The autumn's afternoon sun filters through the Chinars in a well-kept garden in Srinagar's highly elite zone, dappling light on the grass. Muhammad Waseem, an architect, is locked in an intense conversation with his 16-year-old son about some incidents of unrest.
Waseem is trying to explain how he views non-violence as a strategic tool for social change and survival. They quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and then from the local poet Abdul Ahad Azad, a radical humanist. The argument is passionate, rigorous, and deeply respectful.
"We are a generation estranged from a place of fear," Waseem, who hails from Chandpora, says, sipping his noon chai (salt tea). "The goal was survival: get a government job, stay out of trouble, keep your head rather straight. The glittering 'sheen' of superficial success as a doctor, engineer, or bureaucrat was everything. The culture, the inner life of the child, the questions of curiosity, these were luxuries we couldn't afford."
He pauses, the weight of memory in the silence. "But we saw what that did. It created a schism in us. We were strangers to our own heritage, and the strife outside became a strife within. It also created a void, one that a disturbing number of my peers have filled with the escape of the problems surrounding youth,” he says.
“Along with my wife Sakeela, I am trying something different," he reveals.
"It is less about building a career and more about building a person, who is resilient from inside out," Waseem adds.
This is also the new generation - self-aware, inquisitive, and questioning. They are not merely survivors but builders. It is a movement born not just of idealism, but of honesty, forged in the crucible of a society grappling with the three demons of a stagnant economy, a burgeoning addiction crisis, and the situation.
In a region where identity has long been a battleground, these parents are trying to give their children a compass, not a map, to equip them with better questions.
Wisdom from the Villages
This philosophy is echoed beyond elite urban centers, finding roots in the wisdom of village elders. In the orchards of South Kashmir, an elderly farmer, Abdul Rashid, gathers his grandsons and granddaughters. His advice, passed through generations, is being shared for the modern developments.
"Beta,” he says to all of them, his voice steady and calm. “The one who loses his temper, loses the fight. Your strength is not in your reaction, but in your patience. Observe the stone from the shelter of your own mind. Let it pass. Only then can you see the path clearly to a solution. Do not let another man's conflict become your crisis, let's not submit our minds, have compassion for the stone-thrower, whose frustration speaks of a deeper hurt - a job lost, a brother missed, a future erased. In this shared sorrow, we find our common humanity."
A former schoolteacher, Mohammed Ismail, advises the young in his community. "Understand this," he tells them, "a problem thrown at you is often a reflection of the thrower's own turmoil. Do not invite them back. Do not let their Zehniat (mental complexes) become yours. Instead, make their problem your own. Study it. Understand its roots."
Leading the 'Sheen'
For decades, social contracts in Kashmir were written in the language of professional prestige, which Waseem referred to as "sheen" – a race for stable careers. These were seen as safe harbours in a turbulent sea. But recent episodes of public scandals involving the merit system, the shocking suicide of a bright student over a failed exam have shaken this edifice to its core, revealing the rotten foundations of a system that promises everything and delivers nothing for many.
However, the changing realities, necessitate the search for new idioms and language of parenting.
In the polarised and suspicion-riddled atmosphere of Kashmir, both within the region and in how it is viewed from outside, intellectual work often comes under increased scrutiny. This happens partly because long-standing sensitivities around work have become deeply suspect. When a scholar's thesis is dismissed as propaganda, a doctor viewed as part of a terror plot, the very foundation of professional trust collapses. Tragically, student meetings are labeled conspiracies, journalists' critiques are treated as threats to national security, and homes and businesses of those considered "anti-national" face raids, intimidation, or demolition.
This blanket distrust destroys the essential faith in professional integrity that holds societies together.
The conscious parents have begun realising that they can no longer build protective walls around their children but there is need to engage them and prepare them for the world.
"We were groomed for a destination we did not choose," says a female child psychologist in Srinagar. "The adolescents are blooming adults with energy and a journey of self-discovery, which is fraught with enough turmoil and doubt. We were moulded by the immense pressure to conform to the narrow ideal.”
The result was, and often still is, a profound alienation. “The child feels like a failure for wanting to be an artist, a writer, a musician, or just someone who needs time to figure it out. This alienation is a primary gateway to despair, and for a growing number, to the temporary solace of substance abuse,” she says.
This alienation, she argues, severs the child from their cultural moorings. “When your worth is tied to a biology textbook or a physics equation, even problems of mathematics, what room is there for Lal Ded’s Vaakhs, Shaikh Ul Alam's Shruks or the revolutionary verses of Abdul Ahad Azad, even patriotic stanzas of Mehjoor?
