UNITED STATES—I do remember the good ole days. Where adults were seen as authority figures to younger generations and they expected their elders. Unfortunately, those days are far behind us. It’s alarming to hear so many teens and young adults are disrespectful to adults and the elderly with the usage of expletives or bad language in front of their elders does not seem to faze them. Why is this?
For starters, it always goes back to the parent. Somewhere in the late 80s, early 90s kids begin having kids. With that epidemic taking place and still happening in our nation right now, those parents found themselves in a dire situation; how to you parent a child, when you’re a child yourself? It’s a tough task, but a majority of those parents made sacrifices for their children. Others allowed other people to care for their child instead of parenting them.
Let’s face it, a lot of the terminology that children learn come from their parents first hand. If they hear you using bad words guess what, the child is likely to repeat those words because they’ve heard it time and time again. In addition, television is being consumed by children a lot more today than in previous generations.
For some children the idea of going outside is out of the question, as they live in neighborhoods that may not be the safest for outdoor activity. In that case, the parents have to take some sort of initiative to get the child involved in extracurricular activities to occupy the time. Its okay to watch TV, but you shouldn’t be watching it 8-10 hours a day; that’s way too much for any child or adult. A lot of the imagery and language used in television is mimicked by children. They are precocious minds so things they see they like to imitate or act out.
It’s also important for parents to monitor the content that their children are watching. Under no circumstance should a seven or eight year-old be watching “Family Guy” or “The Boondocks” these are shows intended for a much mature audience, yet I’ve encountered quite a few youngsters that have seen these shows containing bad language and inappropriate humor.
The same aspect applies for teens, while they may be of age to watch such content that does not mean they should engage in it. As a parent you have to be willing to set ground rules and to explain there are indeed consequences for those actions. If you use foul language around me, there is a two-week punishment and don’t cave in to the child. Of course, they’ll be upset, but that’s how they learn. If you cave in you’re simply giving them approval to keep doing what they’ve done in the past.
Once a behavior is ingrained into a child, a teen or a young adult, it’s extremely difficult to shake that from the person without furthering more conflict. Under no circumstance should the elderly be exposed to such vulgar content or language. The sad thing about this situation is our current generation has no idea of the rights given to them that were fought so hard by their elders. They are allowed to do things because of the people that came before them. It’s sad that so many fail to acknowledge or understand that.
By Trevor Roberts
