I am pretty interested in education, especially that of children. I don't care much for classes though, I am more interested in the environmental factors that influence life. The other day I wrote a piece about brainwashing children through technology and I would like to expand upon it a little and ask some questions.
I read a few posts here about Child Protection Services ( CPS ) and all the harm they do yet, I also see an imbalance as I am quite sure that they don't always get it wrong and even though there are likely much better ways to handle these things, this is what we have.
One thing that I rarely see talked about is why we have these services at all, why do we need any authorities to even poorly attempt to protect children, especially from their own family. It is a crazy world we live in when parents will treat their children in such obviously poor ways. A world where in some places, parents maim their children to make them better beggars or cut off limbs to get media attention for their causes.
People talk about parental rights but, what of parental responsibilities? I live in a country where the obvious extremes of abusive behaviour are very limited but, there is plenty of neglect and abuse still. Sexual, physical, psychological abuses against the most vulnerable by those who have authority and are charged with their protection, parents. But again, lets take out the obvious abuses and the extreme cases that we can generally agree are abuse.
Where is the line, what constitutes abuse of a child. I was smacked a few times as a kid, I do not class my parents as physically abusive. The thing with laws to stop smacking is, it doesn't work and in unenforceable, not until it crosses a line anyway. And then, if someone is willing to cross that line, they are unlikely to care much for a law.
I remember as a kid watching a medical show where parents denied treatment to save the life of their son on religious grounds. Is this acceptable, or abuse? What about a young-earth creationist teaching their children that evolution is a hoax or dinosaurs created a few thousand years ago? Flat-earth? Religion? Abuse?
I can understand parents raising questions in their children but instilling belief systems is not that as it is fundamentally going to shape a child's experience of the world in which they live. Some people say that they were born a specific religion. No, they were born into an environment where some components of that religion were believed and encouraged to believe similarly. It is hard to find the truth when from birth, one is told what the truth is.
It gets a little sticky around here doesn't it? Is it abuse for a parent to brainwash a child? What if we go a little bit further.
I am one of those parents that believes that a child doesn't need Youtube or computer games to be entertained, especially at a young age. I am one of those who thinks it is harmful and will result in yet unforeseen traumas across a multitude of areas with one of the main ones being a reduced ability to form meaningful relationships in later life. Am I abusing my child, holding back her skillset? I don't think so considering her abilities now in comparison to others but, what about later in life?
What if we go a little further? I am sitting in a shopping center food court and across from me a young mother is feeding her two young daughters (approximately 2 and 4) fries, hamburgers and soft drinks. With what we know about nutrition and the importance it has on mental development, emotional positioning and physical well-being, is this abuse? Of course, it might be a rare event or, perhaps it is common. Does the frequency matter? "I only punch my child sometimes.."
What about a parent who sits on the couch staring at their phone while their child consumes a steady diet of television? Is this abusive parenting? Where does the line between too much TV and not enough personal interaction lay? Does it come in a parenting handbook, is it taught at school or at the hospital after giving birth. What about before getting pregnant?
I hear things said like 'parents know what is best fr their children' yet, my experience and observations are tell quite different stories. At the very least, if the parents do know they definitely aren't going out of their way to act on what they know.
I am a very hands on parent yet, I am far from a helicopter parent, if anything, quite the opposite. I am very interested and observant but, I encourage my daughter to try and fail at many things. She seems to recover fast and attempt again until she is satisfied with her results. She laughs a lot, jokes, teases and is an absolute delight, 90% of the time. Maybe 80%. I don't think she is suffering from any abuse but, how would I know?
This is the issue isn't it? When it comes to these borderline areas like TV and diet, it is hard to know where the lines are until the symptoms present themselves. But with many of these things from a young age, it won't appear as a symptom, it will appear as the child was born that way.
Not everything is going to present itself as something as obvious as obesity, it could be emotional imbalance, depression or inability to engage. But, in all likelihood, the damage would already have been done and will be irreversible. Parents can never do completely right but, will the children of the future look back and identify the food they were fed, the entertainment they were handed and the type of interaction they were exposed as abusive parenting?
As said, I was smacked as a child and don't consider it abuse yet, I do not smack my own child and if I did it would be legally considered abusive, at least where I live. Parents generally want what is best for their kids but, often they don't actually have the children in mind, they have themselves. They don't consider what the child will face, the environments that they will live in and almost entirely base their parenting on what they know now, not what could be known.
As I see it, diet is important and the best food possible should go to our children. The future is going to require creatives and even if it doesn't, most people are the happiest in life when they are creating which means, encouraging creativity, not binding it to entertainment. And, this is going to also mean a healthy dose of curiosity is valuable and that shouldn't be bound by the engineered environments of entertainment.
I see that my daughter will have plenty of time to learn how to use gadgets in the coming years, she doesn't need it as a toddler. What she will learn in these years might be why she will use these things and most importantly, what she is going to do with them. Will she be a creative or a consumer? I am hoping the former, otherwise the latter will soon all be consuming the same and, the brainwash will be complete. We will have programmed robots.
How much limitation can you place on a child's potential before it becomes abuse?
Taraz
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