The Minds of Children

Some of the kids I teach are rather excitable and kids in general do not think before they speak once they enter their excited states. I was doing school learn to swim today, and one of my classes consisted of grade 1 kids. Children are quite forgetful and will take ages to remember your name. Children also don't listen or pay attention to their environments while they are in their excited states, which means that groups of children tend to ask the same questions 2-4x the number of children there are in the group cos they ask you a question and get distracted while you answer them and they ask you again.... and again and one more time just to see if you get annoyed. And so even after 2 lessons they still didn't remember my name, which wasn't an absolute surprise. But then they began asking a million times "what is your name?" to which I would answer "Vincent" half a million times, cos most of the time they would ask the question simultaneously (You learn to become really patient). Then for some strange reason, a child asks "What's your mum's name?" and there I stood thinking "wtheck does that have to do with swimming?" so I answered "Does it even matter?" and a loud "YES" came from the kid. I didn't end up telling them my mum's name lol. But 2 seconds later, a kid yells "How old are you?", being honest I said "eighteen"... then the kid asked "Are you a teenager?"... You'd think even a grade 1 kid would know that if you're in your teens, you're a teenager right? So I gave a blunt "yes". What started to get me worried was when another kid went "Does that mean you smoke?". That's when I really thought "WTH... where do these kids learn these things from?" cos they do go to a private catholic school, so you'd think their parents wouldn't be that bad if they would send them to a private catholic school. Of course my answer was "No, I do not smoke"... But then what followed was "Do you have a girlfriend?" and this was coming from a grade 1 girl... Instinctly telling the truth I said "No, not yet anyways"... Immediately, "Will you have a girlfriend soon?", I wasn't getting annoyed by the billions of questions that were being thrown at me, but I was wishing they would stop asking these weird questions that I didn't expect to come out of a 6 year old. But being completely honest I said "I don't know, I don't know" and the same girl made a rather surprising outburst in an extremely loud voice, "HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?" like it was a crime to not have one lol... And some other kid asked "Are you married?", which I simply took as naivety, cos wtheck I'm 18, and how many people get married at 18? Ok so you do get those rare NAIVE people that do that... but... It's not common and I'd say it's defnitely not recommended from both secular and christian worldviews.

These definitely weren't things I'd expect to hear from a group of grade 1 kids. But it got me thinking, what on earth at their age could possibly make them have that kind of impression or expectation of a mere 18 year old boy? What are they seeing or hearing that would make them link teenager = smoker? They don't comment on me being asian (as some kids do ie."why do you have black hair?" (yes I've been asked that before)), but they think teenager = smoker?

Also, what are they hearing or seeing that makes them think of "romantic" (and from the discourse you hear occasionally, potentially sexual) relationships at THAT age?? What would make the kid even ask whether I have a girlfriend or not, like it was vastly important to them? Why would a child of their age even value romantic relationships on such a high scale?

What do these kids being exposed to in society that would lead to that kind of thinking? What kind of TV programs are they watching that would lead to this? Are mere children's programs and cartoons enough to create this kind of thinking pattern? I think not. Children are sponges, they absorb everything they see, and copy everything from people and things they like or respect. That could be a cartoon character or a person from a TV show, but what about parents or older siblings as well as celebrities in the media? and those accursed children's magazines that they read. And maybe we ignore it, but music too. Why do you think we have see so many try hard gangsta kids these days? Think about popular music, think how much of it is about love and relationships... and gangsta music? how much of it is about sex and other dirty, unholy things? And children seem to pick it all up. I cringe at the sight of a 3rd grader trying uber hard to be gangsta. And those magazines, are filled with crap about the private lives of teenager celebrities and mostly about their relationships and other crap that noone with an ounce of wisdom would give a crap about, would poison the mind of children to think that is a norm... Such is reality... and such is this generation. With such wide access to overloading amounts of information, one has to be seriously wise to know what is worth knowing and what is not, what is true and what is a lie and what is the reality of their lives and their environment and what comes from other place and is not applicable. Children.. generally do not have that kind of wisdom, they are naive by nature as wisdom comes with age, exposure and mistakes.

Even at our age, late teenagers and early twenties, we are still being influenced by all the above immensely but perhaps at a less naive level as we have made plenty of mistakes by this time. But seriously, we have been or are still being influenced greatly when it comes to our expectations of other people, ourselves, relationships, whatever...

God help us all... cos this world that we live in is one bloody screwed up place...