The Bark August 2022 - Issue 41

A note from John

Dear parents and anyone else in a capacity such that you read these newsletters…

I was vaguely watching and listening to three mid-primary-aged children the other day, after school. They were waiting for their parents to pick them up and were quite a distance from me, playing in the downhill section beyond the tennis court. Be warned, I'll get almost sentimental for a moment, and say there was something attractive and heartening, for me anyway, in the way that they were engaged in whatever game it was.

The two girls and the boy were noisy, almost as loud as cockatoos, screaming and screeching and laughing madly as they raced up and down the hill. I couldn't make out too many of their words, but I think there was some sort of Harry Potter element to their play. But there they were, among the trees, with plenty of space, not clutching any toys from Big W. They had no props at all, as far as I could tell.

Yet for that half-hour or so, as they played together, I would say they were ecstatically happy.

Now for the sermon: they had nothing but space and the natural world and each other. No adults were anywhere near them. I was not regulating their behaviour, interfering with or trying to control their play, nor was I engaging in the game with them. I was outside the Amenities Block, watching the rosellas and choughs enjoying their afternoon tea among the trampolines.

What worries me though is that all day every day since I started Candlebark I have seen an almost endless number of parents who cannot seem to comprehend that the way those children played is how so much of the childhood world should be.

So many adults simply cannot get out of the way.

In more recent years I have seen this extend for a longer and longer span, so that now, for a significant number of parents, the over-involvement continues as their children progress all the way through secondary school, to the end of Year 12, and, I strongly suspect, beyond that as well.

Another feature of the same day as those three children were playing was discussions with parents of a couple of older students at Alice Miller. The parents lied vigorously and relentlessly on behalf of their 'children', refusing to contemplate the uncomfortable possibility that these teenagers might have some difficult aspects to their behaviour, their values, their lifestyles – and refusing to contemplate the possibility that it might be helpful for the parents to do some of the hard work required to help their offspring start moving in a better direction.

I'm probably even more aware of these kinds of issues than I normally would be because we seem to be living in a chaotic world at the moment. Many of the people to whom we have traditionally looked for leadership, because of the positions of power they have gained, have proved to be dramatically disastrous… I'm thinking of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, as among the chief contenders for the title of World Champion Destructive Idiot with a Mental Age of Three, but of course no such title should be awarded, as many three-year-olds are more mature and better balanced than those four leaders… and than a horrifying number of other politicians.

When the political idiocy is viewed against the COVID 19 pandemic, and, even dangerously than all of the above, the catastrophic global environmental situation, it's hard to escape the conclusion that we do indeed have a world in chaos right now.

So, perhaps we need to stop suffocating children and instead let them play, because that gives them their best chance of learning the skills which will enable them to become effective and well-balanced adults. Of course we give them advice, suggestions, lessons, limits, but we need to stop crowding around them and getting in their way. Being a parent is not a full-time job. We need to lead our own lives, pursuing our own interests and even our passions, having our own group of friends, engaging in activities which are important to us and, hey presto, by doing this we could be accidentally acting as role models – which, when we do it well, just happens to be one of our more useful roles as parents.

Warm wishes to you all,

John

Cross country success

Chae de Silva ran a brave race in near freezing conditions at the Regional Cross Country competition in St Arnaud last week. In typical Chae fashion, he went out hard and held his position to finish in second place. This result sees him through to the State Finals in July where we wish him all the best. Go Chae!