What advice would you give to your teenage self?
The content emphasizes the importance of guidance over mere suggestions for adolescents undergoing significant physical and mental transitions. It clarifies that suggestions offer choices, while guidance directs one toward specific goals, particularly critical during the vulnerable phase of adolescence. The narrative of Ajai illustrates a real-life scenario of a young boy confronting addiction, highlighting the necessity for parents to monitor and support their children actively. Proper care, love, and timely intervention can steer children away from harmful paths and cultivate constructive habits. Ultimately, nurturing the youth is presented as a collective responsibility of parents, educators, and society for fostering a strong future generation.
Suggestions and guidance sound the same but are different. While the suggestion is polite and unassertive, guidance is authoritative and assertive. If one guides someone, it is construed that the person is leading the seeker to a particular point or place; the seeker is expected to follow the path. The suggestion, on the contrary, is not emphatic but choice-driven One can follow or not. It depends upon whom the suggestion is being given. It gives the discretion and leverage to choose between the best among the various suggestions or discard them altogether.
To put it another way. Essentiality conveys that possessing a thing, quality, or trait is compulsory, but desirable is an added thing which is preferable. It conveys that despite having essential things or qualifications, preference would be given to the one having desirable things. Desirable is an extra element, preferable over simple essentials.
Let us delve deep and try to understand it more. An examinee is given a choice to solve any five questions out of eight but taking up the last question is preferable. The intent is clear. The examinee is at his will to try the last question or not. Nevertheless, if he chooses not to try the last question, he will lose marks.
On the same token, a person who wants to buy a car goes to a showroom and spells out his requirements and preferences along with desirable. If he gets a vehicle with his desired feature, he will choose it right away. Essentially, his need is to have a manual, petrol-driven vehicle and desirables are a few luxury features, like a 360-degree camera. Evidently, his basic requirements would be fulfilled by having essential features, but if he gets an extra feature at almost the same price, he would opt for it.
Take another example. A company advertises recruitment in their organisation. Essentially, it needs a person with sound knowledge of computers, but it also wants the candidate to be proficient in handling software glitches. Choosing between two candidates, one without desirable qualifications and the other with desirable qualifications, is not difficult. It is obvious.
The illustrations cited above describe various elements and their effective inferences. They clearly talk about their usage in different situations. They can be effectively used to navigate the complexities of relationships and bonding. It is important to support growing children and middle-aged family members in overcoming their challenges.
A human life passes through various phases. Broadly speaking, the phases are childhood, youth and dotage. There are, nonetheless, intermediary stages also that fit in between the three stages. They are transitional phases. Among them the one which comes after a child grows and reaches a stage when he is neither a child nor an adult. Physical changes start taking place. It is a stage of adolescence.
The other phase is when a young one slips gradually towards his old age and s/he is neither a young person nor an old one. This is the stage of middle age or middle adulthood.
Both the two stages are critical. During adolescence, a child undergoes significant physical and mental changes. This is a time when proper guidance is crucial. At this stage, the child is not capable of making independent decisions. What they need is not just suggestions, but rather a firm direction to lead them positively.
An adolescent is prone to divert. He can be floundered. It is a stage when the future of a child can be ruined but with proper guidance and counselling, he can be brought back to a normal life.
Ajai was a lively and sharp boy. He was good at his studies and used to secure good marks in examinations. His growth and progression were more than satisfactory. He was thirteen years old and was curious about the happenings around him. He would talk to his mother about every topic that intrigued him.
With time his mother observed a marked change in Ajai’s behaviour. She noticed that he had started confining in his room, mostly lost in his thoughts. He would ask fewer questions. His mother sensed the downfall in his physical health. It was worrisome. She conversed with Ajay’s father and together they tried to find out the cause and cure of it. Since Ajai was comfortable with her, Mother decided to take the lead.
Ajai was sitting quietly in his room when his mother went to him. Caressing on his head, she sat beside him taking his head in her lap. Sitting silently, she kept caressing and running her fingers in his hair. Ajai constricted in her lap like a bird wanting to seek solace in the cosy warmth of its mother.
A few moments later, she started conversing. She initially asked light questions and answered them herself in a tone of monologue. After a while, she started telling him a short story. There was a slight movement in the body of the boy, and he started sobbing. The cautious mother hugged his son tightly and uttered a few soothing words. Ajai was becoming normal. He remained in that position for a little more and then raised his face to look at his mother.
Smeared with tears, his face looked sober and lovely. Once rounded, his face had become oblong with jaw bones like her mother’s. His large speaking eyes were brimmed and looked sombre and a little gloomy. She tenderly looked at him. The cupid’s bow of the boy was deepening in colour. Peach fuzz had started appearing on his face. The little toddler has become a boy. The mother kept caressing him. After a brief lull, she tenderly asked the boy if he was relaxed.
Resuming the conversation, she asked her boy about his problem. A little hesitatingly, he started telling her his harrowing experience. What he told her mother was a dangerous thing.
Ajai told her how he was entrapped by some mischievous persons who lured and gave him chocolate. After eating that, he felt giddiness. Gradually it became his addiction. He was finding it difficult to concentrate on his studies. He felt the chocolate craving and tried to acquire it in any way. The mother was aghast but kept her cool.
The parents took their son to a doctor dealing with drug addiction. The doctor was happy to see the alertness of the parents. It was the start of addiction. He thanked them for spotting the problem and took the boy to him in time. The doctor started treatment and counselling of the boy. Ajai was saved on time. He was caught hold of before felling in a dark trench of endless woes and despair.
After proper care, counselling and love, Ajai regained and was back on track. He became alert and conscious of students who were involved in fishy acts.
The vulnerable age of transition from childhood to youth needs to be observed and monitored closely. Children need to be guided gently. They must not be ill-treated, abused and thrashed. The parents who scold or thrash their children do great harm to them. As an elder adult, one must guide and suggest the best way to their growing children.
In the wake of so-called modernity, parents give their children a long rope. It can be dangerous for children’s growth and distract their focus from important to unimportant, sometimes vicious things. The curious mind of a child wants to know about everything new to them. An adolescent becomes rebellious at times. They don’t want any bondage. It is natural.
Look at the Ganga, a pious river and lifeline of northern India. It emerges as a nascent stream from the glacier. Moving ahead with a loud roar, it gushes through gorges and canyons, washing every stuff that comes in its way. It mellows down as it reaches the plains. By that time, it accumulates enough silt and sand that it spreads along the bank, making a fertile flat.
It is the basic instinct of humans as well. Meandering through life, humans accumulate experience that benefits the younger generation. It must be remembered that a child is a future youth, middle-aged, and an old man. William Wordsworth rightly said in his poem, Child is a father of the man.
Needless to say, a child is the future of a nation. They are not only our children but are the building blocks of a strong and resourceful nation. They need to be properly guided and suggested to inculcate constructive habits and good upbringing. It should be the priority of every parent, teacher, and all young and old people to guide them, mentor them, and suggest ways to fight the difficult times. We need to inculcate winning zeal in them. Acting as a watchdog, the seniors should watch GenZ, our children, grow.
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