Childcare

Future leaders

Children are the future helmsmen and helmswomen of our nation. A nation’s future depends upon the quality of its children. Therefore, if we want to create a great nation, we must pay maximum attention to the welfare and all-round development of the personality of our children.

Wordsworth

a romantic poet of nature was a great lover of children.

He believed that a child will grow to be a man as he is moulded by his environment. He meant that nature had an extremely healthy effect on both body and mind of man. A child living in the lap of nature was bound to grow into a wise, innocent, honest, sincere, and happy man. As a model he presented his own character, Lucy Gray, who grew into a tall, healthy, innocent, beautiful young girl as she lived and was nurtured in the lap of nature.

According to the poet

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”

– Ode on Intimiations of Inimortality
(by William Wordswortlı)

Tagore

We know that Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Indian Nobel laureate was a great lover of children. He has written one particular lyric on children in the Gitanjali. The said lyric starts with the line –

“On the sea-shore of endless worlds the children meet.”

The poem highlights the innocent, saintly qualities of children. It virtually lends a divine tinge to the children’s games such as playing by building sand houses, making paper boats and floating them on water, and so on. The children are indifferent to and ignorant of the great losses at the sea, such as the wracking of large ships in a sea storm. In other words, the innocence and selflessness of the children also keep them free from danger. The grown-ups foolishly indulge in greedy pursuits and get into many, destructive traps of the crooked world.

Blake

William Blake, the famous English poet, was also a great lover of children. He wrote several poems concerned with the interests and lives of children.

The following lines which start his poem

“Tiger” are very popular among children.

“Tiger! Tiger! burning bright.

In the forest of the night.”

– “Tiger” (by William Blake)

Modern world

In the modern world, however, just as our responsibilities towards children have greatly increased, children’s load of studies has also increased manifold. Children get so much homework that they get little time to play. This selfish world is foolishly putting more and more burden on children’s minds and day by day increasing the size of their bags.

It is our duty to do something about children’s welfare. Top priority must be given to children’s health and education, They should be provided education in such a way as is interesting and playful. We should listen to their problems and grievances, if any, very sympathetically and try to solve them. Particularly children of lower sectors of society deserve better treatment in all respects. Child labour should be completely banned.

Children should sometimes be left alone.

However, some experts rightly caution us, saying that we should not accept every demand of children. And then, children should also be left alone, for some time to enable them to explore their environment and discover their unique individuality.