What we do to them

Children that is...

On Mondays, I teach music classes – 6 lessons during the day - with children ranging from 3 -7 years old. On Saturdays I teach children to swim (same age range). During the rest of the week, I home school my own two children – now aged 10 and 12.

Observations from those classes and from teaching my own children have compounded with observations in other circumstances during the last five years.
The final impetus for writing this blog entry was a Facebook group called “IF I SPOKEN TO MY PARENTS HOW KIDS TALK NOW DAYS I`D BEEN KNOCKED OUT.” I wasn’t surprised at the ignorance and stupidity voiced on that group page.

So, here we go...

1. The Music Classes.
The truth is, the children are not ready to learn music. Instead, I am initially teaching them:
a. How to Listen
b. Self control
c. Team Work
d. Co-ordination
e. Not to be living representations of Zombies.
f. How to pay attention even when someone is not whacking them on the head.

For the last five years I’ve only had two cultures to observe – Malaysian (consisting of Chinese, Indian and Malay), and the culture I have developed within my own family. Memory prompts me to believe that the crap nurturing of children I observe here is not absent in the West.

Referring to the list (a. – e. above), I’d taught them all to my own children by the time they were four. Both the teachers and the parents of the children in my classes are failing those children miserably.

2. The Hawker Stall (like a Western food hall) - 1
One of the women that serve tables is doubling as a nanny for a five year old boy. When she isn’t sitting with him on her lap, she is carrying him around. The boy is constantly whining and has an almost perpetually miserable face. He is not ill and has a pair of legs that, on extremely rare occasions, work adequately.
When I am sitting near to him, I pull faces and play the ‘hide your eyes’ game. This usually creates a flicker of interest or even a smile/laugh.
There is still the remnant of a, dare I say, normal child in him.

It is not my place to say anything to the nanny, and even if I tried she would neither understand my language nor the concepts I am addressing.
Basically, the child is already pretty much stuffed for life and I pity the teachers, peers and – heaven forbid – the poor woman he may eventually persuade to marry him.
That is the gift from this child’s parents.

3. The Hawker Stall – 2
Malaysians claim to love food. Watching them eating, and every hawker stall has at least some people eating during the twenty four hour day, it becomes obvious that this is not the case.

Instead, they are obsessed with stuffing their faces. The routine is:
• Walk into the hawker stall
• Rush to select food
• Then find a table
• Stuff or vacuum the food into your mouth as fast as possible
• No conversation until every last scrap has been gobbled
• Don’t give a shit if any of your party has/has not been served.
• When sharing bowls of food, don’t give a shit if there is not enough for others, as long as you have grabbed as much as you can.
• If they go for, say, a chicken curry and there isn’t any, they are there, they are going to eat NOW, they would not dream of going next door where they might still have chicken curry.
That would waste valuable eating time.
What they eat is not important, eating is.

Similarly, in every hawker stall at any time of day you will see at least a few gigantic balls of fat wrapped around the children buried within. After they finish the main meal (enough for a large adult), they will usually start on crisps or ice cream.
Where does this obsession come from?
The parents teach it to their children.

Those children will have a problem for life. Those with the sense to, later in life, try to stop the rot will always have an uphill battle.
That is these parents gift to their children.

4. “IF I SPOKEN TO MY PARENTS HOW KIDS TALK NOW DAYS I`D BEEN KNOCKED OUT.”
Where do I begin with this one!

First, to truly nurture a child, there are things you have to start almost from the moment they are born. Every day, week, month, year, decade you omit those things, the greater the uphill battle you are creating. Leave it too late and, basically, I think that there will be fuck all you can do to rectify the situation. We will have to suffer your damaged little bastards.

I’ll list what those things are in another blog entry, later.

OK, the things the idiots commenting on that facebook group need to understand:

a) Whacking a child is not discipline, and it does not install any worthwhile discipline.
Any supposedly ‘good behavior’ the child exhibits is based on fear, and it WILL disappear when that source of fear is removed. Has no one else noticed that most obnoxious brats are those that HAVE been whacked by their parents?

b) Children do, and have to, learn from consequences.
Consequences, however, are NOT punishment.
A shout/scream, thump, removal of something they want etc are rarely directly related to what the child has done – they are a universal/fits all reaction. ‘Bad behaviour’ – smack, shout, whine or bully.

A comparison, to help clarify:

Refuse to wash – dirty/smelly children do not sit on furniture or share company with others. A consequence. It is effective, though may take time to sink in.

Refuse to wash – shout/scold/thump etc. A punishment. It just teaches a child that those who should love/nurture them are also capable of willingly hurting them. It IS short lived and ineffective over the long term.
It teaches a lousy life lesson.

c) Discipline is fine for soldiers.
Want a soldier to obey a command when there is no time for reasoning, teach him discipline.”When I say jump, jump.”
Want a child to grow up into a successful, capable adult – then teach them SELF-DISCIPLINE and SELF-CONTROL.
Ensure that they do things because they understand a valid reason for doing so, not to avoid a smack. This will last them a lifetime. Wait until they are fifteen/sixteen to start trying to teach them this – forget it.

d) Young children, especially very young children, cannot reason.
When will this fucking old chestnut die?

If a child IS too young to understand something, simply DO NOT EXPOSE THEM TO IT.

What if they put a finger in a plug. hand in a fire?
Then you are fucking useless, use plug guards and fire guards! Don’t smack them because of your inability to think.

What if they run into the road?
Do I really have to give a better solution?
Don’t take them on fucking roads unless you CAN hold them.
“Oh, I have to carry the shopping.” Then find somewhere safe to keep your child. If you can’t, or can’t afford to, that’s your fucking problem and not a reason to hurt the child.

e) My parents smacked me, and I grew up undamaged/wonderful.
I seriously doubt the truth of this statement:

1. You have grown up believing that, when you think it justified, it is OK to hurt a child. And don’t be a wanker – a “light smack” is still hurting a child – else why do it?

2. I have yet to see an adult that came from a smacking family (unless they have done a lot of work to counter it) that do not fall back on anger/aggression/violence (vocal or physical) when faced with frustration or a situation they think they are losing control of.

3. Most smacked/disciplined adults tend to attack the individual and not the argument. They have learned that attempting to brow beat is a great counter argument.

4. A very high percentage of smacked adults lean towards favouring emotional blackmail.
News flash –punishing a child IS using emotional blackmail.
They go on to attempt the same in the workplace, with partners, and then with their own children. Emotional blackmail is a shitty behaviour pattern.

*NOTE:
For any wankers that are reading this:

I do believe in teaching children good behaviour (though I sometimes, especially with the older ones, allow them to question if what I want is RIGHT).

I am not speaking as a no experience, dogooder, greenie, leftie, idealist. (Though why is ‘idealist’ considered bad, I have to ask?).
I practice what I preach and IT WORKS.
I am also a solo father, so I haven’t ‘had it easy’.

I DO NOT believe in allowing children to run wild or turn into little shits. Dr Spock was a badly misinformed man, don’t paint us all with his brush.

I do not use ‘Time-out’ or ‘naughty corner’ or any of that other useless crap.
Time-out – for those that insist on using it - is a break (allowing everyone to cool down for a moment) and not a method of teaching.
Naughty corner is just downright bullying.

This is growing too long, more later.