The modern way of life, often accompanied by stress, is much faster than a few decades ago, but also technology and bad role models have greatly changed the relationships within the family and the upbringing of children.
A lot of things have changed, and the youngest people mostly suffer, say "Vijesti" interlocutors, in the way they behave towards their peers, play, communicate...
Parents are under the pressure of professional obligations, and often under stress, which their children feel, says the psychologist of the Clinical Center of Montenegro (KCCG). Andjela Golubovic.
She explains that parents do not have enough time for quality time with their children due to work. The consequence of this, he emphasizes, is the lack of emotional support.
Golubović believes that it is important for parents to understand that kindergartens and schools cannot replace their role in raising children.
She reminded that education is not only the transmission of knowledge and rules, "but also includes an emotional component and the creation of emotional closeness".
"Parents are under pressure, because they have to take on a large number of roles, especially in those families where both mother and father are employed. For this reason, household activities today are performed with more stress. This modern lifestyle often brings with it a high level of stress and anxiety for parents. Let's not forget, children are sensitive to the emotional state of their parents and can internalize their worries and fears," explained Golubović.
She pointed out that for today's children "everything starts earlier than in the past - football, ballet, music school".
"Due to busy schedules, children often spend less time playing outdoors and engaging in physical activities, which are crucial for their physical and mental development. The way children play has changed drastically. Due to the lack of time, parents often resort to the use of small screens (parents give their children tablets, mobile phones, computers), and this is a way for them to entertain their children. This can negatively affect their social development and lead to problems such as technology addiction and sleep problems."
According to Golubović, parents are often not consistent even in the application of house rules. This, she says, can make it difficult for children to understand clear boundaries and consistent rules.
"Also, in practice, we often see parents' constant criticism of their children, which can undermine a child's self-confidence and create a feeling of insecurity. Parents, sometimes, are not aware of their own behavior and forget that children learn by model and imitate their parents' behavior. If the parents show negative behavior patterns, the children will adopt them", said Golubović, adding that family dynamics are very important for the child's development.
Beautiful Žunjić, from the Association of Parents, states that children used to grow up in larger families.
"Even when the parent was not there, there was always another close person. The entire extended family took care of the children, which contributed to their further development and education. Current parents, who grew up in conditions where their parents worked less and had more support from their extended family, are trying to find their way in a time that requires them to work a lot more and have a strong need for stronger separation and independence from their primary families," she said. is Žunjić.
He assesses that the influence of the media and social networks is very noticeable on children, which is why parents have a difficult task.
"On a conscious level, we all know what the priority is and I think that the basic value that has always been strong in our society has not been lost, which is that our family comes first, we just got lost in our desire to preserve and adapt it modern trends. It is definitely a time when both parents and children face great challenges, but it is also a time when more and more is being said about children's development and education."
According to her, the basis of development and good upbringing starts "from the moment we have a child".
"A good relationship is built by showing love, that we are really present for the child, talking, spending quality time with the children. It is important to know that without this basis we cannot talk about education. Errors can usually be corrected, but the question is how. Parents often want a certain behavior of their child to be corrected and come for help with this idea. However, work on correcting relationships or some behavior does not start with the child, but with the parents," said Žunjić.
Sociologist Andrija Djukanovic emphasizes that "we live in a society full of bad role models".
"Starting with the political elite, which dominates the public space, driven by the insatiable need to be constantly present, and which in fact largely promotes negative patterns of behavior, aggression, disrespect and lack of ethics," said Đukanović.
He pointed out that the media has a great influence on the development of children.
"Not to mention the media and the internet, which are flooded with pathology of every kind. All this together gives rise to a young man who finds the pinnacle of fun, celebration and satisfaction in lighting a torch."
And Đukanović points out that parents often do not have time for children, that many are faced with the struggle for existence, which is why they do not deal with children who are left on the streets.
"Parents are often non-objective and many of the problems with children's behavior originate from them. All segments of society are responsible for the situation in which young people find themselves."
The Internet captured family stories
The fast, modern way of life, as well as the development of new technologies, has led to the fact that parents spend less and less time with their children, and on the other hand, children are increasingly looking for role models outside the home - on social networks, so the question arises whether they are raising our children "Tiktokers" and "YouTubers".
This is not surprising if we know that, according to some research, Serbia is the first country in Europe in terms of the average time spent on the Internet by people under the age of 18.
Psychologist Ana Mirkovic for "Danas", he explains that parents continue to raise their children, but they also focus on the screen, which is why it often happens that they notice that children also have a problem with consuming digital content, and they have no insight into the fact that they themselves are spending more and more time screen.
