Beautiful Beliefs 3

I believe ...

 life is better when you laugh.

I like laughing.  All kinds from a small giggle, to a loud chuckle, right through to an enormous heart warming, shoulder shaking, uncontrollable laugh when you find it hard to catch your breath and your face aches.  It makes me feel good and brightens my day.

Lots of things make me laugh.  When something funny takes me by surprise,  Remembering fun I've had with my friends.   Rewatching sitcoms I have seen many times and laughing with anticipation for what I know is coming next.  Seeing comedians live on stage or on tv.  Giggling over a private joke with a friend.  Walking into the wind on a blustery day.  Watching the waggiest dog in the world do his little hopeful dance whilst waiting to go for a walk or get a treat.  Just a few small insights and by no means an exhaustive list.  

I like hearing others genuinely laugh out loud, it makes me smile.  Sometimes their laugh makes me laugh.   I don't need to know what is funny, I feel privileged that I have been able to share a little of their joy.  

A few weeks ago there was a minor yoghurt explosion in my class at school.  A boy had a yoghurt tube that was proving to be difficult to open.  With great effort he managed to prize the top off and in the process  squirted the yoghurt, with great force, out of the tube and all over his face and clothes. I have taught many children who would have been deeply upset or embarrassed by this.  He was not.  He laughed. He laughed very loudly.  His friends laughed. I laughed. He didn't mind at all.  He just found it all incredibly funny and rightly so. He still giggles when we mention the exploding yoghurt incident and his reaction to it still makes me smile.

I saw a programme a year or so ago that said on average children laugh up to 300 times a day.  By the time we are adults with busy lives, jobs and other responsibilities we laugh on average a measly 15 times a day.  I think it is high time we rejoined the children and see the funny side of life.  

Laugh.  It is joyful and it is allowed!

(This post is linked to Amy Palko's Beautiful Beliefs Project)

A Smile

Today I was reading some of my earlier posts and discovered I had mentioned one of my favourite poems and said I might post it at a later date.   Here it is.

Smiling is infectious,
You catch it like the flu.
When someone smiled at me today
I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner
And someone saw my grin,
When he smiled I realised
I'd passed it on to him!
I thought about that smile
and then I realised it's worth,
A little smile, just like mine,
Could travel round the earth!
So if you feel a smile begin
Don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick
and get the world infected!

                                  Anon


Happy smiling everybody!

Beautiful Beliefs 2

I believe that children need good role models. (Part 1)

I often worry about children growing up now. No, this does not apply to every child in every situation but to many and often.

As a child I feel had excellent role models and I felt safe and protected at home and throughout my primary and secondary school years. I was spoken to and treated kindly and fairly and even when in trouble (which didn't happen often) I knew I was loved.  Respect was earned, given and received by all.  I fear this is not now the case.  It is, I suppose, possible that this has always been true and that I only notice it now.

Today, as I walked the waggiest dog in the world, I found myself appalled by the conversation of the people walking behind me.  In the two or three sentences I overheard there were at least 7 swear words. I wondered,  "Can't you see there are children playing round here or do you simply not care?" As I turned the corner I looked over my shoulder to see the culprits and was horrified to discover that these were children.  Around the age of 10 or 11 I would guess.

These are not and will never be acceptable words in the general vocabulary of a child but they must have learned them somewhere - watching inappropriate television, older siblings, older children at the park, and most worryingly from their parents and or other family members. (I recognise this is not true of all and hopefully most families.)

This year, in the lower junior class I have taught, I have dealt with several incidences of swearing where profanities have been shouted at other pupils on the school playground.  When asked where they had heard it, all of these children openly stated that their parents said it "a lot" at home and, distressingly, sometimes to them.  This makes it an acceptable word to use to these 7 year old children.  It isn't.  I acknowledge that perhaps on occasion it could have been overheard in conversations that children should not be party to but if there is a child in the house/nearby/within earshot my plea is just don't say it.  Children mimic the adults closest to them as they learn and if what they hear is in a cross tone and includes swear words then this is how they learn to communicate with others.  The children did apologise to their friends for the way they spoke to them but I can't help thinking that they probably wondered why they should apologise for their use of these words when they do not hear adults apologising to each other.

Swearing seems to have become commonplace.  I went for dinner with a friend this evening.  We spent two hours in each others company, had a lovely time, caught up with each others lives, congratulated and commiserated and did all of this without a single swear word from either of us. The people at the tables near to us did not manage this, despite the fact it was obvious that children were also in the restaurant and within earshot.  Were they so caught up in their own existence that they didn't notice the children?  Did they not care?  Or perhaps it has become so much a part of their language use that they aren't aware they are saying it anymore? All are equally worrying behaviours. 

I do not believe that swearing is necessary at all.  I understand and accept that sometimes anger or frustration takes over and swear words are used (for want of a better phrase) for dramatic effect in adult conversation.  However if they are used frequently, in most sentences and as a general part of vocabulary they lose their effect and purpose and therefore the swearing becomes pointless.

In any situation, however, children should not hear these words or feel it is acceptable to use them.

I do my very best to be a good role model for the children I teach and for the children (and, I suppose, adults) I encounter in my day to day life. I treat others as I would like to be treated and speak to people in the way I would like them to speak to me and I encourage others to do the same.

As a community we all have the shared responsibility to provide children, whether they are our own children or those of other people, with excellent role models.

(This post is linked to Amy Palko's Beautiful Beliefs project)