The language of the soul is replaced by the jargon of competitive exams. We are producing highly skilled individuals who are culturally homeless and emotionally adrift, she points out.
Conscious parenting begins by dismantling this altar of ambition. It is about shifting the focus from what the child will become to who they are. In Waseem's household, this meant supporting the child's passion for digital storytelling and Kashmiri folklore, even when relatives raised eyebrows at its perceived lack of “scope”.
For other parents, it is a direct response to the fear of their child becoming another statistic in the situation or a victim of the crushing pressure of the rat race for a prestigious profession.
“The goal is not to lose ambition, but to locate it within the child’s own unique being,” says an educationist who did not want to be named. “It is to understand that quality education is not the rote memorisation of facts, but the cultivation of a mind that can define its own culture in the face of changing situations.”
The Strife Within
The world over, adolescence brings universal turmoil. Hormones surge, identities form, and anxieties mount. But in Kashmir, there's an added weight - the ability to navigate deeply complex emotions becomes a survival skill in itself.
"There is a constant, low-grade fever of anxiety," says a teacher in Anantnag of South Kashmir. "The children are anxious. They fear things, they see things. The old model was to shut down the questions. Don't ask, just study. But the questions don't disappear; they fester, sometimes manifesting as anxiety, depression, or worse, even as alienation and despair itself."
Conscious parenting leans directly into this intellectual and emotional curiosity. In a land where narratives clash and despair is real, the ability to question ideas and process complex emotions is a survival skill.
The drumbeat of politicians and the weaponised words of propaganda are daily realities—constant interruptions of choices that limit how to grieve, mourn or even understand one's own lived experience.
"My son came to me last week after hearing a particularly fiery speech," shares Bashir Ahmed, a writer and educator from Srinagar. "He asked if what the leader said was true. I told him, it may contain fragments of truth, but it is not the whole truth. We talked about how words can be weapons that destroy, or tools that build peace rather than make it. I don't give him a simple answer. I give him a framework to think for himself. If I don't, the streets or the dealers will give him a much more dangerous one."
This approach is encapsulated in the words of the great Brazilian educator Paulo Freire: "The function of education is to launch one to think otherwise and to think critically, intelligence along with character—that is the goal of true education."
In Kashmir, this means instilling a brave applied curiosity in the most fundamental of questions: What is peace? What is violence? What are their true costs? What are the dividends of peace? How can goals be achieved through non-violence, and what can be avoided or tolerated?
Parents are deliberately creating spaces to discuss the "dividends of peace" while contrasting this with the "negativity of violence", not just to address physical safety but to counter the enduring legacy of trauma and addiction.
Identifying the Skill Set: From Liability to Asset
Conscious parenting seeks to overturn the job-related frustration by fostering an entrepreneurial, problem-solving spirit from a young age.
It's about seeing the conflicts of daily life—from power cuts to water scarcity to social friction—as problems to be solved, allowing children to transform a set of solutions into opportunities.
"We were at a family gathering and the talk turned to the 'hopeless' situation here," recounts Manisa Sultan, a mother and social entrepreneur. "My 14-year-old daughter, who had been quiet, suddenly said, 'But what if we started a cooperative for saffron farmers to sell directly online, cutting out the middlemen who exploit them?' She had identified a problem and proposed a solution. That is the skill set we must encourage—analytical thinking, confidence, and cooperation. This is the antidote to the hopelessness that leads to addiction."
The shift from seeing children as passive recipients of a broken world to active agents of its repair is fundamental, as author and leadership expert Stephen Covey noted: "The key is not to prioritise what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."
Removing the Inner Shackles
In the kitchen of a home in old town of Anantnag, a grandmother, Sajida (Saja), watches her daughter-in-law engage her children in this new way. She sees the debates, the encouragement of art, the lack of pressure. She remembers a different time, but prays for the collective good of the children, their dignity and protection through curiosity.
"We raised our children like fortresses," she says, her voice a soft rustle. "We built high walls to protect them from the storm. But walls also block out the sun, and sometimes, the children inside withered or sought escape through cracks we didn't know were there. These new parents, they are not building walls. They are teaching their children to read the weather, to understand the wind's direction, to know when to take shelter and when it will work. The ocean is still very rough, and there are new whirlpools of competition, despair—winners and losers, essentially the situation.”
She adds with a slow, hopeful smile, "at least they will not be trapped inside, waiting for the storm to pass. They will be navigating their own way."
(Note: The names of the persons figuring in this feature have been changed to protect their identity)
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