Guardians are very much concerned over the death of a young girl due to excess bleeding in the capital’s Kalabagan area. This incident reflects how much vulnerable is the mental health of the younger generation. According to experts, the younger generation is getting derailed due to abuse of freedom, lack of proper parenting, curiosity in illegal items and misuse of technology.
They are becoming reckless as far as their sexual conduct is concerned due to the insufficiency of sex education. The taboos attached to sexuality in the society are making the teenagers curious. Besides, availability of the adult sites on mobile phone is making them more destructive.
Senior official of the government Muhammad Mohiuddin Faruqi said that he has a teenage daughter and he is very much worried about the security of his children following the Kalabagan incident.
We cannot counsel our children properly. Boys and girls are studying in a co-education system where they learn both good and bad from peers. For example: it may be said to the boy that you have a sister at home and the girl you are studying with is also like your sister. The girl may be counselled in the same manner.
Besides, it has become indispensable to keep our children under constant surveillance. We should monitor where they are going and what they are doing. Sex education has to be included in our education system although we have an impression that such an inclusion may make the boys and girls prematurely mature. However, it may not be the case. Our children must be taught what can be done and what cannot.
Physician Sabiqun Nahar commented that we have kept sex education and health education under lock and key due to our own negligence as we have an impression that our children will learn those things by themselves like their predecessors.
This physician, a mother of two children said that the adolescent population is having a fantasy concerning sexuality as our health education and sex education are highly neglected.
We have to be patient while counselling our children. Such counselling must prevail everywhere including print and electronic media which go on creating glamour models one after another. We should abide by our religious provisions, which help create role models with high morality, and urge our children to do the same. We should not keep distance from our children but counsel them properly. We should render the proper education to our children instead of hiding the essential facts. They should be made familiar with their body. We need to inform our children what should be done and when and the contrary.
However, many think that incident like Kalabagan is not new. There are instances of such incidents reflecting moral turpitude. We are not becoming aware of those incidents due to confinement within our room. Such incidents turned out to be very much costly. Psychiatrists believe that the onus is on the parents.
Psychiatrist Mahbubur Rahman said that during puberty physical and mental developments take place very rapidly amongst the boys and girls. There are changes in their ways of thinking. The teens start to look for their self-identity and get heavily influenced by their friends. Besides, they want freedom and start to give importance to their liking and disliking. Moreover, emotion reigns the teens due to hormonal changes.
Although the guardians and teachers are aware of these changes but they do not know how to inform and counsel the boys and girls about these changes.
According to this psychiatrist, we are now living in a very closed society. As a result, the teenagers get influenced by the tension prevailing in their surroundings. The families play pivotal role in teaching moral values. However, question arises on what the families are actually teaching to their children.
In fact, the guardians are failing to become the role model before their children which they should have been.
Professor of the Department of Social Science of Dhaka University Dr. Shah Ehsan Habib said that the problem has arisen from the society and it cannot be viewed as an individual ailment rather something collective in nature. The incident of Kalabagan exposes the collective ailment of our society.
A myth works amongst our young generation regarding women. They consider body of women as a source of pleasure as a result of hedonistic and consumerist motivation from pornography.
At present as far as having an affair is concerned, one gets physically involved with one or more persons. When a boy or girl gets physically involved with more and more persons, the younger generation consider it as a credit and boast of such things among peers.
The society, media and environment prevailing with in the family are very much responsible for such a situation. In our country, parental guidance is not carried out properly. Children are taught of sex education from their childhood abroad. But in our country such a lesson is totally neglected.
For this reason the younger generation is receiving misguiding information from the media and pornography and getting derailed in consequence.
aa/wi
