Quite a while ago, I wrote a post about the 7 deadly sins of childcare parenting, from the point of view of carers. It was the product of extreme frustration!
Today I'm feeling frustrated too, but it's not with the parents. The boot's on the other foot today- I'm reflecting on some of the blatant errors I've seen over and over again from carers.
So here's the balancing post. Here are some things that carers commonly get wrong.
Advice and observations from a qualified carer and educator to help parents and childcare professionals maintain a loving, respectful relationship with their children.
Showing posts with label children's rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children's rights. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Aunt Annie's on the warpath
Did you see the movie 'Erin Brokovich'? (If not, why not? It's awesome, and it's a true story.) That movie is very much on my mind today.
I think the scene that is most imprinted on my brain is the one where Erin sits in a stranger's living room telling a mother exactly what is making everyone in the area sick, from the children with bleeding ears and noses to the parents and children with cancers. It's lethal pollution in the water, courtesy of the local chemical plant.
And that mother is frozen in horror as she puts two and two together. You hear her children laughing, and see them cavorting in the family swimming pool through the window behind her. And she suddenly comes to her senses and rushes out, screaming "Get out of the water."
And your blood runs cold, as hers did.
Aunt Annie really doesn't like getting political. This is a childcare page. But sometimes the importance of advocating for children overcomes my desire to be Switzerland and not offend anyone's political leanings.
This is one of those times, because our children's health is being compromised right now, right around the globe. We have Erin Brokovich situations springing up wherever coal seam gas (CSG) mining has been allowed to happen- we've seen it in the USA, we've seen it in Queensland here in Australia, and it's heading into my local area now. Other countries are in similar positions- Canada, New Zealand- anywhere where there are CSG resources and people willing to ruin the environment for a quick buck.
What's happened in Queensland has been a salutary lesson about what happens when people take quick bucks without considering the consequences. In Queensland, around Tara and Chinchilla where the mining has been established for some time, there are children who are suddenly getting headaches, getting unexplained bleeding from their noses and ears, suddenly crying as they take their baths and coming out red all over where their skin has been burnt by the chemicals leaching into their water supply. There are agricultural properties destroyed by the infrastructure, noise and pollution of mining, with the water sucked out of the water table; they are unliveable, unsaleable and certainly no longer worthy of leaving to the children. There are water taps which billow gas when you turn them on; yes, some people can now light the tap in their kitchen sink. Hardly child-friendly.
This is real, this is happening, this is not a movie.
And children don't have a voice in politics, so I'm going to do some yelling for them. Tomorrow I'm going to see my local political representative Chris Gulaptis, reputedly a supporter of mining at all costs, to ask him how he can possibly justify his position and his government's position on CSG mining- a position that compromises the health, safety and sustainable future of our children.
I'll be asking him why he thinks it's okay to breach the articles of the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a legally binding, non-negotiable set of standards and obligations. Article 24, for example, recognises the child's right to health. Article 36 recognises the child's right to protection from exploitation prejudicial to any aspect of the child's welfare.
I'll be asking him why, as an Early Childhood educator, I'm expected by the government to teach respect for the environment (EYLF Outcome 2), while the government who set that outcome in place permits the modelling of complete lack of respect for the environment.
I'll be asking him how it's okay to create stress levels for families affected by local CSG mines which result in families walking off their uninhabitable and unsaleable properties with nothing to show for their work and investment, and nothing to leave to their children. I'll be asking him if it's okay with him that the mining activities are leaving behind them a trail of depressive illnesses severe enough to lead to parental suicides.
I'll be asking him how it is okay to strip a country of its non-renewable energy resources and sell them offshore, without developing renewable energy resources for the use of our children in the future.
I'll be asking what our future's children are going to eat and drink, once agricultural land has been razed for mining and the water supply compromised.
Am I angry? Too right I am. Children are powerless, and our politicians don't give a damn about their future.
So what can you do, as parents, as educators, as advocates for children?
Living on rural land? Don't allow CSG miners onto your property, regardless of how much money they offer you and how much you think you need it. Don't sign access agreements. To do so will compromise your children's health, not to mention their (and your) future assets. It will also compromise the health of your neighbour's children. How will you sleep at night then?
Spread the word, especially to rural families you may know. No matter how much they need the quick-fix money offered by CSG con men, it won't buy back their children's health. It won't compensate for the loss of their land value and peace. (Have you heard the noise of a CSG well? It's abominable.)
