‘Bois Locker Room’ – A Sneak peak into Mindset of Present-day Youth - Part I

Bois Locker Room- A Sneak peak into Mindset of Present Day Youth

Last week, the whole nation woke up to the horror stories emanating out of a leak from a private chat group #Boislockerroom. Participants were a group of teenage boys who used the group to objectify and degrade fellow classmates, and other girls whom they knew as friends.The conversation among them ranged from posting nudes to gang raping those girls in a very casual manner. It was horrifying to go through the conversations of the group, and equally overwhelming to go through varied reactions it received on various social media platforms. Reactions of the society oscillated from condemnation, justification, and support, to counter attack.  

If we notice the flowchart of reactions of our society in steps, we see the first step after these reactions is to find reasons behind this incident, again, based on the biased reactions.

Second step is, we make up a mental story of the whole event to satisfy our curiosity and float it around in form of social media posts demanding an action, or verbal discussions on T.V channels. This rhetoric continues till the news cycle changes and some other event replaces it. The hurt from such events remains deep inside us, and resurfaces every now and then in form of heated communications with people around, or in form of a social media post/ tweet. There are no steps taken to change the mindset; No permanent solutions as such. There are certain questions that remain unanswered as they get buried under the horrifying noises that surround the event. 

Today, I’m trying to raise some of these issues and would try to present a psychological point of view around them. These conversations might help in resolving some pervasive issues that haunt our society quite frequently. I would like to divide the whole communication into two parts series of this article.

1. Issues about growing up kids

2. About present day generation of young adults 

In the present article, I’ll talk about kids who are growing up now, and how to tackle issues which parents face every day.

Issues about growing up kids

     What is Gender Difference? How does it seep into us?

•  Gender differences run deep into our lives, mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, socially, and physically. Femininity and Masculinity are not only dictionary words. They are a permanent part of our vocabulary and the mindset. Word male is associated with strength, power, force, and being potent, whereas word female is synonym with petite, vulnerable, beautiful, sensuous, and helpless.  
•   As the child grows up, ‘Gender role consistent behaviour’ takes place around him. Stereotypical roles are learnt through cognitive learning picked up from the environment. In some households, the boys are kept on a pedestal and given special treatment, whereas girls are forced to behave in a subservient manner. Even in daily chores, the girl child is given a raw deal and taught to be tolerant, adjust and learn ‘virtue of patience’. They are deprived of learning hands on skills, and kept to household jobs along with studies.
•   Freedom also has separate definitions for boys and girls. Boys from a young age ‘know’ that they are allowed to go out to play for longer duration than girls. Such behaviours form the thought process which carry on in adulthood.
•  Another important point is expression of emotions. ‘Boys don’t cry’ & ‘Don’t cry like a girl’ is conveyed so many times that they turn out to be less expressive, and may be less empathetic towards the girls? They find it irritating if a girl cries, and they are unable to handle surge of emotions.
• I feel we should allow them to accept emotions, as emotions don’t make us weak. Emotional regulation can be taught during childhood effectively. Instead of bottling up their feelings, we should teach them to express emotions appropriately.

What are the right things to do while bringing up kids?

• Patriarchal mindset is an age-old, and irrelevant concept. Bringing up the kids in a gender-neutral environment is the best way to deal with the problem. Remove dichotomous behaviour from your family by having amenable discussions with your parents and grandparents. It is important to expose the child to uniform patterns of behaviour when they meet various family members.
• Most of the values and thought process is formed at home, and it is our duty as parents to inculcate these in our kids before they’re introduced to varied environment at school and other places. It’s like putting a firm foundation. 
• Remember! Kids don’t learn when you lecture them, they pickup clues from your behaviour. When they see misleading, biased and deceptive behaviour in the family, dishonesty and double-dealing seeps into them. A casual, and non-consequential communication between husband and wife can have long term consequences on the kids. 
• Kids not only learn gender difference, they also pickup socioeconomic difference clues when appropriate respect is not extended to subordinates and servants. The concept of power play and selective behaviour based on position, power, social status and economic background gets integrated in the child. 

