Many parents are asking nowadays: "What is happening to our youth, why aren't they happy when they have everything they want?" That is exactly the problem. They are getting everything they want. And they want everything right away, without any limits or conditions. Whether it is money, food, clothes, mobile phone, a car, drugs, sex, attention, appreciation - the list is endless - they expect to be provided with all these demands unconditionally.

Why cannot they accept a no when they ask for something? Simply because they were brought up that way. That was the message they received from their parents, namely, that they would end up getting all they want from them, without any constraints. Their parents thought that good parenting meant providing their children with all they wanted and expected, which is not the same as fulfilling their basic needs.

As a result, these parents imagined that their children would then grow to love them and respect them. False assumption. Perhaps, as a reaction to the way parents themselves had been brought up in a very strict, disciplinarian fashion, they felt they should become lenient, overly permissive and protective, never refusing them anything.

Our youths today are therefore the fruit reaped of the seed sown in childhood. They have been programmed and conditioned in their mind that life out there is supposed to grant them all their desires. The problem is that there are times when reality tells us simply no.

No, you cannot eat and drink all you want without your body taking on the negative consequences. No, you cannot stay up all night and then function normally during the next day. No, you cannot spend all your money one night and pretend to be given more for the rest of the week. No, you cannot keep fit and healthy without doing any physical exercise. No, you cannot smoke without endangering your health. No, you cannot have sex irresponsibly without a risk. No, you cannot pass your exams without investing time to study.

The real test for our youth comes when they will have to deal with physical pain, with broken relationships, with separation from loved ones, with rejection, failures, despair... Unfortunately, some of them when confronted with such negative experiences resort to drugs, end up in depression and even commit suicide.

So it all boils down to adequate parenting. Let me propose some practical guidelines which might help in the education of our children in this regard.

A convincing parent is one convinced that the established limits are fair. Putting limits to a child while remaining calm is a difficult ideal to achieve. Often, parents express these limits by yelling, threatening, or blackmailing. These are defensive reactions of parents against their children's normal resistance. This conflict with their child evokes unconsciously in them their relations with their own parents. They recall that as children they themselves were refused something from their parents. Now they are hearing their own child saying no to them. This they find hard to take.

When parents start yelling, pounding, or smacking their child, they are in a way admitting defeat for these are reactions of powerlessness. In doing this, parents try to give themselves the illusion of a power of which, deep down, they feel dispossessed by the child's attitude.

Children do in fact expect parents to establish limits for their behaviour. After all, they do understand that certain behaviours are unacceptable, sometimes even for adults. Parents have to communicate their message to their children not only in words but especially through their own actions and reactions. The mother, for example, who seeing her son trying to strangle a cat rushes with great emotion to stop him, conveys a clear message to him about the gravity of his action. Children need to learn about limits not only in their head but also in their emotions. Otherwise these limits would remain abstract.

At times, parents wrongly fear that forbidding something to children would stifle their personality. By way of reaction, they become totally permissive with their children. On the contrary, putting limits would allow the child to feel securely fulfilled and capable of self-structuring. Others assume that a child cannot be happy while having limits, as if all limits were repressive.

There exists also the erroneous idea that saying no to our children would make them love us less. As if education and love are incompatible. Only if the limits are unjust would the child experience them as non-loving on the part of parents. In reality, children do accept limits because they love their parents and want to be like them.

Limits keep children from living as if they were omnipotent (all powerful). Limits place them back in reality and help them grow in stages. Children who have been brought up accepting limits would not ask later on to have everything they want. They have learnt that they cannot have everything in life.

Children also need to learn that ultimately their parents take final decisions. Some parents, unfortunately, are forfeiting their exercise of legitimate authority on the pretext of a false interpretation of what certain psychologists say.

The fact that children are subjects not objects does give them certain rights but the fact that they are not yet adults does not give them all the rights. We have moved from the idea of the child-as-subject to that of child-as-king!

Parents, therefore, should not shirk their responsibility in showing who is in command. Children whose parents allow them to command are often anguished. For how could they feel protected by parents who aren't even capable of commanding?

One of the difficulties parents encounter in having to say no to their children is their own guilt feelings. Since they think they are not spending enough time with their children, the short time during which they are present they wouldn't refuse anything their children ask for. "I cannot afford creating a conflict with them the little time we are together", they would explain. Of course, children pick up the message and learn how to manipulate their parents.

A word of explanation about "being present" to our children is in place here. It applies to both the quantity and quality of time spent with them.

In my opinion, many Maltese parents feel obliged to give constant, undivided and uninterrupted attention to their children, otherwise they feel they are failing in their duties.

Even when their children are happily and securely busy on their own, parents have a compulsive need to intrude by checking on them, giving out orders, repeating warnings, and so on.

It becomes clear that these children do not need such interruptions. In fact, it's the parents' problem not the children's. Parents may be wanting some attention for themselves and feel the need to assert their own importance!

This attitude becomes obvious when, for example, parents have visitors; they would forget about the children as long as they are the centre of attention for their guests but as soon as the attention is diverted on to their guests, parents immediately think of making some form of contact with their children!

So let us prepare our children to face their future and help them grow by learning to say no to them when reality demands it.

Fr Darmanin is a psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of Malta.

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