Ideals and Values

Every epoch puts its ideals and values for living generations.
Ideals and values are also determined by stage of economic development, political situation in the country, traditions and customs of the given nation.
So, values and ideals are reflection of time first of all and are dictated by it and norms of society.
Value is the person's idea of what is important in life, what is good and evil. Ideal is perfect state or condition which a person wants to reach. Often these concepts are used as synonyms. Ideals can also be people who you want to look like. It can be famous personalities or just people whom you know and who are examples for you to follow.

It is not right to say that ideals and values of our generation are worse than it was in the past times, as many adults like to tell. They just can be different because we live in different time, in different country situation; the world is changing rapidly nowadays and we must catch with all changes of our time.
But also, it is not right of teenagers to consider values and ideals of older people as wrong, naive and laugh at them, as it often happens. Again, we are different, so different are our priorities.
We think that despite differences, there are some values that are universal and have not changed for several generations. They are family and friendship.

There are also other important things that modern teenagers should have as their values: honesty, respect to others, tolerance.
It is very important to form right values in growing generation. The first role is of family and school. Parents should spend more time with their children when they are small and explain them what is right and wrong by their own example, to read good books and watch good films together. School should take care of forming values too. It should organize special activities for children that will help them to become morally better.
Unfortunately, mass media does not do much good in forming values. TV is full of violent films and even cartoons that teach children that force is the only right thing.
Some of popular journals publish articles that teach to be selfish and think only about yourself.

However, in conclusion we would like to tell that teenagers are not little children, they claim to be adults, so they should understand themselves what is good and what is wrong. One always has a choice of what he will be like and what values will power his life.
Anastasia (R)