VOICES
Voices
As his country's minister to France, Benjamin
Franklin witnessed, in August 1783, the first flight of the Montgolfier
brothers’ hot air balloon. A sceptic in the crowd asked, ‘But what is
the use of these balloons?’
‘But what use,’ Franklin replied, ‘is a new born baby?’
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"Never mistake motion
for action."
— Ernest Hemingway
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Toenails
My daughter sits beside me as I write
in my journal. She has just gotten up,
dressed, and brushed her teeth. She wants
to play a game, she says, because
she is bored. But she knows I am writing
and so adds, "only after you do that."
She stretches out on the sofa, watching me,
her foot jamming into my thigh.
Her toenails are sharp and need cutting,
but if I ask her she will say – "no."
I ask her anyway. She grimaces,
shakes her head and says:
"Do you know you have
the darkest skin in the family?"
and she grins as if to say
that we both know it is she
who will determine
how we spend this day.
— Michael Glaser
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning"
— Albert
Einstein
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Voices
feature
In a few months’ time Mia Kellmer Pringle’s famous book will be 25
years old. How well has it travelled over the past quarter-century? In
the brief extract Pringle proposed her now well-known Ten Child Care
Commandments
These ten child care commandments are rather
in the nature of guidelines. Inevitably only a few generalisations can
ever be of universal application because of the uniqueness of each
individual parent or caregiver and child; and for this reason the
relationships between the adults themselves, and between them and each
child, are also unique. The adults' best guide is their own quality of
understanding, combined with their knowledge of developmental needs,
both of which are then applied to the upbringing of each individual
child. An understanding of a child's physical and mental abilities at
any given stage, and hence his or her readiness at a given time to
respond and adapt, is the most reliable gauge of whether adult
expectations are appropriate. It is an illusory, and sometimes even
harmful, aim to treat each child alike. What is needed is a
'tailor-made' approach fashioned to suit each child but based on the
general principles of child-rearing embodied in these ten child care
commandments. Only by allowing for individual differences can we ensure
an appropriate environment for each member of a family. In this way too
we shall avoid trying to fashion a child in our own image and so avoid
disappointment for ourselves and a sense of inadequacy in our children.
MKP
Ten Child Care Commandments
- Give continuous, consistent, loving care — it's as essential for the mind's health as food is for the body.
- Give generously of your time and understanding — playing with and reading to your child matters more than a tidy, smooth- running home.
- Provide new experiences and bathe your child in language from birth onwards — they enrich his growing mind.
- Encourage him to play in every way both by himself and with other children — exploring, imitating, constructing, pretending and creating.
- Give more praise for effort than for achievement.
- Give ever-increasing responsibility — like all skills, it needs to be practised.
- Remember that every child is unique — so suitable handling for one may not be right for another.
- Make the way you show disapproval fit your child's temperament, age and understanding.
- Never threaten that you will stop loving him or give him away; you may reject his behaviour but never suggest that you might reject him.
- Don't expect gratitude; your child did
not ask to be born — the choice was yours.
Acknowledgements: Hutchinson of London. Pringle, Mia K. London: 1975. The Needs of Children.
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Looking
Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
and the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
and see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your father or
mother or wife
whose judgement upon you must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you're a
straight-shooting chum
and call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
if you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please,
never mind all the rest,
for he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult task
if the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world
down the pathway of life
and get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
if you've cheated the man in the glass.
— Dale Wimbrow
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Activities
A major deficit in many disturbed children is in the ability to organize
the input of stimulation received from the environment. They cannot use
their sensory apparatus to give themselves a realistic view of what is
going on around them.
Through activities which require that children use their eyes and ears, even their noses and mouths — in coordination with other parts of their bodies — for a specific purpose, they are helped to develop this essential ability to integrate the stimulation they receive from their surroundings.
Activities indeed offer organized sensory
stimulation and provide situations in which children can begin to feel
comfortable in allowing new perceptions into their experience.
— Karen VanderVen
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Young Carer
I'm 11. And I don't really know
my Two Times Table. Teacher says it's disgraceful
But even if I had the time, I feel too tired.
Ron's 5, Samantha's 3, Carole's 18 months,
and then there's Baby. I do what's required.
Mum's working. Dad's away. And so
I dress them, give them breakfast. Mrs Russell
moves in, and I take Ron to school.
Miss Eames calls me an old-fashioned word: Dunce.
Doreen Maloney says I'm a fool.
After tea, to the Rec. Pram-pushing's slow
but on fine days it's a good place, full
of larky boys. When 6 shows on the clock
I put the kids to bed. I'm free for once.
At about 7 — Mum's key in the lock.
— GAVIN EWART, Arithmetic, in The Collected Ewart, 1980