"They give a bad model to children who learn by model. Parents have no problem saying my children spend a lot of time on social networks or on the phone, and then the children say: 'Yes, mom, you do the same'. We have a problem of having self-insights, and we see that others do not. Those photos are appearing more and more often, as well as reporting the problem that the family lunch looks like everyone is looking at their screen," says Mirković.
He emphasizes that the time spent together by parents with their children looks like everything is talked about superficially, while everyone follows their priorities on their screen.
"While children are growing up, they are much more influenced by social networks, and we often hear that parents say that their children are being raised by influencers, which is not their problem, nor is it the problem of the Internet, but it is the problem of parents who allow their children not to be dominant figures. There is nothing wrong with using digital technologies, but you need to find the right measure. When talking about serious things, phones shouldn't be there."
Mirković believes that parents let their children be "educated" by influencers rather than relying on them, and that they rarely admit their mistake, but emphasize that it is their powerlessness, that they cannot force their child not to use social networks.
Social medicine specialist of the City Institute for Public Health Belgrade, dr Marija Marković she assessed that children and young people today are under pressure and exposed to too much information from all sides.
"The modern way of life often results in an excessive burden on children and adolescents with numerous extracurricular activities and a lack of free time for play and immediate socializing. Another problem is that young people mostly spend their free time on the Internet and social networks. They lost direct, immediate communication with each other. As for the family, working hours are such that everyone comes home at different times, eats at different times, neither parents nor children have time to sit down to talk, and in this way the connection and closeness between family members, which is necessary for healthy functioning, is reduced. each of us."
According to the psychologist Branka Tisma, parenthood is very much at risk today. He believes that "a child needs an adult", but it is also important to set boundaries for children.
"Whenever you do something together, the child will tell you something from his life and then you have the opportunity to talk, so that he can hear your thinking on the subject. Our children are the most closed to the Internet. We protect them from everything, from work, obligations, school obligations, we don't teach them responsibility, independence. I'm not saying that all parents are the same, but in general we are more sensitive to children's needs, and we don't set boundaries. Today, parents listen to their children more than children listen to their parents. And children need boundaries, for someone to say enough is enough, that is not possible. Parenting is not easy and it is not simple and it is not all about enjoyment. A child needs an adult even when he rebels, when he hates you in some situations. And that is necessary in order for them to understand, to experience the border and to respect it", Tišma stated, among other things, in mid-March for "Danas", when she spoke about the violent behavior that children display.
In upbringing, we get lost and wander
Raising children nowadays is a big challenge day after day. What to do, what to teach them, how to try to lead them to that famous right path? On the one hand, we have single mothers who are forced to leave their children alone at home because they have to work, fathers increasingly avoid paying child support, and on the other hand, a large number of parents overdo it, keeping their children under a glass bell, not letting them go anywhere alone, but expecting them to be, if not the best, then among the best in terms of grades. They enroll them in numerous sections, buy the most expensive phones...
The question that arises is how to properly raise children today and whether and where we are making mistakes.
Psychologist dr Remzija Šetić says that raising children is a long-term and complex process, where the relationship between the child and the environment in some way shapes a person who will live and act in society. Today, he says, the influence of the family through the child's growth is decreasing more and more.
"It is obvious that as a society we make a huge mistake because we notice in people's behavior that we have cases of violence in different forms every day. Forms of violence in our country cause a short reaction, we hope it will not happen again, and then we meet with even more brutal ones. It seems to us that we are getting lost and wandering in education because society itself has not set clear norms for education", he believes.
In schools, he claims, education and grades are more important, and education is approached superficially because it is more important to have a high average grade than to be educated, polite, cultured, empathetic...
"What is the value of education in our society? In the context of recent events, I ask the question: 'Why is primary and secondary education free in our society, but preschool education is not free?' What about children who have no one to look after them at home, and their parents are working? These children need the care of society the most. We have lost the mutual solidarity that the first neighbor or relative comes to help to look after the children while the parents work. If the education of our children is important to us, we ask that all kindergartens be free. Perhaps this is the best incentive for the growth of the birth rate. Is it better for the future of our society to build 50 more kindergartens in Sarajevo and hire educators who will raise healthy generations, or is it better to finance a lot of meaningless events that have no effect?", asks the psychologist and emphasizes how important society is to the family.
A parent is focused on meeting the needs of his child, and society should help in this, he points out.
A married couple from Sarajevo (names known to the editorial staff), otherwise parents of a twelve-year-old girl, say that society does not really help in education.
"We try to instill moral values in the child, and then he goes to school or somewhere else and gets a different image because, for example, empathy is portrayed as a weakness. Even though my husband and I work, we don't think that our child has to have everything, he doesn't need to. And then it is sometimes an object of ridicule because there is no new phone for God's sake. It's hard for her, and it's even harder for us, because how can we explain such behavior of other children, they claim, and say that we all failed somewhere, both as parents and as a society."
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