Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: parenting Page 11 of 14

Unseen

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On February 12, 2014

In Environment, Kamloops, Life Stories

SilentIt was early afternoon and quiet. Nothing stirred and yet the snow on the ground had been pinched by countless legs, some coming in fours, others in twos. Soon after we took the trail through the trees, it became a game.

‘What’s this?’
‘Deer.’

‘And this?’
‘Coyote.’

‘Really?’
‘Yes, see the poop next to it?’

Poop mentions always draw big laughs. Yes, it will be like that for a while. It’d better.

‘What’s this?’
‘Oh, maybe a bobcat?’ Are there any here?

TrekWe are at Greenstone Mountain, it is family day and it’s a boys’ first longer hike through deep snowy woods.

‘Are there bears here?’
A reasonable concern. But nope, we tell them. They’re asleep. We hope…

Walk some more, it’s quiet and less spectacular for action-loving boys.
‘Can we sled?’
‘Yes, soon…’

We follow a side path, it’s an old snowmobile track covered in fresh snow and occasionally intersecting with an animal-only track running across. I wish I could understand them and the stories they hide, all the paws and legs that festoon the forest unseen by humans.

‘Shh… be quiet for a bit. Listen.’

A woodpecker raps against a tree not far from where we are. Then a soft trill of an unknown (by us) bird follows swiftly. Then it’s quiet again. We wait. Again. Woodpecker, unknown bird, silence.

The boys’ eyes, barely seen under the thick hats, grow big and round. How could they not. The unseen world revealing itself just enough to make them look around more carefully and scan the tracks with increased determination.

Ready, slope, sledWe come across a slope just perfect for sledding. Steep to climb but oh, the ride down with a bump and face-in-the-snow almost every time.

One boy goes classic-style, facing forward at all times and appropriately concerned about landing. The big brother, a thrill-seeker, tries everything: he sits backwards, then closes his eyes and the anticipatory afraid-but-loving-it screaming makes us all laugh. He rides on his riding on his tummy. Too wild, too bumpy, too tempting not to…

Once more and then we trek through the woods some more, just to the opening…
So we do.

Paws, softI see a big pile of old branches and trees and a flurry of paw prints leading right under it. Why, a bunny family of course! If only we could see them…

They can hear us. We can only imagine their presence. The unseen creatures, quietly crowded in spaces no man could crawl into, listening, breathing and listening and perhaps inching their way to the secret entrance once our voices and loud thumping depart.

‘Can we sled again on the way back?’
Slope’s waiting.

Our tracks will be sniffed for a long time. Animals will tilt their heads and look in the direction of our trekking through their woods.

Be quiet, never leave more than just tracks, even those are disruptive enough to the fine-nosed creatures here.

We’re visitors. We are grateful. We are given beauty and silence. Joy and laughter too. But mostly, the sense of wonder that only a walk through the woods in mid-winter can give you.

Horizon at duskLong grey clouds are piled up on top of each other over the blue-and-white speckled hills in the distance as we drive off the mountain.

We veer onto the highway and I wish there was a sign that said ‘You are now leaving the magic behind. On behalf of the unseen creatures whose marks you saw and wondered about, and whose woods you did not disturb and whose paths you did not purposely unravel, we thank you.’

I felt privileged.

The Reality of Our Fast Changing World

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On February 12, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Note: As of last week, my former Kamloops Daily News ‘The way I See It’ column will be published on The Armchair Mayor News website in the columns section. A new adventure begins! 

Both my sons attend Stuart Wood Elementary. For now. They might not, soon, if the plans to close the school are realized. I wish they will not. The board meeting on February 17 may or may not result in heartache.

Sure the building is old and the yard is rather small. The building is not suited for wheelchair or stroller access either and that is a problem. But shuffling children and removing the school hub from downtown Kamloops is also a problem. A big one.

Children nowadays witness change on a regular basis. Major changes that is. My sons have recently witnessed the dismissal of the Kamloops Daily News, and they see entire neighborhoods change whenever we visit Vancouver.

Old heritage houses with lots of life in them are tore down and new large villas and mansions take their place. Old cedar trees silently guarding back yards have been taken down for three-car garages. The school the boys attended for a couple of years disappeared to make room for a new top-of-the-line building.

Straight angles have never been straighter.