Living in the city? Join a pressure group like GetUp and sign those petitions. They make it easy for you to add your voice, regardless of how busy you already are. Politicians understand votes. It's really the only thing they understand. They need to know we actually give a toss about this.
It won't matter a damn how well you raise your children if there's no clean water, and nothing to eat. You may not be personally affected- yet. But you can raise your voice for other people's children, as I am doing.
I think the scene that is most imprinted on my brain is the one where Erin sits in a stranger's living room telling a mother exactly what is making everyone in the area sick, from the children with bleeding ears and noses to the parents and children with cancers. It's lethal pollution in the water, courtesy of the local chemical plant.
And that mother is frozen in horror as she puts two and two together. You hear her children laughing, and see them cavorting in the family swimming pool through the window behind her. And she suddenly comes to her senses and rushes out, screaming "Get out of the water."
And your blood runs cold, as hers did.
Aunt Annie really doesn't like getting political. This is a childcare page. But sometimes the importance of advocating for children overcomes my desire to be Switzerland and not offend anyone's political leanings.
This is one of those times, because our children's health is being compromised right now, right around the globe. We have Erin Brokovich situations springing up wherever coal seam gas (CSG) mining has been allowed to happen- we've seen it in the USA, we've seen it in Queensland here in Australia, and it's heading into my local area now. Other countries are in similar positions- Canada, New Zealand- anywhere where there are CSG resources and people willing to ruin the environment for a quick buck.
What's happened in Queensland has been a salutary lesson about what happens when people take quick bucks without considering the consequences. In Queensland, around Tara and Chinchilla where the mining has been established for some time, there are children who are suddenly getting headaches, getting unexplained bleeding from their noses and ears, suddenly crying as they take their baths and coming out red all over where their skin has been burnt by the chemicals leaching into their water supply. There are agricultural properties destroyed by the infrastructure, noise and pollution of mining, with the water sucked out of the water table; they are unliveable, unsaleable and certainly no longer worthy of leaving to the children. There are water taps which billow gas when you turn them on; yes, some people can now light the tap in their kitchen sink. Hardly child-friendly.
This is real, this is happening, this is not a movie.
And children don't have a voice in politics, so I'm going to do some yelling for them. Tomorrow I'm going to see my local political representative Chris Gulaptis, reputedly a supporter of mining at all costs, to ask him how he can possibly justify his position and his government's position on CSG mining- a position that compromises the health, safety and sustainable future of our children.
I'll be asking him why he thinks it's okay to breach the articles of the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a legally binding, non-negotiable set of standards and obligations. Article 24, for example, recognises the child's right to health. Article 36 recognises the child's right to protection from exploitation prejudicial to any aspect of the child's welfare.
I'll be asking him why, as an Early Childhood educator, I'm expected by the government to teach respect for the environment (EYLF Outcome 2), while the government who set that outcome in place permits the modelling of complete lack of respect for the environment.
I'll be asking him how it's okay to create stress levels for families affected by local CSG mines which result in families walking off their uninhabitable and unsaleable properties with nothing to show for their work and investment, and nothing to leave to their children. I'll be asking him if it's okay with him that the mining activities are leaving behind them a trail of depressive illnesses severe enough to lead to parental suicides.
I'll be asking him how it is okay to strip a country of its non-renewable energy resources and sell them offshore, without developing renewable energy resources for the use of our children in the future.
I'll be asking what our future's children are going to eat and drink, once agricultural land has been razed for mining and the water supply compromised.
Am I angry? Too right I am. Children are powerless, and our politicians don't give a damn about their future.
So what can you do, as parents, as educators, as advocates for children?
Living on rural land? Don't allow CSG miners onto your property, regardless of how much money they offer you and how much you think you need it. Don't sign access agreements. To do so will compromise your children's health, not to mention their (and your) future assets. It will also compromise the health of your neighbour's children. How will you sleep at night then?
Spread the word, especially to rural families you may know. No matter how much they need the quick-fix money offered by CSG con men, it won't buy back their children's health. It won't compensate for the loss of their land value and peace. (Have you heard the noise of a CSG well? It's abominable.)
Living in the city? Join a pressure group like GetUp and sign those petitions. They make it easy for you to add your voice, regardless of how busy you already are. Politicians understand votes. It's really the only thing they understand. They need to know we actually give a toss about this.
It won't matter a damn how well you raise your children if there's no clean water, and nothing to eat. You may not be personally affected- yet. But you can raise your voice for other people's children, as I am doing.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Sometimes I despair: changing people's minds about child care
Caring for children is such an emotive subject. Every day as I read others' blog posts and websites and news articles- and yes, I do a LOT of reading every day- I see parents and educators struggling as they try to be rational and honest about a subject which is so loaded with feelings that the slightest slip of vocabulary or expression can send people into a complete flip.
