Children and alcohol

It has been”The Eve of May Day”. I visited a traditional fire in my neighbourhood. It was nice weather, much people and a great firework. But I didn’t enjoy it and that was because I saw drunken children. They were around 15, both boys and girls. The youngest was 13. Last week I could read in my local newspaper that my community (Eda kommun), has more drinking children in class 9, especially girls, than other communities in Värmland. It is very easy for the children to get alcohol and it’s not unusual that children in class 9 drink several times in a week. I’ve got three children and I don’t want them to drink before they are 18. What can we as a community and adults do about this? How can we stop children’s drinking?

The first and most important thing is the parent’s role. A parent is the most significant person in a child’s life. What the mother/father does and says is a main thing and the parent needs to be a good model. A parent’s attitudes to alcohol influence a child’s alcohol habits more than anything. The parent needs also to listen to the child and show attention and respect. It’s very important to give the child security to say no to alcohol. A child’s security is most of all built together with the parent’s. Some parents think they can control the child’s drinking if they let them taste at home. Some parent’s also buy and give the children for example some bottles of bear for a party. “Then I know what he/she is drinking” is a usual thought. All examinations tell against that. You should never as a parent give the child alcohol. Those children who get alcohol at home drink a lot more than those who don’t. They usually don’t stop with the bottles they got at home. So altogether the parent has the most important role to stop children’s drinking!

The second thing is the school’s role. All Swedish children go to school. As a teacher you have a possibility to reach many children and give them the tools to say “No thanks” to alcohol. A school can work in many different ways with this subject. One thing is to learn the children about the many big risks of alcohol, another is to work with different kind of self-confidence tasks. If the child can stand against the pressure of the group and say “No thanks!” than I think the school has done a great job!

The third thing is to stop the bootleggers. I’m getting so upset when I’m thinking of adults who are making money of selling alcohol to children! We have a big problem with smuggled alcohol these days. Most of the drunken children have been drinking smuggled alcohol, mostly bear. How can we stop those bootleggers? I have mentioned the parents before! Once again; the parents have a very big role! They can ask their children and call for an answer to get to know the bootlegger. Also a teacher, or other adults at the school, must ask the children where they get the alcohol. Than of course make a report about it to the police. I also think that the police should work harder to catch bootleggers.

Some people mean that it doesn’t matter if a child tastes alcohol before 18 or after 18; the risk to be dependent is the same anyway. I don’t agree with them and neither do most of the research-workers. Most examinations show that dependence on alcohol is more common if you have had an early meeting with alcohol. We must stop children’s drinking!

To make a summary I mean that we all, parents, school, community, police and other adults
have a big task here. We can give support, information, limits and so on. The most important thing for us as adults is anyway, as I mentioned before, to be a good model. We have some young good models in Adam Tensta and Björn Gustavsson who have told they are teetotaller. More of those good models would be fine! If we can help the children to avoid alcohol we will win so much. For each year a child avoid alcohol, the risk of alcohol dependence will decrease with 14%. Well, we have a great job to do, so let’s begin!

Who is Big Brother?

Can somebody help me, please? I would like to know who Big Brother is! I’ve heard so much about him since 1984 but I haven’t met him yet. I don’t know if I really dare to meet him either… But I’m so interested to know more about him and I try hard to find out who he is!

My dear friend George O has never been able to see Big Brother either but he has heard him on the radio! George says that Big Brother can always see every step “his” citizens take. He must have very big eyes this guy! George also says that Big Brother wants to hear everything. He must have huge ears this guy! Now I begin to think of the big, nasty Wolf in the story about “Red Little Riding Hood”. But he isn’t a wolf, is he?

I really want to think of Big Brother as a very nice, clever and kind person. He loves us so much so he wants the very best for us, the small citizens. He wants to give us a secure and safe community so we can have a nice and peaceful life. That’s why he needs all this cameras and stuff; he protects us from enemies. He has, all by himself, bought cameras to shops, banks schools, petrol stations and so on. He has also bought traffic-cameras, cameras to the subway and maybe some other cameras too! Big Brother is also very good at registers. He has a large database where he keeps a lot of good information. I can see when I bought bananas, when I visited the bank and when I needed petrol. As a mother to a child in school am I able to see all times my daughter leaves the classroom and visits the toilet. Big Brother has been so clever and placed a camera in the school corridor! He is a nice person, isn’t he?

I have heard different meanings about Big Brother. Those who like him, says he just want to take all the criminals so we other members of the society can feel safe. Some others say that his methods are really dangerous for the personal integrity and the democracy. They are afraid that his registers can come to wrong hands. Somebody told me that two English policemen had sold photos from a probation camera to a newspaper. (there were naked ladies on the photo) I don’t want to think of Big Brother as a silly person, he would never leave things to wrong hands, would he?

