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Moral crisis in kids worrisome
KATHMANDU, JUL 30 -
Pratik Shrestha of Shankhamul, a sixth grader in a reputed school of Lalitpur is terribly violent. Last year, during Holi, he hit a woman from his neighbourhood with a water balloon. Furious, she scolded him but to everyone’s surprise Pratik became angrier. He knocked her down and kept kicking her in the stomach until others intervened. The injured woman could not move around for three days.
Shrawan Aryal, a fourth grader in a local boarding school of Baneshwor, is also nasty. Once he kicked his little sister because she refused to give him back his toy-gun that she had been playing with. When his mom scolded him, he verbally abused her and fled out of the house.
Not only Shrawan and Pratik, a large number of kids in urban areas have such problems. A recent survey of parents, teachers and psychologists shows more than 75 percent of kids these days are violent. “Children now are unbelievable,” said Shrawan’s mother Urmila Aryal. “I don’t know what they learn in school.” Aryal attributes such behaviour patterns to the lack of moral and cultural education at schools.
“Violent behaviour patterns, these days, are seen mostly in urban kids,” said Badal Pradhan, Vice-Principal of GEMS School. “Over exposure of children to violent films and video games is responsible for this. This can be mitigated by teaching moral values.”
Keshav Shrestha, a teacher at I.J. Pioneer School, said, “It seems violence has become a part of their lives.”
Ganga Pathak, a psychologist, said the decade-long armed conflict in the nation is largely responsible for the violence today’s kids have internalised. “Moral lessons in schools can teach positive aspects of life,” she said.
(Children’s names withheld)
Posted on: 2010-07-31 09:09
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