On average, a child will tell you that they can’t wait to get older and will ramble on and on about what they want to be when they grow up. They think that getting older will be great and they have no worries. The truth is: Growing up really isn’t all that great.
When you look at it, kids nowadays do not have the freedom to be kids anymore. However, when they are that age the phrase “ignorance is bliss” comes in to play because they do not understand much about “grown-up” things such as laws pertaining to what they can and cannot do.
Thinking back to my early childhood, life was really easy and basic, because my parents were responsible for making decisions for me and had to do everything for me, and all I had to worry about was playing and coloring inside the lines with my crayons.
Kids back then had an imagination. They went outside and played and were allowed to be kids. Their lives weren’t dominated by computers, the Internet, videogames, cellphones or texting. Life was simply simple.
It didn’t seem like the outside world was as dangerous back then as it was now. I believe it’s because of the rise in danger, people are more aware of all the negative things happening in the world. As a result most people don’t enjoy going outside without feeling unsafe, so they stay inside, and watching TV from the safety of their home. Children have resorted to staying home, losing their sense of imagination to their television and videogame addictions, some rarely, if ever, go outside on an average day.
However, nowadays, the children who do have an imagination are thought to have ADHD, and their parents put them on medication because they cannot handle their “hyperactivity” but the medication most of the time does not cure the supposed ADHD. The reason why more and more children are being diagnosed as such is because they don’t or can’t go outside and run out their energy.
When my parents were kids, it seemed to be rare to have a kid with ADHD or kids glued to the TV. Kids were allowed to be kids, and they were doing all sorts of crazy things. If kids nowadays were to repeat what children did back then, they would most likely get in serious legal trouble. That’s how kids had fun back then, so when did that change?
Adults don’t seem to understand the child’s mind anymore. I believe that the typical child knows what’s right and what’s wrong better than some adults. When you look at it, adults are the real bullies in life. Kids are slaves to the law, more so today than they had been 50 years ago. The legal system only sets laws because people have abused their privilege to freely express themselves. Children have more pressure put on them than they realize. They try to have fun, but adults just shut them down.
The solution to this problem should be that adults let kids be kids. I wish the mentality would come back that if kids did something wrong grownups would only smile and say “kids will be kids” and punish them as required. Simple as that.
