Adolescence in Flux: Reflections and Responses to Krishna Kumar’s “Uncharted Waters”
by Sunaina Narang
In his contemplative essay “Adolescence Becoming Uncharted Waters Now”, educationist Krishna Kumar reflects on the shifting nature of adolescence, offering a quiet yet urgent meditation on how this life stage—once navigated with community support, cultural rituals, and adult guidance—has become marked by disorientation, emotional volatility, and social detachment.
Kumar’s reflections resonate with many. Educators speak of the increasing challenges of connecting with students whose inner worlds are dominated by screens and silent anxieties. Parents admit to feeling unequipped in the face of rapidly evolving digital cultures. Mental health professionals, meanwhile, see daily confirmation of Kumar’s observations: adolescents struggling with identity, self-worth, and isolation.
What has been lost, Kumar suggests, is not just a set of traditions or values, but the social scaffolding that once supported young people as they transitioned into adulthood. Where there were once rites of passage, intergenerational bonds, and shared communal expectations, today there is exposure without preparation—information without interpretation. Adolescents are now confronting adult dilemmas at an age when their emotional and cognitive faculties are still in formation.
Many of the challenges young people face are amplified by the very structures designed to serve them. Modern schooling, with its narrow focus on exams and economic competitiveness, does little to acknowledge or nurture the emotional and social growth that adolescence demands. At home, family life is often hurried and transactional, as parents grapple with economic pressures and the demands of a digitally saturated world. In communities, public spaces for youth expression and exploration are shrinking. And in the digital realm, adolescents are navigating an overwhelming torrent of content, often without guidance or discernment.
So how do we respond? What should change, and where should we begin?
The first step is to reframe our understanding of what education ought to be. We must move beyond a utilitarian view that sees schools as factories for producing employable adults. Education must return to being a humane enterprise—one that helps young people make sense of themselves and the world. This means creating space within schools for dialogue, self-expression, ethical questioning, and emotional exploration. It means reorienting the curriculum to include life skills, relationships, mental health, and digital responsibility—not as add-ons, but as core to the learning experience.
Teachers must be empowered not just as content-deliverers but as mentors and listeners. Professional development must include training in adolescent psychology, trauma-informed pedagogy, and socio-emotional learning. Schools should become communities where students feel seen and heard, where learning is connected to real life, and where confusion is not punished, but explored.
Within families, a conscious effort must be made to reintroduce conversation and presence. Adolescents today do not lack entertainment; they lack meaningful engagement. Parents need support in the form of workshops, resources, and forums where they can share experiences and learn to parent with empathy in the digital age. Rather than shielding adolescents from difficult realities, families should help them interpret these realities with care and context.
At the community level, we must restore safe, inclusive, and enriching spaces where adolescents can gather, create, and be mentored. Public libraries, arts initiatives, youth centres, and sports clubs are not luxuries—they are lifelines. Programmes that connect young people with older generations, whether through storytelling, volunteering, or mentorship, can rebuild the intergenerational trust that has eroded in recent decades.
Digital literacy must also be transformed. Adolescents must not only learn how to use technology, but how to understand and shape it. Kumar’s call aligns with a growing global movement toward a biocentric understanding of digital engagement—treating the internet not as a personal playground or marketplace, but as a shared ecological space that requires care, responsibility, and mutual respect. Schools and families can model this by encouraging mindful screen use, digital empathy, and community-oriented online participation.
Mental health support must become a non-negotiable element of adolescent life. Every school should have trained counsellors, peer-support systems, and safe avenues for students to talk about what they are experiencing—without fear of judgment or labelling. Governments and institutions must ensure that mental health services for adolescents are well-funded, accessible, and culturally sensitive.
Importantly, we must trust adolescents themselves as co-authors of solutions. Their voices should be welcomed in school governance, community planning, and social discourse. When young people feel they have agency, that their ideas and actions matter, they develop resilience, clarity, and a sense of belonging.
Kumar’s essay is not nostalgic—it is hopeful. He invites us to look clearly at what is changing, and to respond not with panic, but with compassion and imagination. Adolescence, he reminds us, is not a problem to be solved but a journey to be supported. If today’s waters are uncharted, then let us not leave young people to drift alone. Let us accompany them—with patience, humility, and the willingness to rebuild the boats they will sail into the future.