Failing the Youth

Today, a youth running from the police made the mistake of hiding in our building. He was caught quickly. Apparently, he had made the police chase him for a long time. They looked frustrated too.
When caught, he was rude and abusive. He even hit the policemen. Of course, they put cuffs on him and put him in the car. Arrested. The report of the officer will include ‘assaulting an officer of the law’, I am sure. The arrested youth could not be more than 20.
I have no clue what his crime was, but I’m sure it was serious judging from the keenness of the officer to arrest him. Could be drugs, violence or anything of that level. Not murder, I hope.
And then, last night, I was at the localizer mall on tahlia. I told my family and relatives to wait inside with the kids while I go get the car to the main gate. As I stepped outside, I saw a group of guys surrounding two girls. One was hiding behind a pillar crying and the other was shouting at the guys. And, the guard stood there helpless. I asked one of the guys: what’s going on? He smiled back and said: something is going on! Meanwhile, the two girls walked away as one guy kept saying something abusive to them.

What is going on?

Accidents, thefts, harassment.. What is happening to the youth?

When we were at school at Manarat Ar Riyadh, we were rebellious too. We wanted freedom and we wanted to have fun too. We hated control too. What we didn’t know was that to have all that freedom we had to pay a price too. The price was causing hurt to ourselves and our families.
We never did anything criminal, but whatever little we did..eventually was of no benefit to us.

Here is what the problem is: a father no longer does what a father should do and a mother is no longer what a mother should be and a child is raised by media, maids, peers and junk food. What are we doing to our kids?
We buy our kids anything they ask for. We spoil them, pressurise them and bombard their minds with our fears and frustrations. We are driving them crazy. And, we need to STOP now.

Instead of being modern, our kids need to be creative. To make them creative we need to give them simplicity and real lives. Are we doing that? Because we must be what we give and what we are giving is obviously not good..
It seems almost as if their greatest challenge is to prove their despair and not grow. No one is letting them Be. Their frustration is because of this. They cannot be who they are so they become what they need to be to make their point. Their choices are based on the exposure WE give them and from it they choose the roles that either make them amazing or useless and sometimes even dangerous.

When too many people are going the wrong way in society, then we must, at one point, stop punishing and start re-evaluating our standards.