Let us take a few risks

For our sakes, let us take a few risks 16 May 2006
This week is Youth Week, and in the second of a five-part series featuing the opinions of young people in the district, Stuart Julian writes on issues that concern him. Youth Week aims to highlight the positive input young people make in their communities.
We are the super generation of youth. Social scientists have studied the trends of children for hundreds of years to come to this conclusion, and yet they see a flaw, a single imperfection that could quash all of the great expectations of our super-stature. We as a nation, our youth, our parents and our leaders, are turning soft.
My parents tell me stories of their childhood hardships – "back in my day . . ." I would grow tired of these pretty early and would soon learn the art of selective hearing.
Today's youth take for granted what they have got. Now I realise that with a bit of hard parenting and lack of technology, our older generations have gained not just physical toughness from climbing mountains each day, barefoot over gravel and snow, but mental toughness also.
My mother would tell me she biked from Waiwhakaiho and back – all the way from Seaview Road for every single netball game she played. In today's society, this would be regarded as an outstanding feat and would probably receive a gold medallion and a letter from the Queen herself. But she did it because it was all she knew, she didn't have her own personal car to drive wherever she pleased.
Nowadays, you would be lucky to see youth with the willpower to pry themselves away from the TV and just bike across Seaview Road.
We could argue that pure laziness is letting our New Zealand youth waste away, but there is an equally large factor. When I was a young child of eight, I was walking the 2km journey to Spotswood Primary alone. Until, of course, it was my turn to receive a large, shiny black bike for my 10th birthday, my parents thought it was good for me.

Slowly, our society has become too wrapped up in the belief that there is no way our children can make it to the dairy without being kidnapped, raped or slaughtered.
Has our world become so corrupt that we cannot let our children walk to the park – two blocks away – without parental supervision? Is it so unruly and dangerous that we should install metal detectors in pre-schools? Sure, there are a lot of bad guys out there and they have a new age of weapons in their arsenals – this in turn brings double the paranoia in parents.
But we must let our children experience risk and hardship, to condition them for the future and give them the confidence to push back when being pushed. Youth of today need to stop wasting the sunshine and get active, to play a part in this vibrant community.
Parents, to instil good habits and attitude for the future – for theirs and everybody else's sake – let your kids walk to the park every now and then – during the day of course.
STUART JULIAN is 17 years old and the chairperson of the New Plymouth District Council youth subcommittee.

The year 13 student is head boy at Spotswood College. He plans to further his education at university next year.

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