age.

The parents are not wrong when they say that primary classes are the base of higher studies and hence they provide extra tutoring to their kids. But then, isn't nursey class just too early for a student to compromise on playing and attend tuitions? After all, that is exactly what a student has to do after completing primary school. What is the need to burden kids with bookish knowledge at an age this young? Neither alphabets nor numbers are so tough. Studying in school is enough for a primary school kid even if the parents are not able to pay requisite attention to their ward's studies.

Such decisions might hinder the child's playtime which is very important during early childhood. Why has it turned so necessary to push your child into academic competition since the beginning of childhood? Why do parents want their kids to score the first rank in the first standard? How is it gonna help in the future? After all, academic excellence in primary classes doesn't ensure good academic performance in later years.

I have come across kids who've been studying all day, all night since the start of their schooling, attending all subject tuitions for hours, then attending co-curricular classes as well. Don't you think that childhood has been destroyed of a kid like this?

Parents need to understand that providing kids with luxurious lifestyles and all possible facilities isn't called good parenting because at the end of the day you've destroyed the innocence, pure joy, and the childhood fun of the kid. Kids nowadays don't experience the purity of childghood innocence, the burden-free playtimes, and the carefree mischiefs of childhood.

They've been exposed to academic competition and the race to achieve the highest marks, at such an early age that they have to compromise on every other thing. The parents have also become so careful that they don't completely allow kids to have fun or to play outdoors. The fear of getting physically hurt stops parents from sending their kids to play as carelessly as the previous generation did.

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Seeing kids miss out on the happiest and the most carefree phase of their life saddens me. Studies are no doubt one of the most important aspects of life, but that never meant that it is more important than enjoying life.

Adulthood and teenage years are hard phases of life, most of the time. Adolescents often face many difficulties, and adulthood has its own problems. The only carefree and stress-free part of a person's life is childhood. After all, school life never comes back and there is no friendship as pure as the school friendships. Then why are we killing today's generation's childhood?

Let your child explore new things out of the bookish world, let them play more study less, let them play rough, let them become strong on their own, let them find subjects of their interest, let them make countless of unforgettable memories, let them make mistakes, let them live carelessly till they reach an age where it gets necessary to be burdened. At the end of the day, what childhood memories are your kids going to share with their kids?