The parent-child gap is not just about generations. A glimpse at how wide this could be was made evident at a meet on the problems of teenagers attended by educationists, activists and experts and young people at Nehru Planetarium on Sunday.

The communication gap develops because parents and teachers are one step behind their children and students respectively, according to gay activist Ashok Row Kavi. ``For example, today's mothers refuse to speak about menstruation to their teenage daughters,'' he added. He was greeted with silence when he asked a question relating to sexual experience. ``Moral values have taken a dangerous turn to the point of being anti-sex,'' he said adding that schooling in a convent institution where the religious heads have a strong say has a lot to do with the changing face of morality. The reference toconvent education was prompted by the audience which comprised mainly students (13-25 years) from middle and upper-middle class families.

For the Generation-X, the idea of having fun is playing pool or dating. For boys, smoking puts them in a class apart from the fairer sex. The girls in the gathering, however, promptly dismissed this. For most young people religion is numbing rituals. Politics is disillusioning turning them into apolitical beings. Talking about opportunities, they are available only beyond the shores of India, the students felt.

Among the panel members, Lawyer Kirti Samant leads a group of school and college students who organise seminars on the problems of today's youths. Recalling his experience Aditya Bhatt, a group member, said how they received a firm no from nearly 500 parens when asked about their opinion on introduction of sex education in school curriculum. Even teachers did not warm up to the idea.

Mamta Anand, who has just given her SSC examination, quoting a surveyconducted by the group, pointed out the students do not mind blowing couple of hundreds over pool or buying CDs. But soon boredom overtakes everything - games, studies and they remain clueless about what to do with their spare time, she added.

Counsellors are hardly a help since visiting them would invite ridicule from peers and curious glances from elders, students felt.

Among others the meet was attended by psychiatrist Dr Simi Sachdeva, school teacher Rhoda R Dumasia and retired assistant commissioner of police Madhukar Zende.