Change is part of life. It always has been. Nowadays though one cannot escape the feeling of change being pushed forth not out of necessity but sometimes for economic reasons, or simply because old is slowly losing its appeal due to its apparent lack of functionality.

In the case of Stuart Wood elementary school, creativity can be employed to retrofit the building to address current concerns. Many old buildings could be preserved at a lower cost than it would cost to tear them down and build new ones.

With them, the sense of community would also be preserved, and the history behind it. If learning is what we want our children to do, then a lesson in the history and importance of preserving the past would be a good one to start with. Roots are important.

In the age of everything moving fast and at a pace that we often have trouble adjusting to, grounding should be a community goal. I cannot think of a better way to express care for one’s home community, whether one is born in it or has been recently transplanted, as our family has.

Neighborhood changes are perhaps a projection of the larger scale ones. Or the other way around. Which makes it fair to say they are the cause and effect of each other, a vicious circle we witness daily.

Our children hear of species on the brink of extinction, they hear of changes in the world environment brought on by global warming, which can be traced to massive changes in how we exploit natural resources and dispose of what is deemed to be less modern.

Parents wonder what the world will look like when today’s children will become adults. How much of today will be lost and at what cost?

In every life endeavor pace is important. So is consideration for what serves a community best. Learning could start with a lesson in continuity and how creativity can salvage old beloved buildings. In a fast-changing world, continuity ensures grounding.

Changes based on necessity have the potential to foster healthy growth. Of people and communities. They also have the potential to teach children lessons that might become key to not worrying what the future holds for their children when they become adults.

It’s only fair to keep that in mind in everything we do.

The Case of Missing Innocence – A Sequel

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On January 28, 2014

In Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

Last night I attended Jesse Miller‘s talk about kids and social media: the good, the bad and the ugly. As expected, ugly can get uglier with a click and Miller explained how.

The topic is as heavy as it is complicated. The recurring refrain was the one that seems to be the only viable solution, yet somehow the hardest to apply: dialogue. Children love to talk and they have a hefty amount of common sense which gets diluted with time.

If there was ever a time when parents have to hold on to their kids for dear life, I’d say this is it. The ever expansive social experiment of already gargantuan dimensions keeps on growing and the risk of losing ourselves and our children in it grows with it.

Children are barely prepared for life when they make their debut on any social media, that is a fact. Miller emphasized that. Children have the means to understand tech, they have the firing synapses that allow them to understand how the internet works and, thanks to their parents and a killer set of nag-plea-implore-till-you-get strategies, they have access to the latest in smartphone innovation.

But, they miss life experience. And it shows, sooner than expected. That’s where the parents come in. Ideally, through open dialogue that happens regularly rather than when the unthinkable happens, which is why last night’s talk took place to begin with.

Interestingly enough though, many parents commit their children to the unforgiving forces of social media very early on. The perspective offered by Miller was an eye-opener for many I hope. Parents dump folder after folder of family photos on Facebook and Instagram; instances of their children’s life milestones, from the trenches of potty training to the glamour of graduation, and everything in between.

Many children who are now tweens and teens – the high risk category for offending, are becoming offenders or victims – have had a camera pointed at them since they can remember. Miller aptly points to the obvious: What are they going to do when they are given their own device? That’s right: Click and post.

The question that is always left unanswered in my opinion is this: Why do we feel the need to share so much detail with strangers? I am challenged by the notion of friendship of Facebook, I said it before. How did we become comfortable with the idea of sharing life bits? Why do we allow hundreds of people, Facebook friends, Instagram or Twitter followers, peek at our life events while still insisting on pulling the curtains at night?

There were a handful of take home messages last night, such as:

  • Establish some good boundaries that will allow you to set a good example (no touching the phone while driving for example, no phone at the dinner table, and disconnect during family time)
  • Talk to your kids about the dangers of sharing personal details with hordes of strangers (a couple of high school kids in the audience confirmed that many of their peers take photos of their driver’s license and post it online)
  • Everything (or almost everything) that one posts online stays somewhere online. Scary to think about now that so much of your life is out there? That’s the point. Privacy is no longer to be expected.

There wasn’t a lot of talking about the sensible topic of inappropriate ‘selfies’ (the word of the year in 2013, and yes feel free to cringe) which caused an uproar at the South Kamloops Secondary School, but these share the same fate with the rest of things shared: They’ll be somewhere out there long after one wishes they’ll be gone. what’s worse, they become grounds for cyber bullying, shaming and, as seen over the last few years, they can push young people to commit suicide.

