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Environmental pressures on parenting
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LETTER | It is often said that some parents tend to disengage from their children’s education. This translates into “giving up” or resigning from the parenting role.

The exercise of a parent’s authority tends to encounter various difficulties, whether it is due to a parent’s personal education (e.g. lack of clear cut criteria, patience, firmness or serenity) or due to their children’s education (e.g. lack of love and respect for elders).

However, nowadays it is notably environmental pressures that tend to have a stronger influence.

The following are examples, among others, of factors that influence a parent’s authority in a negative manner:

  • the behavior of other parents;
  • the lack of a positive mass media;
  • arbitrariness as the standard;
  • the limited cultural content on television, in the cinema and on the Internet;
  • confusion caused by doctrines;
  • the rise of eroticism;
  • the manipulation of advertisements;
  • the confusion between tolerance and the abdication of rights and obligations.

Are all environmental influences negative? Of course not. The mass media, after all, can also contribute towards building critical thinking and maturity in a person.

On some occasions, the media does not seek to distort but neither does it educate. One example is advertising since its main goal is to sell more than one product and not to sell one product in the best way possible.

An educator, for example, seeks to spend better time with the student and not necessarily spend more time.

The goals of the consumerist society and those of an educational society are not the same. After watching television commercial ads, parents find it more difficult to create an austere family environment.

On other occasions, environmental pressures go directly against education. Eroticism and pornography, other than generating abundant income for their promoters, consciously degrade human values.

Due to these and other environmental pressures, nowadays the exercise of parental authority has become more difficult.

This is why it is even more important to reflect upon the education of our children and collaborate with teachers of education centres to carry out the difficult task of educating.


The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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