Making children child-adultsbefore adulthood...

There’s a debate on in the USA over child beauty pageants - should such contests be held at all? Apart from turning children into child-adults, such contests have been known to bring uncalled-for pressure and stress into the lives of children taking part. There was even a murder reported some years ago, of a child who was a participant in one such show.

Childhood is a time to be spent doing what children do. Unfortunately, in today’s rat race centred world, not many children get to spend childhood the way it should be spent. In Sri Lanka too, there are contests that the parents encourage the children to participate in - more than ever, children are being robbed of their childhood with way too many classes and activities jammed into their schedule. Often the parents are to blame. In their quest for recognition for their talented little star, the parents will usually not stop at anything to make sure she/he get the recognition deserved.

Entertainment activities

It’s true that talented children must be recognized for their outstanding creativity and gifted ability - to turn them in the process to miniature adults is another. The parents will not stop at anything to dress them up, often mimicking adults and will keep them living some sort of a demented adult dream, making them sing adult songs or engage in adult centred entertainment activities.

There was a time when childhood talent was recognized and hailed on age-appropriate outlets such as kids talent shows and quiz contests. The children were not dressed up to the nines as adults and nor were they exposed to adult themes in entertainment. But times have changed. You want to cringe when you see heavily made up children, whether they are in Sri Lanka, USA or elsewhere.

They miss the sweetness of a childhood they will never experience again. And that’s sad because you will never get to re-live your childhood again.

Beauty pageants, fashion shows and talent contests are a no-no if they encourage mimicking adults

We as adults and parents must learn where to draw the line in encouraging our children in displaying their talents.

Beauty pageants, fashion shows and talent contests are a no-no if they encourage mimicking adults and are an obvious display of adult level participation.

Children must have boundaries within which they could operate when displaying their talents - school level or national level events and activities that do not encourage them to be like adults but rather help them stand out as children, are usually fine.

It is sad to watch the dressed up children - babes whose minds and levels of thinking are being messed, at best.

We as parents must understand that they should not be made to be stage ‘animals’ on display. Some of us may have unrealized dreams to be stars but that should not affect our talented children. Too many of us parents strive to live their dream through the children.

Age-appropriate activities

The same thing happens when we as parents drive our children to excel in studies. Newspapers reported of two children who chose to end their lives because they could not pass O/Levels - one died while the other was saved thanks to immediate intervention.

It is not fair to put too much pressure on the young minds to excel in studies. Of course, you need to give your children goals and strategies and reign them in to perform well at exams and some kind of pressure is fine but consistent, unrelenting pressure that seeks out ban all other social and sports activities in pursuit of studies only can be dangerous.

We as parents need to understand that our children are not clones of who we were as children. We grew up during a different era - the biggest entertainment we had was TV, which arrived in Sri Lanka only almost at the beginning of the 80s. We were not connected real time to the world via the Internet.

We did not play games on line with gaming partners from around the world. We had books and loved them but we did not have Google books and Kindle. It’s a whole different world for children growing up today.

They know more than we did back then and they can relate to much more. We need to understand their mind set before we try to get them to conform to what we believe is what is best for them.

They must be able to enjoy their childhood and do the things they must do in order to build a healthy personality. If we try to turn them into adults before their time, they will grow up with dented personalities.

They need to engage in age-appropriate activities that will strengthen and build their inner selves, making them confident and caring children. That’s a responsibility we as parents must always keep in mind.