Children Deserve Better

Author: Dr. Ali Khwaja

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Children are born with an innate curiosity, their life is an endless stream of exploration, adventure , variety, activity and movement. But unlike most other animals, humans suppress and restrict their children. Their lives are made a daily routine of rules, study, regulations, study, discipline, study, scolding, study. It is said that we spend the rst eighteen months of a child teaching him how to talk, and the next eighteen years telling him to Shut Up!

In formative years the worst posture of a human is sitting on a chair – but that is what children are made to do the whole day. Curiosity is brutally suppressed, any form of physical or intellectual activity is constantly restricted. Running around, working with hands, creating something new, exploring the world around them is constantly frowned upon.

More so the children growing up in metropolitan cities. Their lives are worse than that of zoo animals who live in cages (at least with an open view). The 2-BHK 'home' if lucky, has a couple of windows with safety bars, curtains pulled tight, and maybe even air conditioners keeping the natural breeze out. Running in the house results in breaking delicate showpieces and invites punishment. Questioning adults gets strong reprimand of 'give respect.’

Games and sports are 'extra-curricular' subjects for the lucky children whose schools have open grounds – and they are few and far between. A child happily coming back with a shield or cup in sports is immediately reminded that his unit test is coming up. Side roads that used to be improvised playgrounds now have buzzing trafc all day long.

There is no doubt that a sound mind and sound body are interconnected and they complement each other. Yet in the name of intellectual growth (read “by-heart” mugging up) all other activities are put on the back burner. Children are deprived of learning life skills through team work, decision making, conict handling, leadership, managing emotions and stress, creative thinking that arise from sports, athletics and games. What a generation of children we are producing.....

We must remain as close to the owers, the grass, and the butteries as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.- Friedrich Nietzsche

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