TamraSTOLEN! Our Children's Futures
March 25th 2008 02:32
I know this will come as a shock to many of you but there’s a crazy new group out there going around robbing children of their future. Not content to allow kids to be kids, they are shoving bucket-loads of experience down children’s throats, exposing them to wildly inappropriate material, scheduling their time so that they rival adults’ busy lives; and worst of all, you probably know some of them. They may even be your friends. I call them The Future Eaters. Most call them…parents.
Yep, good old Mum and Dad. They have their kids on such an overly rich diet of grown up experience, kids are becoming stimulation-obese. Take these few examples: a recent children’s birthday party in Sydney which stretched over an entire day, featured fire-eaters, jesters, clowns, face-painters, dancers, food that could feed an outback community for a year and a cast of hundreds of invitees. Cost - $40,000. Age of children - 5 and 7. What on earth will they do next year?
Case 2: Star-chart present, parents thought a trip in a limousine to the movies for their daughter and her three friends would be great. Age of child – 5. What will she do for her high school formal? “Oh, limousines! They are so like, baby stuff!”
Case 3: Two boys, every afternoon and every morning they have something scheduled – extra maths, music, sport, chess, swimming—and to top off their busy mini-adult lives, the parents had a tutor in to teach them to ‘play’ because they didn’t know how.
Are our children living child-like lives or are they victims of their parents’ need to programme them, protect them and in the process rob them of a simpler life, with simple pleasures? How many times have you heard your friend (or yourself) say, ‘Oh God, I can’t get him off the play-station. And we just had to buy six more games ($300?) because he’s bored with all his old ones.’ It was probably purchased for his 7th birthday and the games are probably based on the military—ones you wouldn’t have dreamed of playing till your teens.
I’ve seen children of four in the cinema watching The Golden Compass (M?). I know of kids as young as five who’ve seen the Lord of The Rings trilogy. Do you remember those guys that hung out in Mordor? Do we really want them hanging out in our five year old’s psyche?
Recently we’ve been camping (I know, some of you are already screaming at the thought) and it’s revelatory as to how little your child actually needs to make them happy, inquisitive and satisfied. No screens, no non-stop entertainment, no parental programming – other than, ‘get your hand out of the fire!’.
In living through our children, and projecting our adult aspirations onto them, or buying into the media’s concept of what our child wants, aren’t we robbing our children of their ‘now’? Aren’t we stealing from their future to provide something they actually need to wait for? Otherwise there will be a generation of children who experience no anticipation. No curiosity. They will be bloated on experience with nothing to look forward to.
So try resisting the urge to buy, buy, buy, expose, expose, schedule, manage, keep them up late, and instead turn your attention to the ancient art of learning to say – No. To them and to yourself. Tamra x
PS: Feel free to suggest some cool, enjoyable and appropriate books, movies and activities for the under 10's! Always on the lookout.
Case 2: Star-chart present, parents thought a trip in a limousine to the movies for their daughter and her three friends would be great. Age of child – 5. What will she do for her high school formal? “Oh, limousines! They are so like, baby stuff!”
Case 3: Two boys, every afternoon and every morning they have something scheduled – extra maths, music, sport, chess, swimming—and to top off their busy mini-adult lives, the parents had a tutor in to teach them to ‘play’ because they didn’t know how.
I’ve seen children of four in the cinema watching The Golden Compass (M?). I know of kids as young as five who’ve seen the Lord of The Rings trilogy. Do you remember those guys that hung out in Mordor? Do we really want them hanging out in our five year old’s psyche?
Recently we’ve been camping (I know, some of you are already screaming at the thought) and it’s revelatory as to how little your child actually needs to make them happy, inquisitive and satisfied. No screens, no non-stop entertainment, no parental programming – other than, ‘get your hand out of the fire!’.
In living through our children, and projecting our adult aspirations onto them, or buying into the media’s concept of what our child wants, aren’t we robbing our children of their ‘now’? Aren’t we stealing from their future to provide something they actually need to wait for? Otherwise there will be a generation of children who experience no anticipation. No curiosity. They will be bloated on experience with nothing to look forward to.
So try resisting the urge to buy, buy, buy, expose, expose, schedule, manage, keep them up late, and instead turn your attention to the ancient art of learning to say – No. To them and to yourself. Tamra x
PS: Feel free to suggest some cool, enjoyable and appropriate books, movies and activities for the under 10's! Always on the lookout.
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