Dear Parents, Teachers and Adults of the World....FEAR HAS GRIPPED YOU!

Now, let us talk about fear. Fear is the greatest impediment to progress, it stops us from making the tough decisions, from doing what we KNOW is right.

It stops us from handing out the due process, from laying down the law firmly, from confiscating the blackberrys and ipods, are you catching my drift?

Yes, dear parents, teachers and adults, you fear your young and this could never be a good thing.

Since when was a direct order, an executive decision from a parent or teacher an opportunity to negotiate? When I was growing up, the word ‘negotiation’ was not a part of my vocabulary, but, somehow, young people have gained more power.

This is, you could say, down to the fact that they have been GIVEN more power, through government policies that exert extreme measures of safety around young people or it could just be down to the fact that parents have let the government do THEIR job.

You see, I’m not convinced your parents would be happy to see that your child has a seat on the decision-making forum in your household, because your parents brought you up to show respect to your elders, have good mannerisms, show empathy to your fellow man/woman. They told you that if you worked hard you would be successful, your father passed on his trade, your mother passed on the traits of a highly respectable woman. Where did it all go wrong?

Although we may look at our young and feel as though they are without hope, the truth is you are afraid to approach them, confront them or even help them. The reason being, the fear of the unknown, “people will never know beyond what they see with their own two eyes,” in order to understand them you have to become them, you ARE them and they are you, you brought them into the world.

I created www.whydo.co.uk after pitching the idea to O2 Think Big. It is now a national campaign gaining in popularity everyday. It is a unique idea designed to find a solution to a unique problem, the generation gap. It is this generation gap that has caused adults to lose the power they once had, caused young people to lose the innocence they SHOULD have.

WhyDo is an online Q&A service designed to give adults the chance to ask young people why they do the things they do! Simple, but effective!

I have always said to families I have worked with, I have no answers, unfortunately, because the answers are in you, my job is just to extract those answers.

I work with parents and their children, helping them overcome barriers they face in communication. I help parents understand that unless they are actively involved in their child's education they will experience a breakdown in understanding between them, whilst also working with their children to find out what could be the problem. This works because I am a young person and I am empathetic to both sides of the generational divide which gives me the necessary tools to be able to understand the concerns both demographics have. I plan to do the same for teachers, who I feel at times work with their hands behind their backs due to lack of communication between school and parents which leaves the teacher in a fragile position of having to deal with a child whose background they MAY know nothing about. This causes fear of children, fear of pupils and students as not knowing about them gives them more power but also limits them.

The reason we are afraid is because we fear ourselves, when we see our young we see a part of ourselves that we have tried to repress in our memories, so we neglect them, in the hope that one day they may just disappear, but I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, these young people are here to stay and the more you push them away is the bigger the problem becomes.

It is never too late to try to build a bridge, never too late. The truth is as much as young people love the fear factor, the fear factor cannot guide them. You can guide them.

Log on to www.whydo.co.uk and ask young people ANY question, whether it be, about fashion, clothes, education, drinking, drugs maybe you have an issue with your own children and want advice, we are ready to answer all your questions.