What steps we can take as parents to avoid situations like Boys Locker Room or Bullying.

• Boys locker room is another version of peer pressure or group dynamics. This type of group is initiated by one or two ‘misguided influential leaders’, who project themselves as a ‘Cool guy with a Cool group’. Rest of the kids follow them like a herd, seeking validation from them, and want to fit in to look cool.
• In such groups, initially, everything starts with small mistakes and petty dares, but it takes no time to turn the participation into criminal activity and you turn into a co-conspirator.
• Before you help your kids, remember your own days in school when you were bullied, and how you avoided telling at home, to avoid a scene.
• Tell your kids to trust their inner voice, and trust their own beliefs and thoughts rather than getting carried away by others. 
•  Inculcate the difference between right and wrong and test this skill off and on in practical life, by giving them chance to make small everyday decisions.
• Saying no is not easy, but teach them to accept ‘no’ as an answer. This will inculcate the concept of saying no in them which can to be useful later in life.
• Inculcating a habit of having a conversation with your kids may help. Kids don’t change overnight. Some subtle signs are always around. Kids don’t stop giving information, they gauge parents’ reactions and trickle out information accordingly. So, don’t overreact, be a good listener. Kids sometimes just want you to listen. They don’t seek interventions and solutions. When you overreact, they back out of the conversation.
• Give them a concept of what a real friendship can be. If anyone is pressurizing them to do dangerous, hurtful, hateful, illegal things, is not a good friend.
• Meet their friends more often. If possible be friends with parents of your kid’s friends. That way you’ll have multiple sources of input.
•  Every adolescent starts expecting freedom or independence as they grow up. Privacy is also a bone of contention during adolescence. Give them a clear concept about freedom and privacy. Freedom doesn’t mean lack of responsibility. If you want to move away from autocratic set up to democratic family, make them understand the equal distribution of rights and duties, and duties as responsible adult precede rights.
• Make sure to inform them that freedom from parental scrutiny doesn’t mean they lose their freedom to the peer group pressure. Following friends blindly doesn’t reflect free choices.

How to safeguard the interests of adolescents in this digital age?

• As per Erickson’s Psycho-social stages, adolescents go through ‘Identity vs Role Confusion’. Their focus shifts from parents to peer group. While they try to find their own identity in this world, they seek validation, praise, affection, and recognition from outside, especially from peer group. During this delicate time, when the child hates your touch, and affection, don’t move away from your child. Don’t over impose, but, keep a sharp eye.
• It is not advisable to give a separate phone at this age. Watch out for subtle signs; Keep a tab on their accounts on social media, control usage of electronic media till they bloom into responsible adults.
• Encourage them to use electronic media in multiple ways. Explore its usage for artistic expressions, and skill enhancement along with social connect, so that they are not over-obsessed with it.
• Inform them about sex in a scientific manner, as physiological and biological processes, reproduction as need for survival, mating as essential construct for future companionship and multiplication of human race, rather than treating it as a taboo. Sex is also one of the five basic needs like hunger, thirst, sleep etc. If they’ll not get it from informed and safe resources, they’ll seek it from dangerous, untrustworthy, and unsafe resources, online or from misogynous peers.
• Teach them age appropriate sexual behaviour which will help them to be responsible adults who are not victims or perpetrators of sexual abuse. Respecting their own body and that of others is paramount in this learning.
•  Don’t try to overprotect adolescents. Controlled, guided exposure to this big bad world, and some amount of exposure to failures is needed to learn modesty.

I’m hopeful that some of the questions that trouble parents have been answered here. If you still have some queries, you can send them to me via email: ritu.chauhan.contact@gmail.com

We will talk – ‘About present generation young adults – How to be better human being.’ In the next article of this series.