Nowadays it is commonly believed that main factors that affect a child's are development are pop culture and friends.

There are a lot of different aspects, that influence a child’s development. It is considered that the most influential parts of a child’s life are their own parents, while there are others, who think that social media, pop culture and friends have a much bigger influence over a child’s views. In my opinion, both are very important, but I believe that factors other than parents have a bigger impact on children’s development. On one hand, in the majority of cases parents are the most influential people in a child’s life, but that does not necessarily mean that they are also most influential factor overall. Kids like to idolize their parents; therefore, they will likely take their teachings very seriously. In my opinion most people who grew up with their fathers and mothers have very similar values and views in life as them. On the other hand, children tend to spend less and less time with their own parents, rather they spend the day in school, and are always online to communicate with their peers. Time spent on/with something/someone directly correlates with the influence it makes in an individual’s life. Also, children nowadays, even the youngest, spend more and more of their free time on social media and therefore it has a huge impact on their lives. Another contributing factor is, that older family members tend to be less understanding of newer technology and in most of the cases stop catching up with current pop culture, which makes it ever so harder to connect with their own children. Overall, I believe that parents should give children the freedom of forming their own beliefs, but they should also invest energy into better understanding their kid’s environment outside of their home, to be able to better protect them and guide them on their way to adulthood.