At a popular local fast-food, I enjoyed my meal. Brewed kaffee and pancakes with strawberry jam was just perfect to start my day writing.
It is one way for me to draw inspiration for a topic to write – observing people.
The teenage boys opposite my table dropped a tray filled with food. Soda was spilled all over the floor and French fries were scattered under the table. I waited awhile expecting they would pick it up to my dismay. I paused for moment and wondered.
Have I expected too much from the children of today? What do children need today? Is it the aid of technology?
My best option would be just a few simple things: First is a healthy home life, rich social life, role model and love, Thinking and consciousness and moral life.
A healthy Home life:
A stable home life means a both parents have enough time for their children. The quality of parental interaction is important. Finding time and setting aside bonding time is of the essence. In today’s tight work schedules complicated with increasing heavy traffic everywhere causes decreased levels of tolerance. Many parents come home stressed out. That little fuse at the back of your head that snaps out with the slight provocation influences how we respond to children at home.
Children feel secured with stability. Consistency is an important factor to establish order and sequence. Eating and sleeping routines are expected to be regular. Study and discipline can only be developed with regularity of work.
The absence of neglect points to parents who are able attend to their children. Mothers should especially be attentive. Many children suffer from the breakdown of sufficient mothering. If Biological mothers are not in the proper capacity to exercise mothering roles then it is better to have a surrogate mother (who can either be the grandmother, grand aunties, aunties, or someone) who has the proper maternal sense in raising children will be better off.
Having a punitive and careless mother is just about to do greater harm than establish a healthy relationship. Parenting that is not based on guilt, conditional love and harsh punishment develops a healthy self-esteem. Mothers should uphold being a woman and motherhood at the same time.
Communication between parents and children is one that is open and accepting. It must allow each one to express without fear or prejudice. Guidance and support from parents or other significant adults is highly suggested to keep the family.
Social Life
Is there a problem with Language and understanding! It is a paradox that racism, ethnic cleansing, violence and war thrive still exist. Still people don’t have their heads meet at one point. Even with further studies, how amusing it is because people still don’t easily understand each other. It does not serve you a guarantee that speaking more than one language, the overload of communication gadgets and increase in communication skills among children ensures a bright coming together of minds. The language barrier is not grammatical or syntax in nature but the frame of mind any particular language carry. One can be verbose and verbally expressive but there is more to social life that the capacity to mingle and laugh with people. Some people talk too much without having said anything. Gestures speak louder than words.
“The words of an empty head is like a noisy can all clatter with no batter. The social butterfly who never finds his place, he who continues to chase the sunshine and rainbows alike.”
The inability to connect with people, places and events creates a vacuum and isolates the child from the rest of his peers. Increased sadness brings loneliness. Children need to experience and be shown Love and Compassion. Their emotions are stimulated with the right role model, love, music, colour, and warmth.
“Positive affirmation with stories and images that support the moral and emotional life. Under intense school pressure the child may become socially maladjusted. Unconditional acceptance heals without need of too much words.”
Role model and Love:
Proper role modelling most especially from parents. Children respond best to love and learn through example. Kindergarten and lower school educators know that love and good example are the best tools in teaching. Young children absorb much from significant adults and from the immediate environment. The sense of self and the growing consciousness can be observed as soon as the child learns to talk and to walk.
Altruistic love urges every educator to ponder and work with the best interest of the child. It makes of the teacher conscious of his action as examples for the child to imitate. Many children today have been educated in an environment where what you know is much 
more important than how answers were derived. Most children are exposed to the thought of competitive learning creating unhappy children who are driven to acquire more than be contented with what have. The joy of learning traded for perfection at all cost. These children have to cope harder with life forming thicker defences to protect their inner life. Children are exposed to over stimulated television watching and Too much, too soon, too often and too early of everything that is adult in nature drains innocence, strength and imagination of children.
“Role models should be People worth emulating especially parents.”
Thinking and Consciousness
Play is the active life of the child. They lay the foundations of clear philosophical thinking. During games children learns to find solutions to problems. They assist one another and help each other. In a child’s play, arguments are sorted out amicably through simple ways.
Play serves as the training ground of every child. It is a microcosm of the adult’s life that is work. All children must have every opportunity to play with other children.
Every child needs to develop self-discipline and powers of discriminate thinking to meet the increasing world concerns and health problems. A happy and grounded child learns faster. Adaptability and compassion are needed to develop the sense for life.
Moral
It can be observed that most schools and communities celebrate festivals, all including churches and prayer groups. Festivities opens the magical depth of the spiritual ad soul experience of the parent and the child. It adds a certain dimension to life – one that expands human consciousness. It heals the world of untruth and deception. In a country rich in culture and traditional practices, one can expect for a magical environment that no matter how hard hitting a calamity passes through, the capacity to see beyond the trivialities and difficulties comes easy for any Filipino.
It is the responsibility of any adult to usher a young child stand in the world with hope, courage and responsibility by nourishing the inner life as well as the earthly life.
Festivals has the capacity to heal and deepen the child’s moral understanding. It balances the breakdown of tradition and out of season peculiarities. I grew up waiting for each seasonal fruit. It brings great joy when my waiting
pays off picking the best fruit from the tree. It announces the coming of a certain season with it comes all the goodness that is inherent to that month. It brings out the capacity to wait and the strength to take courage.
It gives the reason to celebrate. The meaning for being and having. Birthdays kindles self- respect by calling to mind the meaning of living and the reason for existence.
Religious feelings nurtures hope and faith. It raises the spirit. Wonder then becomes the motivation and basis for their search for knowledge.
Always allow the child to discover the answer for herself. Celebrating each child’s birthday kindles self-respect. Festivals have a way of drawing a person to expand and reach out. To be compassionate or to be empathic of other people. To be sensitive of whole world is to participate with world in loving acceptance.
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Maria Lourdes de Vera, RN is the award winning author and artist of the book “Arts and the Creation Stories” She is a licensed to teach grade school and High school. Dedicated to the cause of nurturing the Arts in children; Marielou recommends the use of Arts in the care of Special Children. She believes in a worthy cause for the advancement of Children’s welfare.
L’ Arche is an International Federation of communities which welcome people with mental handicaps. Marielou supports its Local affiliate “ANG ARKO NG PILIPINAS, INC.” sharing her art works with the Foundation and invited to do creative artistic works with the children. PUNLA is a community for the severely handicapped located in Rizal, Philippines.