When I’m thinking a while, I’m not sure about if I really want to meet and learn to know this Big brother. How about you?

-Grades in primary school? -No, thanks!!!

In this fourth blog assignment we’re going to write about grades. This is a big and controversial topic and it has been a lot of different discussions for or against grades in several years. Diverse marks have been tried during the years and there is a new suggestion now and then. Both numbers and letters have been tried in judge children’s knowledge. I don’t think it’s that easy, you can’t just give a pupil a number/letter and everybody gets satisfied. I’m not a friend of grades! Marks just centre on results and say a little about development. Grades take away children’s self-confident. I say: pupils will learn more without grades.

The first, and in my opinion most important, thing against grades is that it take away a lot of self-confident for many pupils. A paper which tells a pupil in grade 1 that he/she isn’t good enough is very bad for the pupil’s development. You are not able to learn things in a good way if your self-confident is low. Pupils learn much more with a good self-confident. So it is a very major thing for teachers to raise pupils self-confident and I believe that grades are the wrong way to go. Pupils will learn more without grades!

My second argument against grades is regarding individual learning. In LPO can we read a lot about to see every child as an individual and to think about that in the classroom work. I think we loose very much of the individual thinking when we give marks in early ages. Maybe the pupil need more time, different tests, or something else for his/hers individual development. The goals tell the teacher that the pupil isn’t good enough if he/she can’t read short sentences in the end of grade 1. The teacher gives the pupil a mark which tells the pupil he/she isn’t good enough. Where is the individual thinking? Gone!!! It would be much better for the learning if the teacher instead is able to focus on every individual in the class, look at the individual developments and have a good dialogue with the pupils and the parents about development. I really think they will learn more in that way!

My final argument against grades is about all the bad pressure it makes. Many pupils get head- or stomach ache because they’re nervous about the grades. Problems with sleeping and other psychological complaints also occur when we talk about grades. It seems to be in the way that focus is on the grades not on the learning. The letters/numbers aren’t the most important things, it’s the things the pupil learns. Without grades the pupil can focus on the learning and he/she will learn so much more!

Some pupils enjoy grades and need the pressure to read for the test to get good grades. They like to talk with their friends about their marks and they want to beat each other. Some parents think they need the grades to have control over their child’s knowledge, they say it’s the only proper documentation they can get.

The pupils who really like the grades and learn more because of grades, are a minority. Most of the pupils in school would be able to learn much more without it and I think that it is possible to find other ways to encourage the minority I mentioned before. I also think we are so much better on documentation now then for 15-20 years ago. We can give the parents far more information then a number or a letter. For the pupils self-confident and development he/she needs to be aware of all his/hers capacities, knowledge, talents and progresses. All that can’t be shown in a mark. I know that every teacher in Primary school want the children to learn as much as possible. I think the right way to do it is without grades!

Blog Assignment #3: Climate Change

We can hear warnings every day from different studies about our sick world. They talk about the catastrophic consequences by cars/driving and flying, poisonous smoke, dangerous productions, toxic outlets etc. This isn’t something new; we have heard these warnings for a long time. Still haven’t we changed our habits so we can be able to see a better world. Why has the realisation about the climate change been so slow?

The first reason for the slow realisation, and the biggest in my opinion, is money. Money controls most of the people in the world. If the rich owner of an industry can choose between two ways of production, one cheap but not good for the climate and one more expensive, I think he/she almost always choose the first alternative. If a driver can choose between petrol and ethanol I think it’s the price which decides what he choose. We can choose ecological food but the price will often make the mind up what we buy. Unfortunately, I think money make us forget the climate change.

As a second reason for the unhurried awareness, I want to mention the “It doesn’t happen to me” thoughts. Some of the biggest changes in the world’s climate and environment can’t easily be shown. It can be a long way from here geographical or it can be a long way in time. I think many people are here and now, they don’t think so much about what happens in 100 or maybe 1000 years. They can discuss about or even demonstrate against things in their neighbourhood, for example if the community has decided to take away a village school or a regain establishment. It’s not that easy to engage people in things happening far away or things happening in another generation. I think it’s easy to say” It’s such a big problem, it doesn’t matter what I do”.

My third and last reason for the sluggish understanding about climate change is the people in power. I think they have a big role in the worlds climate change. If they had really brought this catastrophe facts of the sick world on the agenda and done something about it I’m sure it would have been different. I think that most people are aware of money and the financial things in the world and I think that depends on that the people in power has made it so important. If they had done the environment to a big and important question from the beginning I’m sure we had had another world today.