There's an old wisdom that states that if you want social mayhem, just bring up sex, religion or politics. I'd like to add 'child rearing' to that. People feel so passionate about the way they've chosen to care for their children. It's almost become a sort of religion, with people from different philosophies desperately trying to convert others to their point of view. Sometimes a discussion thread turns into the verbal equivalent of a holy war. People get hurt. People get angry. Ego overpowers good sense. The 'holiness' of parenthood turns to 'holier than thou', and what started as a desire to enable valuable change gets compromised by people being downright nasty to each other.
So today I feel inspired to look at the mistakes we make when we're trying to change people's minds.
There's an old wisdom that states that if you want social mayhem, just bring up sex, religion or politics. I'd like to add 'child rearing' to that. People feel so passionate about the way they've chosen to care for their children. It's almost become a sort of religion, with people from different philosophies desperately trying to convert others to their point of view. Sometimes a discussion thread turns into the verbal equivalent of a holy war. People get hurt. People get angry. Ego overpowers good sense. The 'holiness' of parenthood turns to 'holier than thou', and what started as a desire to enable valuable change gets compromised by people being downright nasty to each other.
So today I feel inspired to look at the mistakes we make when we're trying to change people's minds.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
A letter to Chris Bowen regarding the 'Malaysian solution'
The following is the text of a letter I wrote to the Australian Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, regarding the intention to send newly arrived 'boat people' (illegal immigrants) to Malaysia for 'processing'. These immigrants include unaccompanied children as well as families with children.
Please feel free to use the text of this letter in your own submissions- copyright is waived. There is a link on my Facebook page which will allow you to send your own letter.
*****************************************
Dear Minister,
I have worked with children all my life. The 'Malaysian solution' makes me ashamed ever to have voted for your party and ashamed to be identified as an Australian.
I am not immune to the logic of the idea on paper; I realise that at some level it has been designed as a deterrent to people-smugglers and that this may even work in the longer term. But I cannot and will not accept that the end justifies the means. It is morally reprehensible to sacrifice vulnerable children at the altar of political gain. Face it, Alan Jones et al would immediately find something else to moan about even if this strategy were to make a difference.
And for this momentary- MOMENTARY- political gain, you are prepared to risk the lives and the innocence of small children.
Would you do this to your own children? If you wouldn't, if you cringe at the thought of your own children in the care of the Malaysian government, how do you sleep at night as you inflict this fate on other children?
These children are no less human than yours. They are no less vulnerable than yours. They are no less human than yours. They have faces. They have smiles. They have tears. They feel pain and they feel fear. They come from a place where their parents decided that paying their life savings and putting their children into a leaky boat was a better option than staying where they were; parents do not take such decisions lightly, and you should not delude yourself that these parents are somehow morally inferior to you. Australia represented hope to these parents, and a better future for their beloved children.
By sending these children to Malaysia, you extinguish both innocence and hope. Shame on you.
Please feel free to use the text of this letter in your own submissions- copyright is waived. There is a link on my Facebook page which will allow you to send your own letter.
*****************************************
Dear Minister,
I have worked with children all my life. The 'Malaysian solution' makes me ashamed ever to have voted for your party and ashamed to be identified as an Australian.
I am not immune to the logic of the idea on paper; I realise that at some level it has been designed as a deterrent to people-smugglers and that this may even work in the longer term. But I cannot and will not accept that the end justifies the means. It is morally reprehensible to sacrifice vulnerable children at the altar of political gain. Face it, Alan Jones et al would immediately find something else to moan about even if this strategy were to make a difference.
And for this momentary- MOMENTARY- political gain, you are prepared to risk the lives and the innocence of small children.
Would you do this to your own children? If you wouldn't, if you cringe at the thought of your own children in the care of the Malaysian government, how do you sleep at night as you inflict this fate on other children?
These children are no less human than yours. They are no less vulnerable than yours. They are no less human than yours. They have faces. They have smiles. They have tears. They feel pain and they feel fear. They come from a place where their parents decided that paying their life savings and putting their children into a leaky boat was a better option than staying where they were; parents do not take such decisions lightly, and you should not delude yourself that these parents are somehow morally inferior to you. Australia represented hope to these parents, and a better future for their beloved children.
By sending these children to Malaysia, you extinguish both innocence and hope. Shame on you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)