No child enters the world knowing how to lie, hurt, insult, manipulate, or bully others, nor do they know how to respect, care for, or love themselves or others. A child is born with reflexes, needs, emotions, curiosity, and an extraordinary capacity to learn. What we later call “bad or good behavior” is often something the child has observed, experienced, acted upon, practiced, and eventually learned to repeat. A boy who watches his caregiver solve every disagreement through shouting may learn that a loud voice is a form of power. A girl who repeatedly sees adults lie to escape problems may learn that dishonesty is a clever way to get out of trouble. A child who is constantly humiliated may discover that humiliating others gives him a momentary sense of control. Gradually, what began as mere observation becomes imitation; imitation becomes behavior; behavior turns into habit; and habit contributes to character and personality. Then one day, the adults raise their voices, point at the child, and say, “He has become a difficult child.” But perhaps the more important question is not, “What is wrong with this child?” but “What has this child been learning from us?”
Before a child learns from books, teachers, or the outside world, they learn at home. A mother’s lap is often called a child’s first classroom. The way a mother holds her child, the warmth he receives from her, and how she responds to his hunger, cries, and smiles teach him and shape how he feels about himself. Gradually, home becomes his classroom, and parents, siblings, grandparents, and other caregivers are the teachers. They are not actively teaching, but the child is actively learning. The child’s mind is like a blank slate (Tabula Rasa). Every action and every verbal and nonverbal behavior in his immediate environment is filling this blank slate. He is actively watching, listening, feeling, and imitating. Children don’t just listen to what adults tell them; they carefully watch what adults do. A mother who teaches honesty but lies in front of the child sends two different lessons, and the child is likely to remember the behavior more than the words. One who sees kindness, patience, apology, and respect being practiced learns those behaviors as well. Even the way adults treat maids, drivers, relatives, elderly family members, or one another becomes part of the child’s unwritten curriculum. How parents speak to a spouse, react to mistakes, treat workers, or respond when they are wrong can become powerful lessons. What a family repeatedly normalizes can quietly become what a child carries into school, college, workplace, and into intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. A child may forget a hundred lectures about good manners, but remember vividly how an adult behaved when hurt.
Children are often quiet observers. They gradually begin to reproduce what they see (mirror neurons play their role here – action, observation, and imitation). A child may never be directly taught to insult someone, but if they repeatedly hear insults at home, they can incorporate them into their conflict vocabulary. This is the essence of observational learning (Bandura, 1977): behavior can be acquired simply by watching others, particularly people whom children admire, depend on, or perceive as powerful. Though neuroscience has explored the role of mirror neurons in observation and action, imitation is a more complex process involving attention, memory, motivation, and the consequences of observed behavior. Children do not imitate every behavior they observe; imitation becomes more likely when the behavior appears to produce rewards, attention, approval, or power. Thus, what adults repeatedly demonstrate, whether kindness or cruelty, honesty or deception, patience or aggression, can become a silent lesson children carry long after the moment has passed.
Sometimes, bad behavior survives not because a child doesn’t know it is wrong, but because it works. A child throws a tantrum and gets the junk food he demanded; a teenager lies to avoid punishment and finds the lie protects him. Each time undesirable behavior produces a desirable outcome, it can become stronger through reinforcement. Inconsistent parenting can make this cycle even more powerful: if a parent says “no” but eventually gives in after repeated shouts, the child may learn that persistence and escalation are effective strategies. This is why changing problematic behavior often requires more than punishment; it requires adults to stop unintentionally reinforcing the behavior while consistently rewarding healthier actions.
As a child grows older, the world of the child gradually expands beyond the home, and friends become powerful teachers. The desire to belong can be so strong that a young person may adopt his friends’ attitudes and behavior. A teenager may begin using disrespectful language because of friends, or take unnecessary risks as part of experimentation or to impress peers. Peer influence is not always negative; friends can encourage kindness, confidence, academic achievement, and healthy habits. Today, this circle of influence extends far beyond face-to-face interaction. Through smartphones and digital platforms, young girls and boys face countless behavioral models, trends, and social changes in expectations, often without the supervision of adults. YouTube videos and social media influencers to films, games, cartoons, and online communities, children are constantly exposed to ways of speaking, behaving, arguing, dressing, and responding. Repeated exposure can make certain behaviors appear normal, desirable, or even entertaining.
Long before the emergence of neuroscience, the Holy Quran instructs believers to exercise restraint over their gaze. In surah An-Nur (24: 30-31), both men and women are instructed to lower their gaze and guard their chastity.
"اے نبی! ایمان والے مردوں سے کہہ دیجیے کہ وہ اپنی نگاہیں نیچی رکھیں اور اپنی شرم گاہوں کی حفاظت کریں۔ یہ ان کے لیے زیادہ پاکیزہ طریقہ ہے۔ بے شک اللہ ان کے اعمال سے پوری طرح باخبر ہے۔”
"اور ایمان والی عورتوں سے کہہ دیجیے کہ وہ اپنی نگاہیں نیچی رکھیں، اپنی شرم گاہوں کی حفاظت کریں اور اپنی زینت ظاہر نہ کریں، سوائے اس کے جو خود ظاہر ہو جائے، اور اپنی اوڑھنیوں کو اپنے گریبانوں پر ڈالے رکھیں۔”
القران –
These verses from the Holy Quran offer an ethical reminder of the value of exercising restraint over what we look at and how we conduct ourselves. In the age of digital exposure, these verses invite us to reflect on the content we consume and the values we allow to shape our character. Parental guidance and moral responsibility are invaluable when young minds are still developing their understanding of right and wrong.
Screens have created a huge distance between generations: family may be sitting in the same room yet living in totally different worlds. While one generation grew up learning cultural norms, values, and virtues via vis-à-vis communication, the other generation is exposed to continuously changing streams, trends, and digital voices. Certain behaviors and trends are spreading like a pandemic beyond cultural and geographical boundaries. Aggression is portrayed as heroic, humiliation as comedy, and vulgarity as vogue. Since such trends are gaining millions of views and providing monetary rewards, these trends are gaining acceptance, producing millions of copies of the same behavior by the observers – merely in the pursuit of attention, attraction, popularity, wealth, and power – the reward is so robust. The whole system is spreading the behavior (good or bad) like a contagion through repeated exposure, imitation, and social and financial reinforcement. Yet technology alone is not responsible for this social contagion; the deeper concern is whether parents have instilled in their children the difference between good and bad, whether the children are oriented to critical thinking, and whether they have a sense of ethical and moral values. How much time have parents spent teaching healthy emotions, values, norms, and morality to their children? Obviously, there are other factors contributing to this social contagion, including free time, inconsistent parenting, inadequate emotional guidance, social isolation and stressful home environments, and relying on nannies and house help for raising children.
In a century when a single reel can travel across millions of screens in just a few minutes, the greatest challenge is not to cut the connection to the world but to teach them to navigate trends without losing their true values and essence. Sometimes, difficult behavior may reflect an emotional struggle that nobody has noticed. A child who becomes aggressive may be struggling with fear/frustration; a teenager who retreats into screens may be carrying rejection, humiliation, loneliness, or unresolved anger. Emotional context can help an adult respond more effectively. Children need supervision, boundaries, accountability, and appropriate consequences.
If a behavior can be learned, the hopeful truth is that it can also be unlearned and replaced with healthier behavior. A child is not permanently imprisoned by the behaviors learned in childhood through his immediate environment or through media though the childhood memory is said to be the robust one. With consistent guidance, healthy role models, appropriate boundaries, and positive reinforcement, children can develop new ways of thinking and responding. Instead of rewarding aggression with attention or giving in to tantrums, adults can reinforce calm communication and problem-solving. Parents can make honesty safer, encourage open communication, and teach their youngsters to question what they see online instead of blind imitation. Psychological intervention can also help young people recognize unhealthy patterns and develop healthier ones. Change, however, requires patience. The same brain that learns harmful behavior can learn healthier ways of thinking and behaving. If a child can unlearn, so can the elderly.