A chilling fact shared by Miller last night was the high number of views Amanda Todd’s You Tube video got after she died. In the millions that is. Sadly ironic, she was trying to attract attention to her case so that bullying would stop. It didn’t, until she took her own life.

‘Trending’, another strong social media term, makes no distinction between good and bad. if it gains audience it trends. Children should not be expected to make fair judgment calls about the content they see. Social media where information, questionable or not, piles up like a hundred avalanches a day, will keep being what it is: A repository that may or may not contain your child’s life bits, photos and opinions about life.

That’s why parents need to step in and provide guidance. it’s a learning experience for parents and children, but clumsiness makes both parties endearing to each other rather than resentful, so indulge. let loose, show that you’ve never done the social media thing before but maintain the one thing every parent should: That you know more about life and that puts you not in the friend seat but the parent seat. it’s a privilege and a challenge, and believe it or not, children know it and expect it.

For now, it comes down to this: boundaries and common sense have to be there. They have no expiration date because no matter where you are in life, if you make them your allies, you’ll be on solid ground.

I left the room last night with a lot of questions, and with an enhanced perspective over an issue that has been with me for a long time now.

in 2012, following Amanda Todd’s death, I left Facebook. I did not want to be a bystander. I knew, just like I know today, that children younger then 14 are allowed on Facebook when they should not be and that is akin to allowing them to drive long before they have the skills or maturity to do so. I knew, just like I know today, that in some parts of that virtual space someone is being bullied and someone might just decide to end their life to stop their suffering and the public shaming.

More than a year after that, I made my appearance on Facebook again, with the sole intention of sharing my writing, which, I was told, might just be a shame to miss if the issue is worth sharing.

My personal page though, which I need to have in order to have an author page, has been stripped to almost nothing. I took down the few photos I shared back when I thought Facebook to be a connection tool with faraway family and friends because I find no reason to share life bits like that. Sure it takes effort and time to maintain correspondence with those who matter, but then again, such efforts are nothing but an illustration of our caring for them, and the other way around.

I don’t expect anyone to share my beliefs, and I also fear that pending lack of engagement on the said platform over issues that I write about and I consider important, I might opt out again.

The thing is, there is a lack of strict boundaries that troubles me. One could argue that the plethora of social media platforms makes the denial of one almost insignificant. True. But I would like to take one of the messages from last night’s talk and solidify it: Do as you expect your children to do.

I have an open dialogue with my sons. To a fault, one could say. Yes, that close, and I am nothing but grateful for it. There is nothing we shy away from when it comes to talking and debating. To listening. I want to keep that alive: the openness, and the gratefulness attached to it.

But I also want to set boundaries that I hope will inspire my sons to think that in all the craziness of hurried, privacy-robbed times, our living space maintained enough common sense to spill into their decisions as they grow up.

One could hope.

 

 

The Case Of Missing Innocence

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On January 26, 2014

In Kamloops, Motherhood, Social issues

It happened again. The ill combination of tech devices, hormones and bad judgment, plus a lack of boundaries has a handful of students from South Kamloops Secondary School (SKSS) in Kamloops in a painful knot.

Will there be charges of child pornography laid in the latest case of inappropriate content swapping among high school students? After all, an incident in Victoria ended up with a girl being charged.

I wrote before about children nowadays having unrestricted access to online pornography. And how perhaps we should heed the British PM’s proposition that internet providers install filters to prevent access. I also said that my sons are still so young that I should not be personally concerned just yet, but when the time comes I will not shy from having ‘the talk.’

The reactions then and since went from ‘It’s OK to lighten up about the issue, it is the 21st century after all…’ to ‘Yes, this is a scary reality.’ Parents of children my oldest son’s age tell me their children are far from even knowing about online pornography let alone searching for it, yet my son hints to an alternate truth. He knows because he’s in the middle of it.

Children nowadays know more than we think they do, and they are, like all children, curious. Teens and preteens get to play grown-ups too soon and too aggressively; they act like adults and make many adults cringe. Then again, truth be told, many people who have subscribed to the new best-seller Fifty Shades of Gray  believe that being liberated is a desirable attitude in today’s world. Note: I will discuss the questionable nature of such claims spurred by the book in a later post.

