I enjoy watching children learn cycling, because it brings back many memories of my childhood. Most children would start learning cycling by about three years now, as they would have an access to a cycle at home.
During my childhood days, most children learned cycling by 10 years or later. I started cycling only by 12 years. There were two cycle shops in our village from where we could hire a cycle. Between the two shops, there were two cycles meant for children. There were too many children who would want to hire them. So I was fortunate if I got a chance to hire it when I wanted it.
It was during one summer holidays I started to learn cycling. I was told to learn cycling in an open ground and was restrained from going into the main road. Once I trespassed and went on the road. I lost my balance while coming down a slope and fell into a ditch. Since then I confined myself to the open ground till I was more confident.
The interesting thing about this experience of learning cycling was the sense of independence it brought. I remember friends also feeling the same way. Those were the days, when, children lived a subdued lives, often willingly subjecting themselves to the control and expectations of parents. The only teenage indulgence most children had was to go on a cycling expedition with the little pocket money available, to a nearby village or town to have an ice cream or a cool drink. The adventure stopped with this. The thrill was to do this without being found out by parents.
Looking back, it was a necessary activity to explore and grow to be in touch with realities around us. Some, of course would go to watch a film, although I did not do this. I do not remember any of my friends experimenting with smoking or drugs or alcohol. There were few who would have liked to be personal with girls, but it was difficult as the social norms prevalent at that time detested it.
Fifty years later, the teenagers have a different outlook to life. The internet, films and social climate of self indulgence without moral moorings create a permissive attitude to life. Their refrain is,' Life is to enjoy'.
Let me return to my favourite theme. Parents are often detached from the reality of the impact, the social media creates in a child's mind. The average age at which a child begins to use a mobile phone is six years and and eighty percent of urban children own a mobile phone by ten years. They are formed by the opinions and experiences of others in the social media net work.
We need to invent ways of parenting this generation of children so that parents would still have some lasting formative influence in their formation.
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
Looking back, it was a necessary activity to explore and grow to be in touch with realities around us. Some, of course would go to watch a film, although I did not do this. I do not remember any of my friends experimenting with smoking or drugs or alcohol. There were few who would have liked to be personal with girls, but it was difficult as the social norms prevalent at that time detested it.
Fifty years later, the teenagers have a different outlook to life. The internet, films and social climate of self indulgence without moral moorings create a permissive attitude to life. Their refrain is,' Life is to enjoy'.
Let me return to my favourite theme. Parents are often detached from the reality of the impact, the social media creates in a child's mind. The average age at which a child begins to use a mobile phone is six years and and eighty percent of urban children own a mobile phone by ten years. They are formed by the opinions and experiences of others in the social media net work.
We need to invent ways of parenting this generation of children so that parents would still have some lasting formative influence in their formation.
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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