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caring - Parent Pond

Ubuntu: The spirit of parenting

June 30th 2008 06:06

"It takes a village to raising a child"

One of the great paradoxes of this 'the information and communication age' is that, in deferring to the very technologies that are effectively blurring international and geographic boundaries thus thrusting toward global citizenship, we are effectively distancing ourselves from neighbours and friends.

One way in which we see this playing out is through the war of words between government bodies, welfare groups and the pockets of the community over issues of child welfare and abuse. The unfortunate thing in all of this is it takes a tragedy to arouse interest and that each party seems to want to shift responsibility on to another. Neighbours after the event acknowledge that they should have done something sooner; local and state authorities externalise by accusing one another, claiming a lack of communication or deferring blame to resourcing issues; and federal authorities turn to policy and rhetoric over coordination strategies. What nobody seems to want to acknowledge is that when we choose to live in a community and partake of its more alluring activities, each of us must also accept responsibility for the welfare of our neighbours (children and adults alike). For ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and provide a support network for its parents.

The Zulu have a maxim “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”, often referred to as the spirit of ubuntu, which roughly translated means …

“a person is a person through other persons.”

While each of us must define and travel our own path, the journey is never a totally individual one. I believe that every person who comes into our life comes for a reason, some come to learn and others come to teach. Whether we find ourselves teaching or learning at any instance within our common journey, we all have the opportunity to find meaning, points of reference, from the interactions that we experience which will guide us through life’s great adventure.

Therefore, each of us has a responsibility, in the spirit of ubuntu, to foster connectedness and spiritual growth with those whose paths we cross, through positive relationships that are built on the basis of mutual respect and support; open relationships that are made available to, and affirming of, others; strong, long-term relationships that are built on the assurance that comes from knowing that we all belong to a greater whole that is devalued and cheapened when others are humiliated or diminished.

It is a pity that we preoccupy ourselves so with using the technology of the information and communication age that we forget our intrinsically social heritage is about interacting directly with one another and providing positive support where it is needed.

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Posted By: Richard Cramp - Category: carer, caring, child, childcare, children, parent, parents, toddlers, young, young people

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The 'Parenting Thing'

June 28th 2008 23:26

Have you ever had one those ‘I sound just like my parents’ moments? It happens to all of us for better or worse.

For the most part we begin our journey as parents doing the parenting thing by modelling our beliefs and actions on the way our parents parented us. This is not unreasonable, considering that we have been immersed in their parenting style for seems forever. However, the societal influences on our own children are quite different from those that influenced us when our parents were doing the parenting thing. This, together with melding of slightly different perspectives of what the parenting thing means, from within our own partnership, leads to the evolution of our own parenting style. For our kids this is probably a good thing, because the matriarch on one side of our the family would advise that "raising kids is like training wild animals" while the other ancestor would say “that child needs a smack!”.

So, when you think about it there is a degree of truth in Frank Pittman’s observations that ...

"the end product of child raising is not the child but the parent"

For parenting is one of those skills in life that: when you embark on the journey you wish that your parents had taught you a few more of the finer details; then somewhere into the journey you seem to never get it right (or so your kids will periodically remind you) so you begin to evolve new approaches; and finally when your fledglings begin to leave the nest many would call you an expert at which point the little voice inside your head says quite loudly “I am, aren’t I!”. It is quite possible that at this point that you regress to being like your parents once again, and treat your adult children as if they are forever 15 years old.

There are no absolutes when it comes down to describing what constitutes a ‘good parent’, however, I believe that a good parent is someone who is able to maintain a positive balance between two extremes on the parenting continuum. At one end are those parents who are so liberal in their approach that they don’t give a toss, while at the other are those who structure their parenting to the n-th degree - the control freaks who closet their children.

While part of being a good parent is about possessing a clear vision of the sort of adult that you want your child to grow into; parenting is, for the most part, about providing our children with the life-skills that will lead them to being effective and contributing members of the community. It is, therefore, incumbent upon each of us to not only assist our children to develop the virtues that will enable them to do so but to also model them consistently. Part of this educative role, as parents, also involves assisting our children to develop the habits of mind that will permit them to look for appropriate resolutions and courses of action to life’s conundrums and moral dilemmas when the answer is not immediately apparent, because we will not always be around to assist them in this regard.

In accepting these responsibilities we must be prepared to acknowledge the fact that our children will, right from the beginning, bring their own personalities into the equation. Therefore, underpinning this philosophy is the golden precept parenting ... to teach your child to love and how to be loved. From this starting point everything else will fall into place.

