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Pune (November 2009):16-year-old son of an Army officer arrested for stealing motorbikes. Interrogation revealed he had a craze for bikes.Mumbai (March 30, 2010):Group of teenagers (all students and from good families) arrested for stealing monograms of luxury cars like BMW and Mercedes.Mumbai (April 26, 2010):Teenager steals swanky car to impress his girlfriend.Dehradun (April 28, 2010):19-year-old girl commits suicide after parents refused to buy her a new cellphone.The nature of crime might be different, but teenagers and technology are the two things common in all these cases. And that raises many questions. Is the new generation obsessed with new-age gadgets and are we right in providing them with one? What is the right age to give your little one a cellphone, an I-pod, a PSP, a laptop or a car?Counsellor Parul Khona says though 50 per cent of the blame rests on the parents. She feels there is nothing wrong in providing your kid things you can afford, but one should keep a check on its usage.Khona says parents should opt for a reward method. "You can say, if you do well in your exams then only I will buy you a PSP... At the same time, see to it that the demand is justified. From the security point of view, parents do feel the need to give their son/daughter a cellphone. But, you need not give an expensive cellphone that too with a post-paid card, because then your child will never value money."Shrreyans, all of 14, got a PSP when he was eight, a laptop and cellphone costing Rs 20,000 when he was 12. Recently, he persuaded his parents to buy him an I-pod worth Rs 18,000. Now, he wants the latest version of PSP.Being a single child of his parents, both doctors by profession, Shrreyans is demanding, says mother Roopa Atkar. "My husband is very strict with him whereas I am lenient... We should have taken a mid-way. My advice to parents is that this kind of situation should be tackled from the beginning."The couple has now decided that they will give him an amount as a pocket money that he can collect and buy whatever he want at the end of the year. "Since he is a teenager, saying 'no' might make him rebellious and this way, he will realise the importance of money," says Atkar.Psychologist Dr Sheela Vaidya blames parents for not inculcating the habit of hearing 'no' for an answer. "By fulfilling their child's demand of one expensive thing, we expose them to the next big thing in the market."According to Vaidya, kids do not need cellphones when they go to school. "Once they reach college, they go in a wider atmosphere and checking their whereabouts becomes vital."Poornima Upadhye, mother of a 19-year-old, feels a lot depends upon the company the child is in. "When my daughter Reshma entered college, we gave her a cellphone and since she is fond of music, we recently bought her an I-pod."The mantra then, according to experts, is to keep the right balance between being strict and liberal.
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