Holding Back the Hope

We don't put enough faith in our children these days. We don't give them enough credit to think that they can make good decisions on their own. The actions of a few bad eggs in the batch makes us worry that every child will come out the same.

We shelter them and hold them back from the world. It isn't right. We need to be more accepting, willing and supportive of the next generation.

I'm not talking about toddler age. I'm not talking about physical safety reasons. I'm talking about treating a child as a baby. I'm talking about a pre-teen or teen being treated like some kid that is still new to the world, like some kid that doesn't understand how things work.

Parents and society don't give these kids enough credit. They are very smart and intelligent. They are smarter than many adults out there who make the bad decisions that cause the major problems for the world.

I speak from experience. When I was younger, my aunt had cancer. No one told me until the day she decided to shave her head and not wait out the going bald process.

I felt left out, unimportant in the family. I had been the baby for so long and even though I was old enough to understand cancer and old enough to understand such troubles in the world, I wasn't treated that way. I was never told just how bad her health was until I realized the truth when she passed away in the hospital. There are experiences like this that many other kids have gone through. They just don't get told the bad things because the parents don't want to ruin the perfect image of life. I don't want the kids to be stressed out.

They shouldn't be burdened with all the problems of the real world, but they deserve to be told things that will affect them, that mean something to them. Some parents just think they will tell their kids things when they have to. That's waiting too long. You are hurting the child more by doing this. People need to realize that not everyone is a failure.

This means not every child is going to act badly or not be able to handle something. We tend to just assume because someone is young that they don't anything and haven't experienced life. There are many kids that have gone through more than anyone should. There are many kids who haven't.

The same can be said about adults. It's important to realize you shouldn't hold someone back from the truth. Children shouldn't have to deal with adult problems, but they shouldn't have to find out about something until it turns into a tragedy. We try to hide them from things we can't. Life is life and keeps on going.

We can't hold back and pretend like they won't learn about things another way. We should encourage them learning it from parents and not other sources. .

By: Jake Rose