Get Real With Your Child (A Different Approach) Poem by Dave Tanguay

Note: from the author

I am not a credited doctor of child psychology, that is I do not hold a degree in this particular field. My only credentials for giving advice on child bearing is my own personal views based on the principals of common sense and most importantly inborn love

'Comments on opposing views to my philosophy welcomed'

So many times I have heard a parent say out of desperation, “I don’t know how to explain to my child of the horrible tragedy that occurred” I ask the parent “how did this incident affect you? ”

A child is human, not some sort of computer which one carefully and delicately stores information in, and expects the information to remain stored until deleted or modified.

A child’s mind is an independent creation of God, which does not receive information directly without first going through the proper channels. If a tragic event should occur which spreads like wildfire, through the media from where there seems to be no escape. It seems a parent feels he or she must either hide or alter the facts relating to the incident from their child. For they believe such information would psychologically have a negative effect on their child.

Get real! Turn off Dr. Phil and get in touch with the real world and with yourselves. We are born with love we do not need to learn how to love. We are also born knowing right from wrong. These traits are as natural as a heartbeat. No action, thought, or motive can be functional without these vital forces, which control our lives.

If a child should reveal a concern for world related issues this can only be a positive sign, the child feels compassion for his or her fellow human beings. The world needs all the help it can get and your child may be just the one who can give it.

I do not believe we should hide any form of cruelty or injustice that is occurring in the world, which comes to us through the media in the privacy of our homes from a child. For an injustice, or cruel behavior towards others, which brings a feeling of grief and sadness to a child, will only encourage a desire and a will to act to change a wrong, and make it right. Some of our greatest leaders were lead to their fate from a desire to make the world a better place to live in, including the founding fathers of our own nation.

Do not always try to be the teacher, for we can learn from children. The younger they are the more their thoughts and imaginations can be, and are usually, unique, and original.. How many times have we heard the expression “Out of the mouths of babes! ”

For sometimes, even a very young child can be a very wise professor from a comment that leaves his/her students [the parents] at awe and to marvel at an entirely new outlook on life.

Indeed before any information enters the mind, it must first go through the proper channels. What is more, the main channel it must go through is the heart.

8/26/07