Sarah Wise writes:

"In times of rapid globalisation we need to help children find a contented place among family, school and communities..."

Sadly, we're not doing to good a job on such things. This, this morning in the news:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-15/mental-health-teams-to-target-teen-suicide/4332482

"The federal government will pay for specialists to be sent to high schools where a student has committed suicide.

Mental Health Minister Mark Butler says two or three students kill themselves every week."

It was only a couple of years ago that mental health teams were put in place to probe problems associated with the mental health of pre-schoolers.

Brave New World

What is particularly interesting in the now-time humanly created world of 2012 is that children of all ages (even as young as 3) are now influenced by the media and/or the opinions etc of human beings who are not informed by any kind of profoundly considered Wisdom or Wisdom Culture. Indeed they are influenced by the opinions and prejudices of their own age-related peer group, which is in turn dominated and formed by the propaganda of the corporate dominated media.
This phenonema and its cultural ramifications is described in great detail by Sharon Beder in her book This Little Kiddy Went To Market.
Sharon points out that in the USA there are cable TV channels designed specifically for two year olds.

Meanwhile the Jesuits used to rightly claim that if they were given the child for the first 7 years of its life, then the child would be the church's forever.

How many hundreds (even thousands) of hours does the now normally "well adjusted" child spend being quite literally entanced (that is brain-washed) by either a TV or computer screen?

This reads like an application for more tax payers money to me. Oh how I wish those who want to do good, would just get on with it, & leave the long suffering tax payer out of it. Just why does a care organisation need a policy research General Manager anyway.

Daffy is that brain washing by authority you're calling for?

Poirot you know I often hear a kid throwing a tantrum because they were not given a biscuit, or an electronic gizmo, not because dad was not home from his second job. I know who I feel sorry for.

This brave new world is not that bad you know, you just have to be happy with it.

I remember the semi final of our primary school football competition in 1952. My Bathurst team had traveled to Millthorpe, for the game. It was wet, cold & snowing. Our teacher coach chose a different kid to usual to kick off.

He had chosen a kid who had boots, as one without could have slipped over on the puddle of ice at the kick off point. Yes that's right, at least 60% of the kids playing in that game were barefoot in the ice & snow. You see even kids boots cost a week wages, & most families, like mine, still getting over a war, could not afford them. As I recall the school, [or the P&C] had funded some of the bus fares, or some of the team could not have gone.

For heavens sake people, get on with it yourself, & stop sticking your hand out. I would also suggest welfare organisations should perhaps, cut their budget back to the critical requirements. Talk about gold plated welfare organisations.

'How many hundreds (even thousands) of hours does the now normally "well adjusted" child spend being quite literally entanced (that is brain-washed) by either a TV or computer screen?'

About an hour a day tops Daffy, with no adverts. ABC4 for kids. That Channel's designed for kids.

International Children's week;

Does anyone have a calender where I can keep up with all these days and weeks? When is book week? That's been going since I was 4 I think.

I wonder how you go about getting your own week. I want international Cynics Week.

I remember when a class mate topped himself, they were so keen those counselors at the school drumming up business. Mates and I thought it was in particularly bad taste.

The new craze is taking stimulants to do exams! Anything from Red Bull to Speed, amphetamines. This attitude I reckon has been supported and encouraged by by counsellors with their dishing out Ritalin like it's going out of fashion.

I'm damned sure it's not a level playing field that some kids get performance enhancing drugs under the guise of some mental health 'disorder'. They should level it out and pass around the ice pipe before exams commence.

Talking about welfare organisations, my wife is a councilor with one. She deals with the long term unemployed, trying to get them into work. When I claim many of them do not want work, it is from inside information.

She was relating just last night how bad the handout mentality has become.

She had a young lady, who went through school with one of ours, who had actually never worked. She was over 3 years unemployed, ever since she finished a BsC in environmental science, one of the easy courses our unis are pushing. This has led to an oversupply of course.

My wife got her a job in a real estate company, having funded her real estate course for her. The girl has now been working for 3 months I think it is.

Her mother was in yesterday, demanding that the welfare organisation pay the fee for the young lady to obtain her licence, now due. When my wife suggested that the young lady had now been earning wages for 3 months, & should perhaps pay her fee herself, the response was a torrent of abuse.

Evidently the young lady, now earning, is expected to start paying her HECS loan back, & to have to pay her licence fee is all too much for mum. Let me hasten to say the young lady has not complained, & I think is happy for the help.

It appears that government, for some, is only for getting money from, & definitely not for paying money to.

All too many of these people are more interested in an excuse not to take a job, than in saying thanks for getting me back into the real world. Many are horrified to find that after refusing jobs on offer, or lasting only a few days before not turning up for work, they are likely to loose some of their welfare.

“In recent research, children across various modern societies have said that material things like brand-name clothes and digital devices do not make them happy.”

Sarah, just how recent was that research? And which socially-minded children were interviewed? Certainly none that I know.

I have boys, so I agree that brand-name clothes are not a ‘must-have’ for my kids. Although I do know boys for whom dressing in the latest fashion is an imperative, so perhaps my two are simply slobs. However, wave an electronic gadget in front of them, and their beady little eyes light up like a mid-west Christmas light pageant. For them, it is their raison detre. Given the choice between spending quality time with family and killing a virtual soldier in COD, the real world doesn’t stand a chance.

Other than that, they’re pretty good boys.

As well as this: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-12/obese-kids-taken-from-parents-care/4125788
there was the article in the Age weekend magazine a few weeks ago about sick children being removed from the care of their parents by interfering medicos and social workers.

A friend of mine has a son who during his primary years could be termed nothing but fat. Obese, sweaty, wheezy and greedy. Eating at their house was a thing to be endured, and one quickly learned never to position oneself too near the table as the food was set down. Or stand in the kitchen doorway.

By today’s standards, that child would have been counseled, and enrolled in any number of quick-fit sports, his parents reprimanded, threatened and kept under surveillance. His teachers would have been told to report on what the child ate during school hours, what was packed in his lunch box and any signs of stress that might be attributable to him carrying all those extra kilos. Perhaps, finally, he may have been removed from the home.

A year ago, I saw this boy, now in his late teens. Slim, muscular, just a normal, healthy teenager with a love of sport, computers and other social activities.

The best thing to do during International Children’s Week? Let them be children.