 Ray Bradbury’s story “The Veldt” illustrates how overly permissive parenting creates entitlement,  negatively impacts children’s respect for their parents, and impairs the ability for children to make sound judgements.  In the story, two children are raised in a fully automated house complete with an interactive nursery-room. There they are allowed complete freedom with no boundaries and no responsibilities for their own actions.  Over time, the house and room take the place of their parents, completely controlling the thoughts and behaviors of the children.  This story was intended to predict the future.  Although fully interactive nursery rooms are still not the norm, a parallel can be drawn with social media.  As modern-day children become more and more dependent on internet sites such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, they begin to allow these platforms to control their daily lives, undermining parent-child relationships and impairing their ability to develop realistic decision making skills. 

In society parenting styles have a huge effect on the growth and development of children. Within the four main parenting styles )authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful), permissive seems to be the predominant style illustrated in this story. Permissive parenting involves This results in children who lack self discipline, have disruptive tendencies and are more likely to make risky, impulsive decisions. In current times, children with permissive parents often end up confused about what is socially acceptable and incapable of properly dealing with conflict.  They also become entitled, expect to have exactly what they want and can’t take no for an answer. With this said, children raised in a permissive household are not all bad. This quote shows a few of the good qualities associated with this parenting strategy.

“Such individuals are also more likely to be involved in problem behaviors and perform less well in school, but they have higher self-esteem, better social skills, and lower levels of depression than children raised by authoritarian parents (Strage & Brandt 1999). “ (Cheryl S. Marsiglia, Jeffrey J. Walczyk, Walter C. Buboltz, Diana A. Griffith-Ross)  

The children in this story possess a few of these good qualities. For example they are very polite when speaking with outside adults and they appear to have very high self esteem. This is illustrated when the children order their parents around, and when they speak about going on trips alone. One paragraph (Can you be specific?) in the text talks about how the children go off alone for the evening. This shows how independent the children are, most likely a direct effect of the permissive parenting strategies.

In this story, the family is living in an interactive house that helps the family with virtually everything.  Because of this,  the children are becoming more and more dependent on the house rather than their parents. As the story progresses the reader sees how the house, in a way, is replacing the job of the parents. This quote represents this as the mother expresses her concern for the house and its relationship within the family.

 “ That's just it. I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as he automatic scrub bath can? I cannot. And it isn’t just me. It’s you. You’ve been awfully nervous lately.” (Bradbury)

Within this quote the mother’s worry about becoming unneeded in her own home is very prominent. This relationship the family has with the house causes the children to view the house as their primary caregiver and eventually makes the  children hate their parents when they threaten to take parts of the house away. The children no longer see their parents as providers for them, but instead only see them taking things away. Any time the parents threaten to turn the nursery off the children throw temper tantrums.  The parents respond by turning it back on.  Yet again it is shown how permissive parenting has made the children disrespectful and entitled. In this part of the story it becomes obvious how the house undermines the role of the parents.

The house and nursery was created in the text as a representation of the future. A  parallel can be drawn between the idea of the nursery and social media. Social media can have comparable negative effects on children as they become obsessed and dependent on this artificial world that begins to undermine parental influence, and control their behavior.. Here, an article states a few of these effects.

“Because of their limited capacity for self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure, children and adolescents are at some risk as they navigate and experiment with social media. Recent research indicates that there are frequent online expressions of offline behaviors, such as bullying, clique- forming and sexual experimentation, that have introduced problems such as cyberbullying, privacy issues and sexting. Other problems that merit awareness include internet addiction and concurrent sleep deprivation.” (O’Keeffe, Pearson)

Not every one of these examples is shown in the text, however a few can show direct relations. For example internet addiction. Similar to the nursery, addictive behavior is shown when the children are overly upset by the idea of the nursery being turned off. The spend a huge majority of their time in the room  with little outside contact. Both the nursery and social media are intended to be an outlet for kids, in this case to express their inner thoughts. 

The effects of social media on modern society appear to be very similar to the affects the nursery had on the children. One of the largest impacts social media has had of society is the disconnect it causes within families. This is caused partially due to the parents not fully understanding how it works. This parallels the text when the parents are unable to understand what the children are imagining in the room. A disconnect between families is also shown here seeing as phones and social media take up so much time in our lives it is easy to lose personal connections. Rather than having family dinner, nowadays, families may still be sitting together however they are not interacting with one another but rather staring at their phone screens interacting with people who most likely have far less of a personal connection with them. This same idea is seen when the children spend all of their free time in the nursery rather than interacting with the family.

Together these texts represent a disconnect that is occurring between child and parents. This disconnect is caused by an overindulgence in social median which is allowed by permissive parents. However, this is not saying that all permissive parenting is bad. If it were to be compared to neglectful parenting it would be viewed in a much more positive light. It is far better to have a parent who cares than one who doesn’t pay attention at all. Like in the story the parents attempt to call someone in to help seeing as they realized the issue they were facing. In the end once a situation has gone so far you are unable to turn back. This being said the parents in the story let the children get away with so much that when they attempted to fix it the children rebelled.

In conclusion, in the story “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury it is apparent that permissive parenting combined with an overdependence on technology creates a disconnect between parents and children. Children lose respect for their parents, and lose the ability to make sound judgements.  This is parallelled in today’s society by children whose parents allow them to be completely absorbed by social media.  The result is a loss of the parent-child connection, and the important influence parents have on their children’s ability to make reasonable decisions.  If the parents in this story had taken the time to understand how the nursery worked and how it might influence their children before they lost control, chances are they could have had a better outcome. In parallel, if modern-day parents take the time to understand social media and how it impacts their children,  or even to participate alongside their children, the negative effects of social media on child development could be lessened. 2
