All For The Wrong Reasons
“Sometimes in our attempt to give children what we did not have, we forget to give our children what we did have.” Connie Podesta
What do our children want?
Have you ever heard your friends or relatives saying this, “When I was young, my parents could not afford to give me the toys that I wanted; now that I am able to, I will give whatever my children wanted. I do not want them to have the fate as mine.”
So you might have heard this before, or are you guilty of being one of these people. Often as parents, we gave in too easily to our children demand and inadvertently we have taught them to succumb to peer pressure.
About a week ago, a friend of mine called me to have an afternoon tea, and we went for a cafe near a Cellphone service provider as there was a promotion for the latest 3G Plus IPhone. Subscribing to their phone package will entitle the subscriber to buy the IPhone at at reduced price.
While y friend was admiring he iPhone features, I was talking to the promoter about the usage and charges, I have to admit, I am too melancholy at times. Personally, I did not see any attractiveness of the package except for a discount on the phone, more over, the broadband limit that they provided will only last my surfing for at the most a week. After which, it will be pay per usage and I knew from some of my friends who subscribed to such package were paying through the nose when they were not careful and use over the limit.
What really surprised me was the conversation I had with my friend after I spoke to the promoter. I turn to him and he show me the features and I can sense that he really enjoy touching or shall I said fondling with the touch screen function and playing with the buill in game. He then said to me, “So smooth, no wonder my daughter loves it and pestering me to buy for her.”
I was a little astounded and thought I was hearing wrongly and asked,” Are you saying you are going to buy this for your daughter to play games? Why don’t you give her Gameboy or PlayStation2?”
“Oh, she got all that and she get fade-up with them. Saw her schoolmates have this, so wanted one too.” my friend said.
BTW, my friend’s daughter is only six years old.
Need I say more, are we all guilty for caring our childrn for the worng reason.
Well I must say that I have seen a lot of young children at my school with the fanciest mobile phones on the market, and just playing around with them.. including the iPhone.
I have no idea why their parents buy them those phones because they are SUPER expensive, but it just makes me wonder, where has the childhood gone when u played with dolls and cars and had to build and draw stuff for yourself?!
Now it’s being all replaced with some electronical gadgets that don’t require any young one to use their imagination or think along..
.. just push the buttons and see the colorful images pop up.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts,
I totally agree with what you are saying.
Take care,
Ingrid
Ingrid´s last blog ..My morning bugs
Ingrid, You are absolutely right. Children nowadays have lost their imagination and creativity and also their childhood of being able to run wild in the wood, beach or stream. All they are familiar with are Cube, TV, Playstation, PC, and all other electrical gadgets.