A noticeable rise in teen anxiety has been observed globally, a phenomenon that existed even before the COVID-19 pandemic but became more acute during it.

Reasons for Teenage Anxiety

• Reduction in Playtime: Children’s playtime has been drastically reduced, with school recess often dedicated to preparing for tests, rather than recreational activities.
• Educational Shift: The emphasis on high-stakes entrance exams has transformed the educational system from a learning experience into a filtering mechanism, where academic performance often takes precedence over holistic development.
  
• Impact of Tuition Classes: The growing trend of tuition classes and specialized coaching for entrance exams leaves little room for sports or socializing with friends, limiting children’s opportunities for free play.
• Technology’s Role in Mental Health: The increased use of smartphones and digital technology has been linked to sleep deprivation, addiction, and overall poor mental health in teenagers. 
  • Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that these devices are rewiring children’s brains and creating constant conflicts within families over screen time.
• Parental Challenges: Parents face difficulties in enforcing limits on technology use, as children often find ways around the rules, leading to frequent family disputes over screen time.

Way Forward

• No Smartphones: Haidt suggests banning smartphones for children before they enter high school to mitigate the negative effects of excessive screen time.
• No Social Media: Another proposal is to delay access to social media until children turn 16, preventing early exposure to its potentially harmful effects.
• Phone-Free Schools: Haidt advocates for phone-free schools to ensure that students are not distracted by their devices during school hours, allowing them to focus on education.
• Promote Unsupervised Play: The final reform calls for more unsupervised play and fostering childhood independence, giving children the freedom to explore and learn through real-world experiences.
• Challenges of Banning Technology: As a parent of teenagers, the proposed restrictions on phones and social media seem too drastic. 
  • Given that technology has already become an embedded part of daily life, an outright ban may not be practical or realistic.
• Balancing Technology Use: It is important to have conversations with teenagers about responsible technology use, modeling balanced behavior, and creating opportunities for family time. 
  • Trusting teenagers to make informed decisions while still providing guidance can help strike a balance between technology and healthy social interaction.

Significance of Reading

• Childhood Reading: Sam Leith’s book highlights the importance of reading during childhood as a tool to foster imagination and empathy. It offers a positive counter to the growing anxiety crisis among children.
  
• Opening New Worlds: Childhood reading opens windows to new worlds, helping children grasp their first understanding of fictional realms and the power of words and sentences.
• Foundation of Lifelong Reading: Childhood reading is not just a temporary activity but serves as the foundation for a lifelong love of reading. Leith emphasizes how early exposure to books shapes a child’s understanding of tone, style, and narrative form.
• Start Early for a Lifelong Love: Introducing children to picture books in infancy, progressing to comics and graphic novels during teenage years, helps foster a sustained passion for reading.
• Albert Einstein’s Quote: Einstein’s famous quote—“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales”—underlines the value of fairy tales in developing emotional intelligence in children.
• Themes in Fairy Tales: These stories encompass themes of innocence, love, honesty, kindness, sacrifice, and grief, helping children connect with complex emotions through fictional experiences.

Grief and Growth in Children’s Literature

• Underlying Theme: Many enduring works of children’s literature include a pulse of sadness or loss, subtly teaching children that growing up involves both freedom and sorrow. 
  • Leith highlights how grief is an integral part of understanding human nature in childhood stories.
• Duality: The tension between freedom and innocence on one side, and the themes of grief and sacrifice on the other, reflects a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Affordability of Children’s Books

• Need for Accessibility: “Children’s Books: An Indian Story” stresses the need for affordable and accessible children’s literature, especially in public libraries.
• National Book Trust (NBT): NBT played a significant role in making children’s books affordable, ensuring accessibility for working families. 
  • Despite the increasing cost of newer books, affordability remains crucial for widespread access.

Relevance and Good Translations

• Cultural Relevance: Children’s books should reflect the context of a child’s life, making them relatable and impactful.
• Good Translations: Books should also be available in multiple languages to ensure broader access. 
  • An example is Mahasweta Devi’s “The Why Why Girl”, which has been translated into various Indian languages, making it accessible to children across the country. The book’s illustrations and local translations are key to its widespread popularity.

Conclusion

To address modern challenges like anxiety and digital addiction, encouraging children to read—especially diverse stories and fairy tales—can be a powerful tool.

DOWNLOAD PDF