In his article Friday Wisdom: Open Bars and Closed Minds (TMID, 13 January), Alfred Mifsud hit the nail on the head when he said that parents need help in dealing with their teenage youths.
Today, parents are finding themselves competing with the unlimited information that their children download from the internet. They often find it difficult to keep up with what their children are accessing on the internet and they end up wondering who their children are chatting with and what they are chatting about.
Most parents find it difficult to use the computer themselves and rather than risking being made fun of by their own children because of this hindrance, they opt to remain silent and hope for the best. In addition to this, parents try – sometimes with little success – to keep up to date with the ever-changing trends in fashion, music, relationships, and attitudes towards sex, entertainment and friends. And as most of us are aware of, the rate with which these trends change is a pretty fast one.
Furthermore, the rationale of such trends is often alien for some of the parents to understand. Yet, most parents constantly strive to understand better and keep up with all that is going on in the young people’s world, only to realise that it is exhausting to give their undivided attention to their children.
However, having said all this, we have to acknowledge that most parents do communicate with their children, they do follow through their progress in school, they do participate in their children’s extra curricular activities and they do alternate between acting as hosts for their children’s friends and taxi drivers, shuttling their offspring from private lessons to piano lessons or some sports activity. In addition, they do their best to deal with their children’s (constantly changing) moods, their achievements, their disappointments and all the pains of growing up and becoming young adults.
This alone is already a tall order for parents, not to mention that some parents are still working hard to develop their own careers and to ensure that their home is a comfortable space which matches up with the needs of their sons and daughters.
However, parents are finding that their traditional space and influence as parents is being invaded, and sometimes eroded, by the media that is setting fashion standards, by the leisure industry that directs one to places where one ought to be seen, by the alcohol industry that insists that one needs to drink alcohol in order to be cool and by the banks that promptly advance monies and cover expenses making such commitments appear nothing more than a monopoly game.
It is against this background that parents on one hand try to understand the pressures that their children are constantly being subjected to, while on the other hand they feel helpless when trying to convince their children to act differently from what the media and their peers are suggesting them to do. And how can parents convince their children that they cannot afford to pay for all the clothes, gadgets and other “stuff” that they would like to have, without wondering whether they are being inadequate as parents or not?
How can they convince their children that they need to be back home at a given time, when it is during these early hours that the entertainment provided, which entertainment is increasingly becoming a state-of-the-art, is at its peak? How can parents convince their children that alcohol is for adults and not for minors, when all their peers are drinking alcohol?
In spite of this mammoth task, many parents succeed in feeling satisfied with the degree of influence that they manage to maintain over their children. Many seek information and parental training with the hope of being better equipped to retain the control of the situation and keep on top of things and many of these parents manage to go through this difficult period with relative success. And this is by no means a small achievement.
It is one that gives hope to other parents who may be currently encountering difficulties with their teenagers or who may envisage encountering such problems in the near future. It is also an achievement that needs to be shared more widely and in so doing trying to identify those factors that seem to contribute to the success that these parents obtained with their children. It is important to point out here that none of these parents would have had an easy ride and many of them would say that there were various occasions when they came very close to see the situation slip away from their hands.
Other parents – unfortunately – have very painful experiences to relate; the tension in the family following a hot argument, the frustration of losing to the competition of their son’s or daughter’s peers, the sleepless nights spent waiting for their children to return home and not knowing what they are up to or whether they will return home safe and sound. These parents are no less adequate than the former. It is a matter of understanding and of acknowledging the fact that what works for one family does not necessarily work for another. Some tactics work with some youths, while they do not work with others.
The reality is that in today’s complex society that we ourselves have created, parenting has become very difficult and the pressures on the family from the various fields cannot – and should not – be underestimated. Parents need help.
And this help has to come from various sectors within society. Many believe that such help should be in the form of education programmes for young people and training for parents in parenting skills. The importance of such education and training programmes is unquestionable. Imagine trying to operate a new washing machine which comes without a manual! It is highly probable that we make a whole mess when trying to operate it.
So why should it be OK to try one’s hands at parenting without being properly trained for such a job? Fortunately, school-based programmes and parental programmes do exist. These are delivered by schools, Church organisations and even state agencies such as Sedqa and Appogg. However, local authorities can do much more in this area while youth authorities and youth organisations are conspicuously absent in some debates which are of particular interest to young people such as the debate on underage drinking. Do they not have something to say about this phenomenon? Don’t they have proposals to put forward on how best to tackle this issue in the best interest of young people and their families?
As it has been pointed out, the help that parents need has to come from various sectors. Education and training are not enough in particular situations.
Let us go back to the issue of underage drinking. Experience is showing us that educating young people about the effects of alcohol consumption on youths is not keeping them back from consuming this toxic substance. Nor are the attempts that the parents are making to influence them into not drinking alcohol being successful, notwithstanding the parents’ communication skills.
And this is because other influences on young people – such as the media and their peers – are much stronger than those of the parents. So, in the case of underage drinking parents need help from other sectors too. Parents should obtain support through appropriate legislation and law enforcement. Those who advocate education without reinforcement of the law for underage drinking are mistaken. We need both for any real effect to control underage drinking.
We have already witnessed the success obtained through the education campaign, which ran concurrently with law enforcement in favour of the helmets for motorcycle drivers and seatbelts for car drivers and passengers.
In the case of underage drinking, parents need legislation that sends out a clear message to youths that alcohol is a drink for adults and that minors who consume alcoholic drinks are in breach of law and have to carry the responsibility for their actions. The selling of alcohol to minors from all outlets, as well as serving minors with alcohol – irrespective of where this activity takes place – should also become an offence. It should also be an offence to allow minors enter into places of entertainment that are designated for adults. Moreover, there should be a time limit after which minors are not allowed in places of entertainment such as clubs, discotheques and bars. Finally, advertising of alcoholic drinks targeting minors should be banned.
This is the help that parents are seeking from all their representatives in parliament. This will not solve the problem of underage drinking, but it is certainly a step in the right direction that legitimises the great efforts of parents made in the upbringing of their children and the work of educators. Legislation that brings underage drinking under control is legislation in favour of the family and young people. It is the message that parents are waiting for and have been longing for.
Joe Gerada is chief executive officer of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services