All the facts about our sick world are really depressing. But even if we are slow in realize the big problem I think we can do something about it. I hope and think that peoples hunger after more and more money will decrease. We will value other things more like fresh air, green grass, a rich animal life etc. My hope is also that people can take care of each other. I don’t mean just the people in the family or in the neighbourhood, I mean to take care of each other round the world. I also hope and think that the people in power will open their eyes and do big things for the environment. In the end I would like to write a sentence I heard for some days on the radio, “One can’t do all but everybody can do something”. The meaning in the sentence is for me that everybody is important; everybody can do something for the environment. So let’s start!

Me, my family and our TV

I live with my husband and our three children, 5, 7 and 9 years old. If I compare with other families I think we are a little bit odd. We have just one TV and it isn’t big and it isn’t a flat screen… My children are allowed to watch TV or film about one hour a day. Sometimes they complain and want to watch more but they have got used to the hour so mostly they are satisfied with that. Me and my husband are quite strict about what programs or films our children watch on TV. They can choose between Bolibompa, different animal- or music programs.

As often I can I sit with my children when they watch TV. I really think there are many good programs for children on Bolibompa. Favourites are for example “Sagoberättaren”, “Wild kids”, “Myror i brallan”, “Alba and Adam” (about relationship) and different programs about children from other countries. I like programs that learn something about life or stimulate their imagination or just make them laugh! I’m not so fond of new American cartoons. I think that most of the language and the story in some of them, suits better for adults.

I don’t spend much time with my TV; I have so many other things I want to do. Most of the little time I spend with my TV is with my children, so I mostly look at programs for children… But as I mentioned many of those programs are really good. If I have the time to look at something I can choose all by myself, it will be a dramafilm, something about sport or an English detective story. I don’t like those American actions with a hero who never dies; they are often so affected and unbelievable.

For some days ago I watched a very nice film, one of the best I have seen for a long time. It was a Danish drama, “After the wedding”. First-class actors, excellent pictures and a good story gave me a fantastic experience. In fact I was so affected I couldn’t sleep for a long time that night… The film was about true life and family relations. It showed “real” people( to compare with American actions…) with much feeling and both happiness and sadness.(most sadness…) I like films like that. Maybe I’m fond of it because it gives me thoughts about my own life, makes me feel grateful for the life I live.

My children aren’t so old yet. It will be interesting to see in future if we can keep one hour a day and if it’s possible to only have one TV in a family of five. Maybe, as my children get older, my time with the TV will increase also…

Memories and thoughts about childhood

I would like to start my first blog writing a little about my own childhood. I was born in 1968. I lived my entire childhood on a little farm with my parents and my three years older brother and my one year younger sister. On our little farm we kept some sheep, rabbits, some hen and a cock. Me and my sister Maria, spent most of our time outside with our animals. We often had great adventures out in the wood behind our house. We also played a lot outside and inside the house. Different kind of role-play was a popular thing to do together with friends. Our family had a big social network and we had many friends and good adults to look up to. My own childhood was nearly perfect and I really want my own children and other children to have some of it too!

What was so perfect then and what is the most important thing for a child? Well, I can’t just choose one thing. Here in Sweden we take many things for self-evident. Fresh water, food for the day, go to school and live in peace is basal needs which unfortunately aren’t self-evident for all children in the world. But if I play with my thoughts and determine that every child in the world has those big, basal needs I mentioned before, what is most important after that?

Let’s start with LOVE. Everybody needs to be loved by someone and they need somebody to love. Parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends etc are important for the child. A child needs to spend a lot of time together with their parents or other, for the child, significant people. The time families spend together has decreased mainly since I was I child. I think that’s very bad for the children. My own security is building on all the love and all time I get from specially my parents, brother and sister. If a child feels love then it will grow as a human and meet other people with love. A child who hasn’t been treated with love can’t treat others with love either.

Another experience I want to give all children is “time to just be”. I had a lot of that when I was a child. Nowadays children have so many things they must do. Many of them have play centre after school and after that different activity in the evening. With all this activities the demand on the children will increase. Many children feel stressed early in ages and some of them get stress related diseases in early ages. The adult world’s responsibility is to slow down for the children and take away most of the demands. Let the children be children and let them PLAY!

This first blog is a difficult but very interesting and really important question. As both a parent and a teacher I often think and try to do the best for the children. But what is the best? Well, I don’t really know and I wonder if anybody does? I look forward to read my friends blogs and maybe get some good advice there.

ewabloggen-09

This is my first blog ever! I look forward to meet my "englishfriends" here on my own blog!