Young Writers Society

In an excerpt from For the Time Being by Sydney Harris, parents are likely to expect something more from their children. They want them to grow easily taught, well-rounded, and learn from the scale of values that they teach their kids as they get to be independent at such a very young age. Harris disagree with the fact that the children are somehow forced to be independent while in fact, they are actually still in the process of growing.These children are independent on the inside, mind and spirit, but not physically.

The growth from being a child to an adult is a process where we develop naturally. As stated by Harris, "Actually when parents say they want a child to 'excel', what they customarily mean is that they want them to be successful and popular." At such a very young age, a child should be taught by his or her parent lineally and not how strict parents want their children to be taught and to react in the society they think they are supposed to fit in. It's a natural progression wherein children are not robots that can function the way their parents want them to. Though I agree with the fact that it makes a parent proud to see their children grow independently, it is still not a good idea to get high expectations from their children by forcing them to be what they do not want themselves to be at such a very young age.

Parents get to be neurotic as they think of the fact that when their children start to learn how to talk and walk on their own feet alone, they should automatically step into the next level and be advanced on their own as it results them, being too old for their age because parents do not want their children to turn into delinquents. Children are children who do things naturally in their own ways. They are in the stage where the thought of "playing" is what they all think of. They like playing in puddles, get dirty, squealing and running around the house, and make such mistakes where they get to learn from like a normal kid they are. It is the same thing with adults as well, we get to learn for some instances because we are still in the developmental stage like these kids. We do not say that, as parents or as adults we have already gotten through the learning process because it takes a long awful time to get to the destination and be successful. Not everybody comes to an end. 

The qualities and the deeper meaning of being a normal kid are failed to be recognized by adults. Hypothetically speaking, kids who are told and forced by their parents just because they want these kids to be one of the "over-achievers" when time comes, have disadvantages. Why? Because kids are not happy with what they are doing in their lives. It is not their choices that are being made, it's their parents'. The kid he used to be before is not genuinely the one who grew up in the future. As of in my case, my parents do not have such high expectations from me and my siblings, they taught me the ways in life moderately, they let me grow, and as I look at myself now, I can see independence. They never forced me into what I should become and supposed to be doing for where I am destined. Adults, and specifically parents, should have a deeper contemplation of what is needed to be realized when it comes to children's growth. Since they are the most experienced people in life, they should be the one having the adjustment for the sake of their kids, not these children who basically do not know the general idea about what to be expected in life. 

It is obvious why children nowadays abandon themselves from the society even if they have the skills to be one of the successful people in the world only if their parents get to realize the casualties and the things their children are really interested in when they are growing up. Parents should let their kids grow up naturally and slowly in progress. In that way, parents will get to know their children more deeply and who knew? They might be successful in the near future just the way they want them to be.