I spent last Sunday evening in my brother-in-law’s house. The whole family looked pretty serious towards the TV screen, where the loud volume of people yelling, screaming and crying mixed with the sound of ‘adzan‘ from a nearby mosque. It was chaotic. But everyone seems to be enjoying the show very much. Hosted by Mandala, the show “termehek-mehek” has brought out the emotion of the whole family. In front of his two boys (age 13 and 9), my brother in law suddenly yelled (to the TV, of course) “What are you waiting for?! Go hit him until he collapse!” (or in Bahasa Jawa/Surabaya,“ngenteni opo seh? ayo ndang diantemi sampek pingsan..!!)
And I went speechless.. immediately escorting my 2 year-old son out from the scene, to avoid him from absorbing unwanted materials.
I may have protested (or questioned) the education system in Indonesia. I may have hated some of our local TV shows and talked about it several times. But when I got caught in the above situation, I realize that even the best education system and best TV program will be no good, if we, parents, do not learn to on how to “parent” appropriately. And sadly, parenting is not something you learn in school.
Or should it be part of the curriculum? For a very long time, parenting was believed as an “instinctive” matter that comes naturally to every person. But lately, I tend to think of it as one of the most important life skills.
Parenting is not just feeding and bathing your baby, but also being in charge of the emotional development of your child. Physical development is also important. You need to have solid knowledge on basic pharmaceuticals (medicines), so that you can differentiateparacetamol, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, which are all dedicated to heal your child’s fever (and relieve pain) but comes in different names! And that’s just an example. Without trying to minimize the necessity to see a pediatrician, basic medicine knowledge (from Google and Wikipedia) truly helped me when my son got sick.
You need to know which food will provide carbohydrate, protein, fat, calcium, and so on, and the task of each vitamins in terms of your child’s physical development. As a mother who completely raised her son without the help of my own mom and/or mother-in-law, I really wished to know more about those things!
Enough with my whining and back to termehek-mehek. In the case of my above-mentioned story, I wish my brother in law (and his wife) never let their kids watch the show. Children absorb things they see, hear, and feel, from their environment, and parents are fully responsible for this. Modern parents can always clicked Google to get the information they need, but not everyone have the privilege of internet access to ease their life. Who can understand that Sponge Bob is not dangerous for children above 6 years old but can be hazardous to a child’s memory if h/she’s below 6 years old? It’s about time we broaden our attention and focus to parents as well. Kids these days are smart. But if we want a smarter generation, we need to make parents smarter, too.
source: http://imo.thejakartapost.com/jabbergibber/?p=910
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