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Posted By: Richard Cramp - Category: adolescence, adolescents, carer, caring, child, childcare, children, education, faith, knowing, learning, parent, parents, success, teaching, toddlers, wisdom, young, young people

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Childcare fees: Are you getting value for money?

June 24th 2008 12:34

Image from: http://designguidance.lsc.gov.uk/NR/exeres/C850955E-935A-4509-BD1A-99EED628B781.htm

Childcare fees (as reported by Samantha Maiden in The Australian on Tuesday, 23rd June 2008) are set to increase yet again. The article referred to contends that certain childcare centres will increase their childcare fees by nearly 3 times the rate of inflation, and virtually nullify the 50% rebate for many families.

What really irks me about this is that placing a child in a centre is as expensive as sending a school aged child to a moderate to highly priced private school ($13,500 - $25,000 p.a.), and often without the trimmings.

While there are those centres out there that give value for the hard earned money that we pay over, there are also a very large number of centres that are managed for profit, and therefore not providing the level of service that they should. And more often than not this begins with compromising on the integrity of the role performed by group leaders and assistants.

For instance, the average group leader is expected to: provide individual programming for each child in their room; teaching and interact meaningfully with each child under their care; make and record observations of child’s learning experiences (cognitive, social and emotional); set up and clean up each day’s round of activities; supervise play; be pastorally caring of each child; as well as find time to communicate with parents. In additions to which they are also required to maintain bureaucratic records such as what your child ate today, whether you child slept or rested, toileting records, and logs of staff morning tea and lunch breaks. In fulfilling this role, they are paid barely more than the local teenage baby sitter (approx. $17 per hr) for this they work a 38 hour week, get on average a meagre allocation of 1 hour preparation time per week, get 10 minutes for morning tea and 30 minutes for lunch. Ongoing professional development opportunities are often few and far between.

Furthermore, it is also becoming a common practice in many centres for owners and directors to off load additional non-job related duties on to group leaders and assistants, such as the cleaning of toilets, replenishing of toilet paper, and vacuuming of floors. This is where the compromising begins, for the time for these additional activities, and others, is drawn away from the focus time that should be given to our children.

So does your centre make such compromises, turning their focussed and dedicated staff into over stretched babysitters? And if so, what else are they prepared to compromise on?
One very good indicator of a centre that is not prepared to compromise is the rate of staff turnover.

Our children are important so is the quality of care (including the cognitive, social and emotional learnings) they receive in our absence. We therefore have the right to expect our care providers to provide quality programs and focussed attention. Irrespective of whether you are full fee paying parent or a have your fees subsidised you have the right to expect value for money and service that is more than just a bulk babysitting service.

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Helping Children Become Life-long Learners

June 23rd 2008 05:17

"You gotta quit waiting for something to happen and start doing something about it."

~ Anonymous ~

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Assisting Children Appreciate Different Perspectives

June 22nd 2008 06:24

Learning is ultimately a personal process of understanding the world, other people may be there to help us, teach us, guide us along our path, but the lesson to be learned is always ours; and when we make the finding for our self – even if we're the last person on Earth to see the light – we never forget it.

~ Carl Sagan ~

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Raising Global Citizens: Five Noble Truths

June 20th 2008 12:53

Whatever you are, be a good one!
~Abraham Lincoln~

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The Power of a Single Word

June 17th 2008 12:04

There is a story in the Buddhist teachings entitled “Eight Earthly Winds” , which is retold below...

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

June 14th 2008 08:13

In reference to the myriad of incredible things that are waiting to be known, the late American astronomer, writer and scientist, Dr. Carl Sagan once wrote ...

"The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls so!"

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Seven Bridges: Parenting a Shared Pilgrimage

June 13th 2008 08:45

As parents we often forget that the basic road map of the journey of growth and development that our children are following is pretty much the same as the journey we ourselves have followed from birth to adulthood. Sure we are living in a very different world to that in which we grew up but while the social influences of the day may vary the bridges that we build to span our developmental needs do not. So it seems appropriate that we should take a moment to reflect on the journey we all share.

This is a journey that has followed a common path and involved the crossing of seven bridges, yet each step of it has been as individual as each us who pace it. The passage across each bridge confronts us as travelers with our own set of unique defining moments, instilling within us a set of indelible virtues and a character stamp that progressively define who we are and how we position themselves in life’s great journey

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