Changing value system, a wedge between generation gap

By Lionel WIJESIRI

One of our ex-employees, a mother of two teenagers, wrote me an email recently: "What is wrong with the youth of today? I thought “Generation X” was bad and believed it couldn’t possibly get any worse? But I guess I was wrong”.

Today it seems there is no end to the reasons to fear for our children’s safety and well-being. Other than the “usual” worries any parent should have, there are other “serious” fears and moreimminent reasons for most parents to be frightened. What strikes fear most into many parents’ hearts is the daily possibility their children will fall prey to the wrong crowd, succumb to cultural pressures, and make wrong choices that will bring pain and suffering to their lives. That fear is real. And it never goes away.

In today’s world, teens are likely to encounter more moral temptations, greater spiritual battles, and emotional and relational struggles than any other generation in history.

Young people’s exposure to sexual temptations, violence, alcohol, illegal drugs, and many other dangerous influences threaten to undo what parents may try to teach them. Yet, while parents need to fear what their children could be tempted to do, they need to be more concerned with what their children are led to believe.

The way teens behave comes from something. Their attitudes and actions spring from their value systems and their value systems are based on what they believe.

A young person’s actions are just the tip of the iceberg. If parents are concerned their young people might make wrong choices that will bring them pain, it is shortsighted to merely try to mould or control what they do.

It is better to instil right values in them, values based on solid moral and ethical beliefs.

Unless their actions are built on a solid foundation of those beliefs, parents can expect their children’s lives to reflect the pain and consequences of wrong choices.

Beliefs

A modern mother might ask: “Does it really make a difference what teens believe? We may prefer for them to have moral and ethical beliefs, but what harm will come if they do not? Will it really change the way they think and act in the real world?”The answer is : Yes, and to an astounding degree.Research consistently shows what a person believes translates into behaviour.

A major survey in USA of more than 3,700 teens involved reveals that, compared to teens who possess a solid, moral and ethical belief system, young people who lack such basic beliefs are:

225 percent more likely to be angry with life;
216 percent more likely to be resentful;
210 percent more likely to lack purpose in life; and
200 percent more likely to be disappointed in life.

These findings confirm that beliefs create values, and those values result in certain attitudes.

But beliefs shape values, and values drive actions.

In other words, the things teens believe will result in specific behavior.

This is why research has shown teens — otherwise good teenagers from good families — who do not possess a moral and ethical belief system are:

36 percent more likely to lie to a friend;
48 percent more likely to cheat at an exam;
200 percent more likely to steal;
200 percent more likely to physically hurt someone;
300 percent more likely to use illegal drugs;

While this may be disturbing, it should not be a surprise. Beliefs matter because they form the values that determine people’s actions.

Generation gap

Now, you may be among the few parents who could say, “But, I am teaching my children right. My children believe the right things. They will be able to stand strong against temptation and evil influences — right?”

My answer may sound like I am contradicting myself, but teaching teens to believe in the right things will not be enough to enable them to stand strong and make right choices in today’s culture.

This sounds contradictory. Beliefs do matter. If teens do not have solid beliefs, they are 200 to 600 percent more likely to exhibit dangerous or destructive behaviors. So why isn’t the solution simply teaching our children the right things to believe? How can believing the right things not enough to hold teens steady when life’s trials and tests come their way?

The older generation’s concept of what it means to believe in something is probably different — radically different — from that of your teens.

Influenced by post-modernism, many teens today find some moral and ethical beliefs of their elders hard to swallow. Not that they are totally rejecting the behaviour they have been taught; they have been influenced to redefine it according to their cultural setting. Teens are forming their opinion in a mixed bag style.

They are being encouraged to piece their beliefs together themselves; that way it will be right for them personally, and will offend no one.

Even more than their Generation -X parents, today’s teenagers, who belong to Generation – Y, often pick and choose what works for them. ‘There really is an atmosphere of whatever you think is okay,’ one might say. ‘Just don’t tell me what to think. I’ll figure it out myself.’

Thus, an entire generation of young people today believe truth is not true for them until they choose to believe it. They believe the act of believing makes things true. Once they believe, those things will be true for them only until they choose to believe something else. As soon as something more convincing comes along, they are likely to begin believing that.

To believe in something is to “accept it as true, genuine, or real.” But as I have pointed out, teens are conditioned by today’s culture to believe nothing is objectively true, universally genuine, or real in an absolute sense. They think something is true, genuine, or real only when they accept it, subjectively, for themselves.

If teens are to stand strong in today’s culture, we must help them develop correct moral and ethical beliefs so deeply rooted no tempest can shake them, no storm can uproot them. They need more than personal opinions or lightly held suspicions.

If teens are to withstand the pressures and temptations in today’s dangerous world, we must help them move beyond subjective belief system to firm convictions.

They need to be so thoroughly convinced of what they believe they will take a stand for it regardless of the consequences.

Convictions

It is not enough to have convictions. The actions of LTTE terrorists and suicide bombers demonstrate it is possible to have deep, abiding convictions and still be tragically wrong. To move teens beyond belief to conviction we must guide them through an examination of the evidences for what they believe.

Only then will they be equipped with the conviction that their moral and ethical beliefs are objectively true. But even that is not enough.

Deep convictions are built not only on what the mind believes, but also around what the heart has experienced.

A belief is intended to be a personal experience; it should have a profound and relational meaning for each of our lives.

Most young people, however, do not understand how their moral and ethical beliefs can be meaningful in their everyday lives.

Most teens see little correlation between what they believe in ethical conduct and their relationships with friends and family, or their future in life. But that presents a golden opportunity.

We can demonstrate to teenagers not only what is objectively true about the moral and beliefs, but also how they can be relationally meaningful to their lives.

Therefore, the parents’ task today is to present the benefits of moral and ethical behaviour to young people in ways that demonstrate that such belief is an intelligent exercise of knowing what is objectively true and experiencing it relationally.

When they do that, teens will begin to develop deep convictions that will make them strong, even in the face of today’s challenges.