Tempted to ask why children hurry and open the ill Pandora’s box all too soon? Because it’s there and it’s tempting and because even if you know you’re not supposed to, peer pressure is a huge factor in tweaking will power to the dark side…

In other words, you don’t want to be the one that is not up to speed when someone asks the question… So you go and look. And learn, wrong things included, and thus the dark secrets steal innocence and widen the gap between children and adults.

So they know porn is there, they know how to access it and they are also told through sexual education sessions that sexual explorations are OK as long as precautions are taken. And explore they do, with disastrous consequences.

From accessing online pornography which paints a skewed image of real sex, to snapping and exchanging indecent photos and thus hurting fellow classmates and friends, breeding a new form of bullying and pushing some towards terrible definitive decisions, to playing ‘relationship’ before they know what a relationship entails, children are hit by the sexual liberation tsunami harder than we can imagine and the consequences are worse that we might ever hope to find solutions to.

So we know all of that. We know what they can do and we’re getting to know what’s out there in cyber space. Lots of unfiltered information that can hurt.

Though sad, stunning stories of teenage suicide caused by sexual harassment and cyber bullying, as well as of stories of indecent photo swapping are darkening the horizon, I believe there is still time to act. Not by leaving it to others to address it as they see fit, but by finding the courage to look our children in the eye and call it as it is.

Knowing the truth provides solid ground to stand on and look for solutions. Or to start brainstorming at least.

***

Fact: Children have tech devices that allows them to access a flurry of information online, pornography included.

Possible solution: If needed for communication purposes (as if) perhaps opting for the basic tech device rather than the latest model. With explanations as to why that is. Though they may pout, all children appreciate being taken care of and feel safe when they know boundaries are in place.

Fact: The said tech devices nowadays have cameras. Taking inappropriate photos just for fun is a mistake but it is not a deadly mistake. Or is it?

Solution: The explanation that any kind of indecent photo of anyone under the age of 16 that is sent, received or traded means possession and/or trafficking of child pornography and any association with such photos could lead to criminal charges. Which makes possession or swapping of inappropriate photos a deadly mistake.

***

A certain expected disconnect between parents and their growing children has always been there, but we’re witnessing an all-new, all-engulfing generational gap nowadays. It’s a social experiment with no precedent and while we often hear of parents and children bonding over electronic games played on the family console, many of those kids will be sucked into the dark reality of playing naughty.

To that, no amount of talks at school or media awareness campaigns will help if the parents do not step up to the new, granted, overfull plate and have ‘the talk(s).’

Innocence lost is a crushingly sad reality. It is what my son wonders about. If we adults let our children be robbed of it so easily, how can they be expected to hold onto it? Most children are too young to even know that such things exist, let alone understand the wrongness of the crime once they are exposed to it.

Not taking the proverbial bull by the horns in this situation is akin to leaving our children in harm’s way hoping they will not be harmed simply because we’ve been imbued with too many happy ending scenarios along the way.

Life is real and we cannot eschew ourselves from any reality that comes our way. ‘Head in the sand’ leaves the rest exposed, and that includes the children we cradle so dearly to our hearts. No ‘I’m sorry’ can ever make up for it. Because there is no going back.

Which is why the time to act is now and not a second later.

The Value of Humble

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On January 20, 2014

In Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood

The car broke down over the weekend. It could be a small thing or a big one, as it often with cars. It could be solved in a day or the car could be a write-off. Yes, one of those. A humbling event that points to dependence, a sorry attribute of the intrepid human spirit one could argue.

No car meant we had to postpone the Harper Mountain ski outing planned for Sunday and it also means walking everywhere with a bike ride here and there, ice-permitting. The patches of hardened ice can be unforgiving to the blissfully, occasionally unaware or hurried human.

We walked to school this morning. A perfect opportunity for the four of us to talk, debate, laugh, point out to this and that and see the morning. It makes cheeks red and cold and it warms the heart. Why not then?

Midday is still sharp cold and I ride my new bike to town. My face is frozen and the feeling of car-less freedom is absolutely exhilarating. Soon I will pick up the boys.

