I noticed something at my church the other day and it made
me think, probably more than it should have, about the development of
children. Of all things, I was in the
bathroom and opened the door to a stall (relax, nothing bad or unhygienic) and
saw a cute little potty seat insert resting in the adult-sized toilet. Oh,
that’s right, the twins and a couple of other kids are at the potty training
age, I thought to myself. I love
that, even though there is no daycare here, we still make things accessible for
the kids of the congregation. It also
matched up with the stool for the sink and another stool for the water fountain
in the Great Room (i.e. multipurpose room).
So what in the world would make me become so contemplative?
Let me try to break it down.
1. I know who and how many kids at church are of an age to
be potty trained.
2. The potty seat was
noticeable because of the lack of other child-oriented decorations.
3. I was reminded of
all the little short toilets and water fountains in schools and day-care
centers (to be fair in the nursery room at church which is only sporadically
used).
In lower elementary schools and day care centers, it is
practical to have child-sized everything to facilitate the kids being able to do
things on their own since they outnumber the caretakers (sometimes to an
alarming degree—but that’s a subject for another time). Everything is geared
around the small students so they feel comfortable and capable.
But my thought, brought on by the difference in a potty seat
insert and a tiny toilet, is how
much better it is for kids in the broader world to not have everything set up
to cater to them, even if the consequence is inconvenience.
Historically, children were treated as
small adults. While they may have been
smaller and weaker, they were still expected to do a proportionate amount of
work for survival and were held accountable for decisions that they made, even
to the point of punishing them as adults for crimes committed (see the first chapter of this interesting pamphlet) . As agricultural and industrial
advances lessened the urgency of survival work, there has been more time for
children to spend without the pressure of heavy-duty work and more time to
spend on learning and leisure activities.
Unfortunately, this has swung the other way.
Many children and young adults are no longer willing and
able to do work that involves physicality or inconvenience. From the struggle of reaching a sink to wash
hands (and needing to problem solve to do it) to taking out the trash to
deciphering a difficult mathematical equation, many kids give up the
attempt. Or look upon it with contempt
(see this article published in the Wall Street Journal and another from a
popular parenting magazine)
[and, yes, I see the irony in this article as my own kids gripe about the
chores that I assign them, minimal though they are].
So, how do we reconcile both of these views? For one thing, I think it is important that
we (when I say “we” I am referring to all of us as parents, or teachers, or
society in general) remind ourselves of what kind of adults to we want in the
future? Do we want adults who cannot
think beyond their own immediate wants?
Do we want people who make decisions based on only their immediate
surroundings and instantaneous fulfillment?
Or
Do we want adults who can identify with another point of
view? Do we want people who can think of
others’ feelings as well as their own?
Do we want grown ups who can plan ahead and consider the ramifications
of their decisions? If that is the case,
maybe we can remember that all of childhood and development happens through
different stages. The best-known listing
of these stages is from Piaget who did a
lot of observational experiments. Take a
look at this particular stage, outlined on an understandable psychology webpage If you have worked with small children before, do some of these things sound
familiar? The concreteness of their
thinking, the immediacy of their decision-making rationale, the me-oriented
attitude are all things that we start out with but need to move beyond to
achieve maturity. For those of you who
are Biblically oriented, maybe this verse can illustrate the point (this is
talking about Christian faith maturity but the parallels are there): “When I
was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a
child. When I became a man, I put the
ways of childhood behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11
Where does that leave us?
With the thought that it is good to find examples of things that will
encourage the thought process of developing maturity and not letting children
stagnate in the whirlpool of “me” culture surrounding them. As simple as it appears, the potty seat
insert versus a tiny toilet is a good example.
A stool instead of a lowered fountain is another. Using glass plates instead of plastic once
children are school-aged is another. Be
prepared for breakage and consider those dishes casualties in the war against
ego-centrism. What other examples can you look around and find?
No comments:
Post a Comment