Good morning Daddy
Remember to eat breakfast.
_Smallsteps
This was the first letter I got in the morning from my daughter and there was also a picture of a swan that was saying "kuuu" in a speech bubble.
This summer vacation, my wife and I took the very large step (for us) of letting Smallsteps watch TV in the mornings when she wakes up. This meant teaching her how to use the television, which might not be unusual for the average five or six year old, but we haven't taught her earlier. However, while she did get it eventually, she was obviously still hungry in the mornings and my wife would wake up to get her a snack, before going back to bed for an hour or so, as Smallsteps has the tendency to wake up at six.
One night a few weeks ago, I decided to "test" her a bit and made her a bowl of snacks (normally something like baby carrots, cucumber sticks, grapes and a fruit smoothie) and left them in the fridge. So she could find it, I wrote her a letter in Finnish saying it was there and to put the TV on for herself.
Everything went well... though she failed at getting the TV on and woke my wife up anyway that morning.
But, over this time, I started getting a bit more creative with the letters I leave and added some English words (reading in Finnish is much easier for her as it is phonetic), drawing little cartoons, writing short poems (not pretty in Finnish) and creating mazes for her to solve.
She loves it and every morning, she looks forward to what she is going to get.
And, she has started creating them for me when I get up too, which is awesome! I have got reminders to eat, poems, pictures, stories and lots of hearts made for me and left between the two dachshund bookends, that have become the place for these letters now (originally, I was using random toys of hers).
Now, this is quite a simple little thing to do, but what has been interesting to observe how she hasn't just consumed it as communication, she has used it to create her own content. This is important for us and is why we have kept her largely away from the TV for so long, as once kids sit down in front of them, most stare mindlessly, with many of our friends saying their children are addicted and scream when the TV goes off, as if they as parents played no part in this outcome and the children are at fault.
No, children are impressionable, which means that they are going to be influenced by their surroundings, and the people around them. It is unacceptable to expect a child to self-regulate their activity and make a choice that is "good" for them, when it is not the most enjoyable thing to do, nor is it the thing that has been encouraged through daily behavior.
Many parent use a screen as a babysitter and with smartphones, they do it everywhere to make life easier for themselves, not for the child. And then after conditioning the child to watch the screen, they expect the child to stop watching when the it is convenient for the parent, or the parent wants the child to do something, like come to dinner, do their homework or take the trash out.
Who is behaving badly here?
I am glad that for now at least, Smallsteps has none of these common traits we here about from some of our friends and even while she watches, she spends most of the time drawing, writing or playing with some of her toys. However, I expect that if we keep this up for too long, she will start to exhibit signs of the influence, because conditioning works.
Don't you find it funny how hard people struggle to create good habits? Well, is it hard to create good habits because creating good habits are hard to create, or is it hard because,
bad habits are hard to break?
It really isn't hard to "not smoke" for a person who never created the smoking habit, but it can be a lifelong battle to quit for someone who did. Similarly, eating habits and consumption habits are going to be conditioned too, so if a person is raised with a screen as a babysitter from a young age, they are very likely to be conditioned to use that crutch as a future mechanism to avoid boredom or discomfort too. So, rather than creating something, they will consume something. Rather than dealing with the problem at hand, they will bury their head into the digital sands and refuse to look.
Building good habits before introducing the options for bad habits, means that the foundational good habit needs to be broken, which is harder than building the good habit on the foundation of the bad. This also means that when introducing something like television, Smallsteps hasn't been as keen to sit down and watch for any extended length of time, because she gets bored, because her conditioning is telling her that she should be doing something creative, moving, or playing. It is the "sitting around doing nothing" that is the discomfort for her.
She is turning six next month, so there is a long way to go and many opportunities for us to screw this up and develop a lot of bad habits instead if we aren't paying attention, but I am hoping that these early years have given her a foundation to be creative and continuously curious as she is now. This way, as new opportunities are put in front of her, her natural inclination will be to use her conditioinion to interact with them, which is active, rather than a passive consumer approach.
It is hard to know what are going to be valuable skills to have, but I am of the assumption that creativity and proactivity are still going to be more valuable than passivity and consumption. It is not that consumption doesn't have its place, but it is a source of energy, not a point to inject too much energy into, as it is for many people now.
Not everyone or even a majority agree with me on this, but what I have found is that the people who consume the most are the least creative among us, and what they do happen to create, is not far removed from what they consumed.
When the screen becomes the parent, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
As said, Smallsteps has a long way to go in this life of hers and it is impossible to predict all that she will become, but I love that she spends far more time creating than consuming and hopefully, the "conditioning" will serve her positively in the future.
And it is 2am - so time to make a snack and write a letter for tomorrow.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]