Are We Producing a Race of Feral Children?

Are we as parents helping to produce a new race of feral children? Today a local newspaper, Pocono Record, reported a story concerning a five year old Russian girl found living in a filthy apartment imitating cats and dogs. She was barking and lapping food off plates from off the floor. Severely neglected in all areas by her relatives who lived with her, this young girl patterned the antics of dogs and cats residing in her cramped apartment. This may be an extreme example of feral behavior in children, but I wonder if it's not too far off from what we're doing to our children as we're raising them today.

Webster's dictionary defines feral as untamed, wild, savage and fierce. Feral also refers to being void of human emotions and social experience. Basic human needs were first discussed and rated in order of importance by, Abraham Maslow, a humanistic psychologist in 1943. He listed five humanistic survival needs in a pyramid form, titled, "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs."

Psychological needs; such as food, sleep, stimulation and activity, are the basic lowest human necessities we need to survive. Safety, love and belonging, and esteem are the nest level, with the highest human goal/need to achieve is, self-actualization. Your quest is to step up to the next levels in order to become a completely self reliant human. Some adults never reach the higher hierarchy levels because of various influences. A feral child's stunted, forced to wallow in the lowest level of human need due to having a lack of food, sleep and stimulation, therefore unable to move up to the next level. This is a low functioning human being, in this case a severely abused, neglected child. Feral behavior may be at this level.

Are we neglecting our children, enforcing means to slow down their growth up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Are we becoming lax in parenting, teaching children to live a lifestyle that may be closer to a feral child? Are we only doling out basic needs at times because of the hectic lifestyle we live? I do say this in an extreme sense.

As parents we place our children in front of a television set almost as soon as they can sit up on their own, sometimes earlier. We go about attending to our daily household duties, go to work, entertain, and utilize a television set as a ready made babysitter. We may occasional give a loving, "coo or ah," and then turn the television set louder to drown out the child's complaints. A child who may be frustrated and under stimulated, strapped in front of a blaring television babysitter.

As our children grow older we substitute television by making good use of the family computer, willingly buying videogames to entertain our children in a solitary manner. Our children spend hours staring at the monitor screen, having impersonal contact with video graphics, decreasing face to face interaction with others. Their young eyes glaze over, immersing in a computer world with little need to verbally or socially interact with other family members. With hectic schedules even family dinner hours where everyone gathers together to share their daily news tends to be eliminated, everyone grabbing food on the run.

The saddest thing I've noticed lately is groups of children sitting outside with individual heads bent over cell phones texting, probably to each other in conversation. No verbal language is used except for a few sparse gasps and groans. Children form their own nonverbal text shorthand, altering and eliminating the use of normal English language. Each child stares at their cell phones, entranced with their own personal galaxy.

Physical outdoor games, interaction and exercise with friends has become limited, hence the dramatic increase in obesity in our children. Verbal interaction's toned down as our children text and twitter. Teenagers use social networks like Face-book and My Space, use video cams, and make videos for You Tube, all to interact and share information online. Their online friend list may be in the hundreds, thousands, but social physical friendship list has been cut down to lack of time. Have we gone too far in our need for progress, making our children become an under stimulated generation with the increase in electronic inventions?

Computer games with futuristic graphics attract teenagers, who lose social and verbal limitations. Violent and sexist video games mar realistic nature and damaging results of human injuries and death. Children have become more violent, more disrespectful, losing all sense of moral boundaries. Feral children often revert to animalistic survival techniques. Our children have lost the true value of human life with violent unforgiving acts, and are even taking their own lives. Do we as parents continue to provide security for our children by allowing less interaction with parents and peers, with more interaction through electronic tech gadgetry?

One computer company introduced an electronic video game that you play with wireless wands held in your hand, physically using your body to initiate moves on a video screen. Still this game was made for the companies benefit, attempting to eliminate the need to go outside in the fresh air to get physical activity and interpersonal interaction, and allow more gaming time. Family social time is dramatically decreased, with family members enclosed in their individual rooms with personal computers and television sets. Feral children are deprived of social interaction and nurturing, spending hours of solitary time alone.

In school advancements in technology are welcome, but they also tend to enhance lack of social awareness, as many classes are being taught via individual computers in classrooms. You can have a video conference with your teacher or e-mail questions. Classes can be taken at home, eliminating the need to go into a classroom. You contact most companies on the phone and receive electronic service voices, with difficulty reaching live human service. Do we still teach our children proper personal phone interaction? Do they learn more than, press one, press two?

In my futuristic nightmare I imagine our children being born and placed in clear pods, fed and nurtured by robotic nannies, void of all human contact because of our hectic lifestyles. Will our children become a race of feral children, unable to climb, "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?" Or will this be totally eliminated in our futuristic society? Is there a way to prevent our children's continued loss of social awareness and morals without losing the benefits of scientific electronic advancements?

The End

Feral Child Article, can be found at www.poconorecord.com May 28, 2009 edition.

Information about "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs