There is a lot of stuff going on in the world right now.  Some good. Some bad.  But why, today, does it seem like there is more bad in the world than good.  Bad stuff has been happening since the dawn of written history yet many of the common people have tended to, based on my knowledge, focus on the good.  This could have been from simple ignorance or lack of knowledge but either way, they could just move on.

Today people seem to be bombarded by all the bad things happening in the world instead of the good and what I have started to notice is that parents are beginning to project that fear onto their children.  Take some of these recent school shootings for example.  My children never even heard of them until our kids’ school did a drill for it and the teacher had a discussion about them.  Other kids expressed their anxiety and stress over them where my child simply dismissed it as just a drill like a fire drill or tornado one.

I found this interesting that so many of my kid’s friends had parents projecting adult fears onto their children when, in my practice, I focused on teaching my kids about the issues they are more likely to face like strangers, looking both ways before crossing the street, or not drinking Clorox.  So what’s the deal with parents these days pushing all these fears onto their children when for so long we used to believe in the sanctity of a child being a child?

A child being innocent is not being ignorant and in the age of today where everyone is trying to be “woke” and doing the same with their kids, I believe there is a great disservice being done to our youth.  I remember a few years ago after a few of those police shootings my wife, of mixed ethnicity, mentioned after her last encounter with getting pulled over for speeding she felt fear of death.  I asked her if she ever felt that fear before all the national news of it all and the answer was simply no.

I’m not exactly sure where things went wrong but I see kids these days with anxiety over things most of us in our youth never even heard about even though they were happening right before our eyes.  Parents would, and some still do such as myself, shield their children from things that should matter to them at all.  I’m not saying a parent shouldn’t teach stuff like the inclusion of all people regardless of race, gender, or creed, but rather I feel that they should teach why they should do it based on age-appropriate reason.  No 8 year old needs to know the nitty gritty of slavery, genocide, and so forth.  Is there a time, place, and age for it?  Sure.  But now as a child.

My neighbor’s kid had already had the sex talk at like 8.  That is just so confusing to me!  8!  Sex is the absolute last thing on my 9-year-old daughter’s mind but at the same time, we don’t let our kids watch these “kids” cartoons where the characters express blatant sexual frustration towards each other.  It’s just another added scope of pressure being applied to kids these days who should only be worried about stuff like that.

What gets me the most is that parents seem to have no idea why their kids are wound up so tight.  My daughter was asked if she wanted to join an anxiety and worry group at school.  I applaud the school for setting this up so don’t think it’s a bad thing.  When I asked my daughter the things that make her anxious I was relieved to hear it stuff that most of us dealt with as kids.  What I was more worried about was the stuff she mentioned other kids feared which were overwhelmingly adult problems.

I’m no expert here but it seems to simply point to adults projecting their worries and fears on innocent kids that should just be a kid.

Christopher is a full-time father of three awesome kids, a part-time asshole, a husband to the world’s greatest wife, a student, and lastly a writer. He has been featured on The Good Men Project.