On the way back the boys have stories, questions. We stop to look at leafs trapped in ice, some hiding under their perfectly shaped ice-images and ‘How could that be mom?’… Do you know? Isn’t it nice that there’s still why questions that leave you humbled and wondering…

We talk about Thomas Edison. The boys point to the unbelievable value of his discoveries, the light bulb most of all… ‘What if he had not invented it, mom?’ Indeed. What if. I point out to something that I often decry the slow and sure death of: patience, persistence over things that matter and we believe in even when they are mere ideas.

I point to relentless as one awe-inspiring quality of the human spirit. The boys are trapped in words and ideas, they are as fascinating to talk to as the leaves they point out as wonders along the way.

In the early evening, karate training sends us ten blocks away from home. It is snappy cold but Sasha hops on his scooter. We go slow enough to manage uneven sidewalk and occasional patches of ice. And we talk. Times becomes that much more precious.

After I drop him off I walk to the store, stock up on the bare necessities and walk up on 3rd Street. There are people here and there, fragments of laughter, conversations, cars driving too fast in the dark, taking turns that make me jump backwards… And then time stops again when the organ from within the Sacred Heart Cathedral envelops the cold in ‘Ode of Joy.’

How privileged to witness that. How easy to miss from a car where music might play – even the same tunes would not be the same – or conversations are tossed relentlessly. How important to witness this at least once.

I turn around at the top of the hill just before I enter a warm coffee shop. The North Shore sparkles. Silent. Close by, luminous darts of cars driving fast down on Victoria Street point to fast, another facet of Kamloops.

I listen and remember. My old hometown at night, as I saw it so many times from up on the hill where my parents home was. It was very similar to here, now. Surrounding hills, trains ushering their way through snow and sunshine alike, a river running through the middle of it and bridges as walkable cinches connecting one side to the other.

The sense of belonging creeped in and it felt good and warm, just like the coffee shop I was about to step in and the warmth of the heart I hold near mine waiting for me there.

A long day ends with both boys saying ‘It’s been a good day.’ We smile to each other. We did well. The car is not fixed yet. It turns out it’s not just a little thing. It will take a while. Everything happens for a reason. I know that already.

Short-term Blindness

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On January 16, 2014

In Environment, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

UntouchedIt was after bedtime that Sasha and I sat down to read about ocean life, which is, according to his own classification, ‘his main focus.’ Bedtime strictness be gone, motherhood pays sweet dues to such clear and worthwhile endeavours. So we sat to read.

‘Mom, I will always remember you.’

What would you have said to that? Composure is not an attribute I possess. For a writer with no serious case of writer’s block I should have no excuse. Yet I said nothing but smiled. So will I. Both of you. The gift of open heart when you least expect it. Thoughts of years to come.

Then the thought struck like a most inelegant electric eel. Everything is becoming short-term nowadays. From cell phone contracts to how we think of our impact on the world around, we look at today, this month, this year, if that far. We’re getting used to thinking short-term, we’re being trained to do so.

The attention span of children is reduced by a few seconds with each generation (and what a big virtual chunk of brain power that is) and the objects and contracts we’re told we need to sign up for are measured not in their true value, but in what we have to pay every month and or in how we can make best use of them today.

We’re surrounding ourselves with trees (some of which fake and taking the place of real ones) and we fail to see the forest.

Many think they want to live forever but life is knitted with the thin fabric of something that’s meant to last today and tomorrow.

We think in return policies, exchange for new if something breaks, throw-away and replace with new model; we pay an acceptable-to-budget amount every month without looking at the big picture.

We buy toys for our children’s entertainment today without thinking about the impact of all the broken, thrown-away toys over the years. We feed them refined food they like today, questionable treats that make them grin today, without assessing the impact of the short-term joys on their health, on their world, on ours.

To say that long-term awareness has been short-circuited in favour of the short-term one might sound harsh and I am, yet again, the Grinch that steals today’s fun. But perhaps a refreshed view of the Grinch might save the original, and it may as well save me right now. Dr. Seuss’s wicked thoughtfulness sparkles through. The end of fun was in fact the beginning of real joy. Stripped of all that was short-term glitter, joy stayed put and it came from inside. An act of giving if you will.

Today’s short-term jolly adventures are dangerously plopping themselves in front of long-term thinking, shadowing judgment and making us sign up contracts with words too small and too many to read in one go. Someone must be watching over us rushed people, we assume. Life is happening fast, we are happening with it and the gulps of short-term jolliness make the ride more fun. So be it, where do I sign?

But is the ride more fun? Not quite.

