A garden is a home for plants with leaves, flowers and fruits. I stayed looking at the three sights above, during my morning stroll yesterday. The leaves, flowers and fruits next to each other had a confluencing effect on me.
This is the cycle in nature. Most plants would go through the cycle of having tender shoots, flowering and bearing fruit. This rhythm goes on year after year. The plants receive their feed and water from the soil and the sunlight gives them the energy for photosynthesis. The plants give away the fruits for others.
I passed by a Rose bush and noticed that one bud was already damaged by insects and there were strands of the web of a spider between the buds. Even before a bud can blossom, it faces a hostile experience from nature. A plant is nourished by the soil but is not protected from adverse invasion from the pests.
I have struggled with this thought in the recent months. A home is for nourishing and nurturing children ! But are parents promotive of the home environment for the wellness of pre-school children! Or are they inconsiderate to what they need and create parenting substitutes!
But it is the same home, which dwarfs the enlargement of a child, by an early exposure to the visual media even before a child reaches his or her first birthday. A child who would be crawling around to explore and discover is made to be sitting to watch the screen of a TV or a mobile phone hours together! In many homes it is the mobile phone a child would watch while being fed. The attachment process with parents, develop when there is face to face engagement through singing, action songs, interactive play, exploration of the environment and everything that is funny which would endear a child to his or her parents.
For me, to see the leaves, flowers and fruits adjacent to each other in the garden and to notice the rose bush with buds was a refreshing experience. I would have passed by these sights several times in the recent weeks, but they escaped my attention.
There is life and life events all around us. In the media, there is entertainment. The cartoon world is unreal and unauthentic! And yet it is to such a world of incongruence we introduce our children even before their processing skills have developed. We make them passive limited, and dependent, whereas they are meant to be exploratory, active, communicative and interactive !
What do we offer to our children! A wrong start in infancy and toddler period! We bring an unfavourable environment to them by overexposure to the visual media. It has been shown that a child who has been introduced to a playful and interactive environment speaks earlier, socialises better, bonds meaningfully and gets familiar with pre-school skills naturally.
The nature is the second home to infants and toddlers.
I wish every home has a Child's Corner with toys, craft materials and books! A low table to sit around and do their activities is what they would need. A Play Corner in the courtyard or veranda with sand and access to water is another requirement for infants and toddlers!
A home is for adults and children.
Are there enough in a home to offer children a formative environment!
The home environment and the natural environment around the house are co-equals in influencing children for their childhood formation !
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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