Classics about Children
The
children who appear in most classics – Winnie the Pooh,
Peter Pan, the Famous Five and so on – are fairly cardboardy.
They may have quirks and say funny things, but there is very
little character development, and indeed not a lot of character
either in some cases.
The
creation of complex characters for children is a recent invention.
We remember The Catcher in the Rye by John Salinger
as a breath of fresh air. Here was a mixed-up kid struggling
with growing up and the realities of life. It was not only a
good read, but it managed to be both very funny and embarrassing
as you felt for the teenage hero.
A
recent Guardian article was praising High Winds in Jamaica
for its accurate portrayal of childhood, and it brought back
memories of Chris Beedell, who used to use the book for teaching
childcare workers.
The
Guardian was arguing that we are currently in a golden age of
children’s writing, just as Shakespeare’s day was
a peak time for theatre and the nineteenth century for novels.
Certainly there are a lot of books for and about children now
which take their life experience and viewpoint seriously. In
these books, life is not idyllic but the sort of mixture of
experiences which people go through as they develop in childhood
and adolescence.
They
include Adrian Mole, the ultimate spotty adolescent, Tracy Beaker,
who is managing to popularise life in care, Harry Potter and
his magic chums, and the hero and heroine of Philip Pullman’s
His Dark Materials, which seems to have been written
both for children and adults. They all make excellent reading
and are selling millions.
We
are behind the times in recommending The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, as it was
published in 2003 and has already won the Whitbread Book of
the Year. Yet it certainly does deserve commendation. It is
a gripping detective work of sorts, yet it is about an ordinary
family with all its problems. The most brilliant aspect, though,
is that the person telling the story is a teenage boy with Asperger’s
Syndrome and (though we aren’t experts about the Syndrome)
the whole thing rings true, including uncomprehending descriptions
of events viewed from the blinkered perspective of someone who
cannot read feelings. Adults can’t put the book down,
despite its unspectacular subject matter, and the book, originally
aimed at the children’s market has now been re-issued
and aimed at adults.
All
in all, the wealth of books about and for children has to be
a Good Thing.
Encouraging
Boys to Read
Still
on the subject of books for children, boys are known to be some
of the most reluctant readers around – especially of primary
age. Once they have got to grips with reading, it can be tough
to find stories that keep them interested. Girls have always
been more avid readers and the key age for getting – and
keeping – children interested is around seven or eight.
Watch a child of that age suddenly realise what books have to
offer and it’s like witnessing the proverbial lightbulb
moment.
If
you’ve a reluctant reader in your midst then the new Secret
Agent Jack Stalwart series may entice them into the world
of fiction. Written by Elizabeth Singer-Hunt, these stories
run to around 80 pages – short enough to be manageable,
long enough to give a sense of achievement on completion. Young
Jack is a member of the Global Protection Force and sets out
to save the world and solve mysteries. They’re published
by Chubby Cheeks www.chubbycheekspublications.co.uk
Toothpaste
by Numbers
Gus
Greene’s piece this month talks of teeth-cleaning. This
is an important subject in providing care for children. There
is, of course, the obvious point about dental hygiene. The Regulations
say that children should have adequate dental care, and although
that may sound obvious it has not always happened.
What
the national picture is now because of the shortage of dentists
we do not know. At one time there were annual dental check-ups
as a matter of course, but more recently it seems that children’s
rights have been used as an argument for letting children decide
if they need dental care, which has easily slipped into the
laissez-faire approach of letting the children say if they need
attention and otherwise not bothering.
Going
back to the seventies, we recall a children’s home where
they were all known by numbers, not names, and for their squeeze
of toothpaste, as for everything else in the home, they had
to line up numerically. The teeth-cleaning ritual was so significant
that one of the classics on childcare was entitled After
Grace, Teeth. Grace? There’s another topic.
Nothing
to do with Childcare?
Have
you noticed that people usually like the gardens at the front
of their houses to look smart even when they are not so bothered
about their back gardens? As for where properties face onto
railways, they mostly don’t give a damn, even though thousands
of commuters may see the rubbish they have dumped over the fences
at the bottom of their gardens every day.
It’s
the same for the authorities. Councils spend thousands on civic
gardens, roundabouts etc., but do nothing to tidy up the view
or plant flowers to be seen from passing trains.
Is
it because passengers are sealed into their trains and there
is no physical relationship perceived between them and the geography
they are passing through - except at stations where there are
often nice little gardens?
There
are loads of tourists who travel on our trains. Perhaps for
their sakes, as well as for those of the travelling public,
we should start a campaign to beautify the railways.
Nothing
to do with children? Well, it would affect the physical legacy
we pass on and would demonstrate our concern for the environment
to our children. It’s no wonder that young people –
or at least, we assume it is young people – spray-paint
graffiti initials to mark out their territory like dogs, if
adults do nothing to make it look better.
Did
you see?...
.....
Supernanny still at it, miraculously sorting out families and
making children like discipline on Channel 4. We wonder whether
she makes it look too easy. Certainly, children need a degree
of order to feel secure. Otherwise they can go wild. But if
the disorder reflects long-standing personality traits on the
part of the parents, these are not problems that can be sorted
in the twinkling of an eye. Supernanny can show the parents
how to do a three-point-turn in their relationships with their
children, but they will still have a lot of difficult traffic
to negotiate ahead.
...
Professor Jean la Fontaine’s article in Community Care
(7 April 2005, pp. 38-39) telling us not to panic about paedophile
rings? She was the author of the report which debunked ritual
abuse. The social work profession had had to come to terms with
“battered babies” and then with sexual abuse by
family members, both of which had been concepts which it was
hard to believe on the scale which emerged.
The
idea of satanic circles abusing children and frightening everyone
into silence then emerged. Concerned that here was another form
of abuse of which they were unaware, many social workers accepted
its existence, and the campaign to out satanic abuse verged
on a witch hunt. Since Professor la Fontaine’s report,
we have heard of no more cases.
However,
her article is now questioning whether paedophile rings exist.
We think that she is wrong this time. She claims in her article
that inconsistencies in the evidence of the people who were
formerly children in care showed “their accounts to be,
at best fantasies and at worst lies”. There may have been
some inconsistencies, fantasies and lies, but our experience
is that there is a lot of solid evidence of abuse, and when
painful memories are being trawled up after thirty years, is
it any surprise that some dates and names become garbled? There
may not be many instances of organised rings of paedophiles,
but there have been times when they have been aware of each
others’ abuse of children in care and when regimes have
enabled individual staff members to abuse children.
When
children are abused, it is bad. When damaged children are abused
again in care instead of being protected, it is worse. When,
years later, they are accused of fantasies and lies, it compounds
the original abuse still further.
...
the news item about trampolines? Apparently, since 1997 the
number of accidents involving children has more than quadrupled,
perhaps because they are sited unsuitably or because several
children are using them at the same time. Our suspicion is that
they are set up by delinquent parents with video cameras trying
to earn a few quid by selling 
pictures
of the accidents to television shows.
...the
last Dr Who episode when the 'Prime Minister' announced to the
world that the aliens who had invaded the earth had "massive
weapons of destruction" which could be "mobilised
in 45 seconds." Nice one!
From
an Insurance Policy
Heading
about insuring adventure activities for children :
Dingy
and Small Craft
Cheaper
to insure than large brightly-painted ones?
