How come parents need to man up?

Well, excuse the expression. There is a great deal of debate about whether it is harmful for children to spend such a long time in front of the screen as many indeed do. Some parents are concerned that their offspring seem addicted to the things, and refuse to, say, go outside in the fresh air for a walk. While some parents do resort to banning the offending items on certain days or at certain times, I can't help but wonder why on earth they allow the situation to get so bad in the first place. Have they forgotten that they are the parents and their children are, erm, the child? Why do some parents seem to let their children dictate to them? 

Children need parents to act like parents by setting boundaries and telling them whenever they are behaving badly. While you may mistakenly think that your child will become your friend and thank you in years to come for your weak boundaries and disclipline, they will not. Neither will their friends. If they have any. If you do not teach your child how to behave like a decent human being, by telling them whenever they are being rude and inconsiderate, how do you think they will learn? Perhaps you plan to teach them later on, after years of allowing them to do things whenever it suits them. 

No, if you let your child rule the house, you are teaching them that their needs are far more important than those of other people. Furthermore, you are making them feel unsafe, because a child needs you to show them what is, and what is not, acceptable behaviour. Often, a child will try to test your boundaries and rules. If they meet only weak and inconsistent resistance, they will keep pushing, in the subconscious hope that their parent will show them the way, by telling them to stop doing whatever it is.

Parents also need to impose a stronger discipline because children are just that - children. Consequently, they are obviously not as capable of making decisions about their future as the parent (hopefully) is. Thus the parent can decide that the child should not be spending 3 hours a day playing a computer game because they will ultimately be happier if they spend more time playing something more interactive with their friends, which allows their imagination to develop. Equally, you can decide to teach the child how to eat healthily by making sure you offer them foods you are happy for them to eat. In everyday life, many children refuse to wear certain items, even things that keep them warm. If the parent refuses to let the child leave the house, the child will soon learn to dress properly. These are decisions that need to be taken by the parent, not the child. Do not let your child tell you what to do. Giving in will obviously avoid a conflict that day, but merely by postponing it and teaching your child to dominate you. You are not equals, and you will not become equals by giving in. 

For those parents worried about their children's huge amount of screen time, whether it be TV, computers or game playing, I would simply advise them to act like a parent, rather than a simpering friend, and just tell the children how long they are or are not allowed to spend doing it. If they do not adhere to this, I would confiscate the damn things for a week. At least. 

Honestly, why do we think that giving in to our children, against our better judgment, is a good idea? You are teaching your child that if they keep whining, they will get their own way, and that other people's needs are always far less important than their own. Charming. What kind of future are you making for them? Would you want to work with, live with or love an adult like that? Do you think others will want to?

How come free speech comes with responsibility?

As you are probably aware, there were some terrible shootings in Paris yesterday, when masked gunmen stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people,including some police officers. The reason given for the killings was offensive comic strips. The last comic was of an Islamic state militant group leader, but may have been published too late to influence the attacks. The picture was carrying on an Islamic theme, however, where the previous picture showed Muslim extremists saying they had not yet attacked France but that they still had time to do so before the end of January. I absolutely agree that the shootings were horrific and should never have happened. No human being has the right to hurt another, unless they are directly trying to kill you, of course. However, I am concerned that state leaders, the press and many others view this purely as an attack on freedom, democracy and freedom of speech. 

While I agree that freedom of speech is a very important and highly treasured aspect of our, so-called, democracy, I do not understand why this term is mainly bandied about when the press offend people. Why must freedom of speech mean the right to say whatever we want, about whoever we want? BBC.co.uk explains that the editor of Charlie Hebdo, Stephane Charbonnier, had lived with death threats and the offices had been destroyed in a firebomb attack in 2011, the day after the magazine had named the prophet Muhammad as its next editor in chief. Charbonnier told the Associated Press in 2012 that "Muhammad isn't sacred to me". This is my point exactly: Muhammad may not be sacred or important to him, but why does that give him the right to upset others? He felt that a minority of Muslims was making life difficult for others, and so he wished to make life difficult for them. 

We must surely use our freedom of speech with some thought and care. Since when is speaking your mind, whatever the consequences, seen as more important than carefully mulling things over, before you speak, having carefully considered the consequences on your fellow human beings? Being able to satirically make fun of and criticise people's contradiction, hypocrisy and inefficiency is an essential aspect of living in a free country, and of holding those in power even slightly accountable. This would be the case with the last Charlie Hebdo comic strip before the attacks. However, why is it important that we are legally allowed to hurt people's feelings because you disagree with their religion, or even, on a more mundane level, because you think they have gained weight and have exposed their cellulite on the beach? Why is free speech valued above decency and empathy? It is very easy to defend free speech when you are not emotionally involved, but if somebody published a cartoon depicting your relative, or your God in what you deemed a disrespectful way, would you defend the cartoonist's right to publish it? While comic strips can be a great way of quickly getting a point across to people who are too busy to read long articles (or who, like me, perhaps prioritise their time differently), they are not suited to serious, in-depth discussions, obviously. They therefore often appear crude and rude, which means they are not really the best medium for religious discussions. 

I was partly touched and partly puzzled by the reports of streams of images on Twitter and in the paper, of the words "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie). I understand the knee jerk reaction of showing the gunmen that you cannot kill free speech, and that lots of others also have the right to say what they want to say. But have people really thought about what message they are also passing on, when they write or pass on the "Je suis Charlie" image? What it basically means is, that they too think you should be able to write anything about anybody. Of course you should, but does that mean it is always the right thing to do? If you are exposing hypocrisy and bad management, then yes. If you are merely venting your frustration and anger by offending people's religion, then no. According to www.bbc.co.uk, David Cameron has stated that in a free society, "people have to be free to offend each other."  I do agree, but still question why nobody seems to wonder whether offending people is really very nice. While I hope the magazine carries on, I would just like to see more empathy and sensitivity generally in the press, towards everybody. 

Most people, in their daily lives, would never dream of telling their friends, acquaintances and relatives every little thought they have about them, and thank goodness for that. Would we like to be told every time our hair looked bad, or whenever we looked fatter or tired? How would we feel if our choices of partner, house, music, children's names, religion were scrutinised and criticised by our loved ones? Would we happily go to bed, thinking how lucky we were to live in a country with free speech? Probably not. Most people only believe in free speech if it does not affect themselves. Some people love giving their opinion, whether it is wanted or not, whenever possible, without much thought for the effect their words have on other people. While it is wonderful that we have free speech, we have a duty to treat each other kindly and to, occasionally, apply an internal filter to avoid unnecessarily hurting people's feelings. I think we all know someone we would like to filter at times, because sometimes, silence is golden. As Dr. PaulTaylor, senior lecturer in culture and communications at Leeds University said on Jeremy Vine's show on 8/1/15: "just because you can say something, doesn't mean you should."