Sunday, June 14, 2009
Take Time To Teach
I just commented in disagreement on a local story about a school committee instituting a ban on high caffeine power drinks. It’s crazy how our children are raised these days, all in the name of “what’s best for them”. Parents are taking the term over protection to new levels and adults in general feel they are “all-knowing” when it comes to what’s best for children.
When I was growing up, we played basketball, football and baseball down the park on our own. We made the rules, made the teams and kept the score, all without adult supervision. My children played on organized teams run by adults that did a better job of taking the fun out of playing sports than they did of coaching. Today I read where a woman was having a birthday party that NOBODY could attend without going through a background check. Would it be worth going to? I’m thinking you’d opt not to send your child to the party at all because it wouldn’t be worth the effort, therefore depriving the child.
I can understand parents, educators and policy makers wanting to protect our children but as time goes by it has become more obvious that there are too many “over the top” rules that attempt to dictate how young people should live their lives. Children have to learn to live life and experience it’s pitfalls as well as its peaks and that can’t happen when adults monitor their every move.
Recently I had written commentary on this site, regarding the Town Of Weymouth’s attempts to institute a ban on fundraising at liquor stores. In the same vain as the caffeine ban, it appears that adults these days have no confidence in young people being able to learn on their own. Nor do they evidently have any confidence in their own ability to teach young people the difference between right and wrong. Setting policy is a short cut to teaching that adults and parents find convenient in today’s world. Part of the problem is that many parents push the job of parenting off on educators and educators in turn don’t have time to teach all these children the three R’s as well as life rules. Consequently setting policies aimed at preventing them from doing what is perceived as wrong takes the place of learning for themselves.
POSTED BY STAN at June 14, 2009
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