The plants and flowers adapt to withstand different temperature and humid conditions. The temperature of 37 degree celsius and humidity of about 140 percent prevailed on most days of the previous week !
Their colour and appearance do not suffer, but perhaps the fragrance and durability suffer when the weather is hot and dry!
It was while visiting a family I realised how affluence has an effect on children. The overseas travel for holidays is lot more common than what it was five years ago. The children insist and parents consent, according to what I heard!
The plants and flowers withstand the weather conditions and maintain their identity and character.
However children are vulnerable to affluence, opulence and extravagance!
I remember hearing from a family of two children, who have planned the evening time as a dedicated time for children. The parents and children pursue variety of activities, when interaction and conversation take place. For children, the TV viewing is not a traction; wanting to play in the mobile phone is not an excitement or a demand; the desire for computer games is not habitual. The parents made the home instructional and inspirational that entertainment is not the dominant ambience of the home. The children are at the Child's corner at home, engaged in exploring activities that enhance their creativity and imagination! The weekly project is the highlight of the home. One project recently was to make an aquarium! That widened the knowledge about aquatic life! It also involved visiting a large aquarium in the marine institute.
This family is withstanding the pressure to conform to a pattern of machine dependent home ambience; theirs is a conversational and narrational family ambience.
Both children receive pocket money each week. They save half of it in depositing it in the post office once a month. What surprised me was the way children spend the other half. Often it is to buy gifts for friends on their birthdays! They contribute to the project that the school has for buying plants to make the school environment green.
What a story of childhood formation, a contrast to the silent consent to conform to the changing mind set of indulgence and entertainment!
A home protects children from the adverse influences of a changing value system!
The primary calling of parents is towards becoming home makers, where children feel nourished and rooted in values that give them character and integrity!
Anna and I made an effort to raise a dialogue on home, being a formative experience for pre-school children in a publication last year. What persuaded us to attempt this was the disarray that the COVID season brought to school life and home life of children in early childhood. The parenting dimension needed further exploration in a changing social context. It is a dialogue starter, published by ASHIRVAD, an Initiative for Child Development.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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