I am really concerned about whats happening in our churches and our community regarding our youth. My concerns center around what I see as a deterioration in social skills, respect, and motivation to do well in school. I am concerned with the continued practice of young people having children while they are still children themselves. It seems that our young males don't have a clue about what it will take for them to become gainfully employed. Some of our youth have no mid or long range visions or goals. They are unwilling or unable to make any connection between education,good social skills, and delayed gratification and their future.
It was once the goal in the Black Community to ensure that each generation would do better than the previous generation. If a parent hadn't completed high school they would make sure that their children received their diploma. Those parents who did not attend college would encourage their children to take college preparatory course in preparation for college entry. What has actually happened is that the trend is going in the opposite directions. Many parents with high a school education are watching their children show no interest in school or graduation. What's going on?
I was a practicing "Child Therapist" for many years so I had the opportunity to see many children and their families dealing with academic and social behaviors in school. These children were very difficult, angry, aggressive, and unmotivated and unprepared to function in the classroom. These children were not learning and were a hindrance to the learning of others because of their disruptive nature. The majority of these students were in K-4, and were the children of teen parents. when I interviewed the parents I found them to be young, immature, impulsive, and without the tools to be an effective parent.
As a doctoral student, in psychology, it was required that I study, "Learning Theory, and Child Development." In these studies it was evident that the process of learning is a fairly straight forward process. The process works when there is a teacher and a student. The teacher attempts to present the information to the student, the student takes the information and attempts to analyze it. Later the teachers seeks feedback from the student to determine if the student understood the materials. There are some environmental factors that can affect this process of teaching and learning. If the teachers is not fluent in subject matter, or has difficulties in the transmission of the information in a way that is understood by the child. An example would be a teacher with a heavy foreign accent is teaching English, or a teacher who gives information above the child's ability to comprehend. As I have stated leaning is a two way exchange between sender and receiver, the teacher and the student. There are other important variables such as the school, and the parents.
Folks I don't want you to be ignorant of what it takes for your child to be socially, emotionally, and intellectually ready to take the maximum advantage of the learning process. All of the recent research tells us that emotional, social, intellectual development starts in the womb. The research tells us that the environment that mother endures can adversely affect the fetus. If the mother is in a stressful, unhealthy, or abusive relationship it can affect the fetus. On the other hand, if the fetus is stimulated by reading, music, and positive conversation it will fertile ground for learning.
What about the child, who while in the womb, receives a steady diet of foul language, loud music, foolish talk, violence, and a mother who is on a constant emotional roller coaster ride? How many times have you seen a young black mother cursing her child out in public. I am reminded of a time I had a office in the John Hale Medical Center in West Fresno. One day I was sitting in my office and I heard this woman going off call another person every name but a child of God. The remarks were loud and aggressive, so I looked out the window to see this mother was talking to a child about 4 or 5 years old.
Proverbs 22:6 says that we are to train up our children in a way they should go, and when he out of your sight he will have what you taught inside of him. Later in Proverbs 22:15 we are told to teach them diligently and shall sit and talk to them, in your house, when you are working, and when you lie down and when you rise. This means parenting is a 24/7 obligation that God has given us. Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us that we are to teach our children , and grandchildren know of the goodness of the Lord.
The young child is like a video camera that is filming and recording everything that is going on around them. They may not be conscious of it, or understand it, but they are becoming "it". They become all those things that they were exposed to during the first 5 years of their life. Some of the things a child is exposed to early in life are difficult to overcome in later life. I have worked with children who were adopted, at age 3, by a loving, caring stable family. These children were very impulsive, horded food, and were socially awkward, resulting in many social and legal problems. Then there was a story on 60 minutes in which a father and son were both on death row at the same time. The son was adopted by a very caring and stable family when he was 2-4 years old. As a very young child he began breaking into homes in the neighborhood. He stated that very natural thing for him to do, it was in him. Please don't think I am a fatalist, but I am just telling you what I have seen and heard.
The answer is to become more aware of how our actions as parents affect our children even before they are born. Someone said that good parenting starts with dating and courtship. To develop a healthy child, the parent must attend to the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical development of the child while still in the womb. To accomplish the emotional part, the mother must make sure that her own emotional state is stable while she is pregnant. Any emotional turmoil will travel to the fetus through her hormones and blood supply. The spiritual is developed, again , by the spiritual condition of the mother. The intellectual stimulation, of the fetus, can be accomplished by introducing the child the poems, readings, and classical music. My wife always read, and talked to our children while they were in the womb. The physical well being is accomplished by the mother taking care of herself, not smoking, drinking, and following a good prenatal program. Larry why are you placing all this responsibility on the mother? I am not letting the father off the hook, he should be there reinforcing and supporting all the things that I have mentioned. But realistically I know that all the burden will fall upon the mother even in a marriage situation.
A child of color needs all the advantages we can give them. If those things I said above are true, then if they don't happen the day the child is born s/he is at a disadvantage. You add to this poverty, poor housing, ineffective school discrimination, the child is born into remedial situation of catch up. How come Asians can come to this country, can't speak the language, dirt poor, and within one generation are overrepresented in the UC system. If you don't believe me just visit UC,Davis, Berkeley, San Diego. Its so bad that White people are complaining that they can't gain admission because of the Asians. Hurray for the Asians!
For those resilient children who, by the grace of God, have made it through the elementary and middle school system still need attention. I believer that you cannot depend on any school system to completely and thoroughly educate your children. It is up to the parents to supplement their children's education. In Proverbs we are told that parents are to teach their children 24 hours a day by precept and example. When my children were very young I was in graduate school and did much reading and studying in front of the children. After a short while of their observations they began to copy my behaviors and pretend to read and write papers. They would also pick up the newspaper an pretend to read. I was unknowingly modeling positive learning behaviors. It was a serendipitous event that I later realized was so important to the development of the children. My wife, being an educator, made sure that the children mastered and understood their subject matter. She was not that impressed with the grades as she was with their understanding. My children now tell me that they always knew they would go to college, and the only question was were, and how to pay for it. Omie and I raised 6 children in West Fresno, and all 6 went to complete college. Two of these children now have PhD's, and all are doing well in their chosen careers.
I was recently discussing the state of education, in the USA, with my daughter who is a college professor, and my son who is a director of a children's agency. I told them that it was time for students of color to begin to focus on careers in math and science. The days of sociology,psychology, liberal arts, corrections, education, need to die a quick death. An Asian female was asked about why Asians do so well in high school and college math and science. She said that our parent tell us the if major in the hard sciences no one cares about our race or ethnicity ! In most countries kindergarten children learn to speak English, because of status of the USA in the world. Why aren't our children learning Chinese, or middle eastern languages in our kindergartens? My daughter stated that the school district in her area offered Chinese language to their children from kindergarten through sixth grade. Wow!
I apologize for my rambling in this blog. This is probably one I should have just emoted with, and not published. Forgive me for my rambling!
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