Story telling

This is a picture of potter at work at his wheel, which I took ten years back, during a carnival the students organized at the Christian Medical college, Vellore. I have returned to this picture often and it is one of the pictures framed and hung at the corridor, at the entrance to our home.

Many look at it and comment about it. One comment, I heard recently was, 'there is nothing much beautiful about water and clay, but the product is beautiful'. The potter gives the shape and size to the clay to make a beautiful product.

Parents are in the role of a potter. One responsibility parents seem to neglect in the recent times, is this formative role. The media of TV, films, internet, social networking, etc. have taken over the role of being a major influence in the life of children.

Yesterday, a family confessed to me that their 8 years old daughter spend about 2 hours a day on an average, on phone calls, watching TV or surfing internet. The family spends less than 15 minutes a day together.  This is counter productive to childhood formation.

The pre-adolescent period is the time when a child's conscience is being formed. The moral strands of the conscience is derived from what a child sees, hears and and is told. With conversational times decreasing, the pre-adolecent children suffer from one sidedness of exposure effect to the media.. They are conditioned by the media and live distanced from sound parenting practices.

If there are pre-adolecent children in our neighbourhood, can the senior citizens living in the street, bring the children together once a week for a story telling and conversation times!

M.C. Mathew. (text and photo)