It is refreshing to think that there is still time to think long-term. A rather un-capitalistic view of life, a return to ‘cradle to grave’ objects and concepts alike, perhaps revising investments to make them apply to human richness, in spirit and open-heart goodness rather than have them confined to the financial realm. No one gains money when people’s hearts and minds grow richer but that is the kind of richness that lasts, the one you don’t find in a bank account.

It is fitting of us to consider that while today only comes once and now is a chance we’ll never have again, the long-term concept is building itself out of every today we churn in our rushed existence. The one big problem is that we will not live forever and the generations to come will have a today made from that patched-up, somewhat crumbly long-term we’re building handicapped by our short-term blindness.

Whether Sasha becomes a marine biologist or not (his second choice is to become a carpenter, inspired by a kind, generous toy maker he’s met not long ago) it is not important. My peace of mind comes from knowing that we sat down long enough to read all that he wanted to (hopefully,) we saw enough ocean to understand its boundless wonder (hopefully) and we had enough challenging topics at the dinner table for both of them to understand that us humans honour ourselves and the gift of life by understanding  roots and future (we have.) The roots are being handed to us and the future we create. A heck of a long-term responsibility if you ask me.

Online Game Teaches The Wrong Message

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On December 14, 2013

In Life Stories, Social issues

(Originally published as a column under the same title in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on December 14, 2013)

I had planned to write about last weekend’s outing near Lac Le Jeune where we took the boys skiing. It was freezing cold (minus 21) and the snow gave up clumping up and turned dusty instead. It was a good frosty adventure.

But that night after dinner a few words were dropped about child slaves – a thing that should no longer exist in today’s world and yet it does and we often discuss social inequities – and my oldest son said ‘Mom, you would not like to hear about this game many kids are addicted to.”

Curious? I was. And he told us. We looked it up and cringed.

It’s called Cookie Clicker. It is described as a ‘mindless, addictive and fascinating web game’ or, according to Wikipedia ‘The point of the game is to bake cookies as fast as possible, to have a large number of cookies, and to have a lot of milk; notably, however, there is no true end to the gameplay.”

Like I said, mindless. So you might ask if the cringing was elicited by the mindless aspect of it. Partially, but the disturbing part were some of the upgrades.

They come with explanations: you can use grandmas (‘A nice worker to manufacture more cookies’) or child labour (‘cheaper, healthier workforce’,) or sweatshop (‘slackers will be terminated’.)

Child labour is an atrocious reality of today’s world and so are sweatshops, there’s no way of joking about it and not wondering where your common sense and heart went. You just cannot take such things in jest and have your dignity intact.

Yet children click on cookies and buy child labour as we speak, in an effort (or not, since the device they play on can keep up the game playing by itself) to collect… well, more cookies. Mindless should become worrisome at this point.

A sign of times, you might say. Empathy and a social conscience plus a responsibility to watch over the values our children learn or not learn, that should stay, no matter how crazy the times get.

The world is a crazy place to be, it has always been, but we are witnessing the stretching of this concept to new dimensions. If I had to choose one major aspect of the new degree of craziness I’d settle on information and the way we use it.

The amount of information we are bombarded with on a daily basis has increased a lot since the first days of internet. Exponential growth on steroids.

If we lived in a physically enclosed internet space, someone looking from up above will be noticing some bursting at the seams here and there. With more to come.

And if daily information for the adult mind is overwhelming occasionally, and increasingly so, just imagine what it’s like for children.

Jumping off a cliff in the azure waters below because you choose to is one thing. Being pushed off is a totally different thing.

Children today are born and raised in the murky waters of too much information, and much of it is often controversial enough and it should make even us adults avert our eyes.

The question is: are we vocal and aware of the controversial content enough to make our children aware of things that are not right. Because that is the responsible thing to do.

It is simply wrong to assume that this is only going to amuse kids. It will also desensitize them. We are born empathic.

Young children cannot stand to hear another one crying, yet if they are not encouraged in that caring attitude they may lose it after a while.

As they grow, they become prisoners to peer pressure and their own social image, which they will strive to keep cool at all costs. Often the price is insensitivity, a sword with more than two sharp edges that ends up hurting them, their loved ones and increasingly affecting the world around.

It is high time we reconsider our children’s upbringing and align the values we want them to adopt for themselves with the ones we would like to see modeled around us every day.

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