Can you see the ducks mummy?

Image Source: Wikipedia 

A friend of mine shared a Facebook post today which deeply resonated with me. Being a good Teacher-Librarian I decided to dig a little deeper to find the original source of this post. My friend quoted a post by Jean-François Gignac (4th January 2020) and in turn Jean-François was quoting Dr. Ovid a paediatric neurologist. When I hunted down the article I discovered it all originated on a blog post by Victoria Prooday, Occupational Therapist.

I am going to quote a few words from this piece that I think others need to read. Just before I do that take a look at the title of my post - Can you see the ducks mummy? I live near a lake and there are lots of ducks sitting on the shore in the sun or paddling on the lake often surrounded by tiny fluffy chicks. Every day I walk along the lake path and every day I see parents, and sometimes grandparents too, so completely distracted by their phones that when little children ask questions and exclaim with delight on seeing the lake ducks the child is ignored. I weep. A beautiful opportunity for a conversation, for an interaction, for a shared experience is lost and lost forever. 

I dream of creating an advertising campaign where I share the importance of reading to and with children and the importance of talking to children and the importance of putting that phone away so parents, and other adults can pay attention to their child. I deeply worry about the generation of children who have been ignored while their parents give all of their focus to small screens. 

My other impetus for this post comes from the regular comments I hear from colleagues who are deeply worried about the children in their care. Children who have no curiosity. Young children who are unsettled, distracted or just tired. Students who today seem to have such limited knowledge of words. My Teacher-Librarian friends are finding, when they read to the children in the library, they have to stop to explain or clarify the meaning of words, words that in previous years children readily understood. And there are other issues, way beyond the scope of this blog post, connected with the children's own use of phones and other devices - viewing inappropriate content; cyber bullying; body image; eye damage; limited time given to exercise; no time set aside for reading or talking; and more. 

Now back to the article:

Title: The silent tragedy affecting today’s children

Today's children are being over-stimulated and over-gifted with material objects, but they are deprived of the fundamentals of a healthy childhood, such as:

• Emotionally available parents
• Clearly defined limits
• Responsibilities
• Balanced nutrition and adequate sleep
• Movement in general but especially OUTDOORS
• Creative play, social interaction, unstructured game opportunities and boredom spaces

Instead, in recent years, children have been filled with:

• Digitally distracted parents
• Indulgent and permissive parents who let children "rule the world" and whoever sets the rules
• A sense of right, of deserving everything without earning it or being responsible for obtaining it
• Inadequate sleep and unbalanced nutrition
• A sedentary lifestyle
• Endless stimulation, technological nannies, instant gratification and absence of boring moments

What can we do?

The article gives some good advice to parents. I won't quote all of it here just a few of the important points:

• Spend at least one hour a day outdoors doing activities such as: cycling, walking, fishing, bird / insect watching
• Implement a consistent sleep routine to ensure your child gets enough sleep. The schedules will be even more important for school-age children.
• Teach them to wait and delay gratification.
• Provide opportunities for "boredom", since boredom is the moment when creativity awakens.
•  Do not feel responsible for always keeping children entertained.
• Do not use technology as a cure for boredom, nor offer it at the first second of inactivity.
• Avoid using technology during meals, in cars, restaurants, shopping centres. Use these moments as opportunities to socialise by training the brains to know how to work when they are in mode: "boredom"
• Turn off the phones at night when children have to go to bed to avoid digital distraction.
• Connect emotionally - smile, hug, kiss, tickle, read, dance, jump, play or crawl with them.

And to this list I am going to add - read to your child. Read every day. Read books of all kinds - funny books, serious books, books with scrumptious art, non fiction, old books, new books - just go to your library and grab a bunch of books and plan to do this every week or two. And I will add talk with your child too. 

Here the ten Mem Fox Read Aloud commandments:

• Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud. From birth!
• Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read. Or the same story a thousand times!
• Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.
• Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners
• Read the stories that your child loves, over and over, and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations and volume and speed, on each page, each time.
• Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games
• Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.
• Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.
• Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books.
• Please read aloud every day because you just adore being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.

Read to your bunny often,

It's twenty minutes of fun. 

It's twenty minutes of moonlight, 

And twenty minutes of sun. 

Twenty old-favorite minutes, 

Twenty minutes brand-new, 

Read to your bunny often, 

And . . . 

Your bunny will read to you.