Hurrah for the “Month of the Child!”

Hurrah for the “Month of the Child!” Let’s select a month and celebrate it as a month of awareness to the beauty and magic of childhood for children of all ages from birth to 100 years old. Underneath our gruffness and cynicism, we are all children at heart even if we have forgotten it. So let’s make one month special in which we “talk with” children and “with” each other instead of “talking at” each other.

For one month, let us show and tell our children what our childhood was like. Hand in hand, let’s play and sing the joys of youth. Let’s recapture even for a brief moment the magic of a time dear to all of us. Who of us doesn’t stop whatever he is doing and perk up when he hears those magic words: “Once a upon time….”

Bring out the old classics “ Alice in Wonderland,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and my favorite, the stories of “Winnie the Pooh.” Grab a book of Mother Goose and sing and clap your hands with your children in reckless glee with them. Pick up several videos such as “ Peter Pan” and follow him in his delightful and merry adventures. Sing along with “Follow the Leader,” one of my favorites songs. Join in the frolics of the Seven Dwarfs as they sing and play with Snow White. Will the Prince still come and save Snow White after all these years since we shared her plight?

Tell the children that they have a choice to become winners, not losers. When we look around we see an awful lot of losers. So during this special month, let’s celebrate the winners and encourage all other children to become winners also. Let’s show them how to make the right choices.

Let’s tell and show the children how beautiful and ugly the real world is. Don’t built walls around their lives, but allow them to experience all of life with its wondrous and mysterious power. Stop denying children life. Help them to experience all the sights, smells, sounds, and feelings that it offers. We’re got to get into their world and stop telling them about it. Listen to them. Ask them to tell us what they see and feel and hear. We may be surprised to learn something.

We must start early in letting children know about their wondrous gold mines of imagination that are strictly their own. When did we lose ours? We must teach them that they are the only “they.” No one else is like them and they should be proud of their uniqueness. We’ve got to tell children about death, and stop protecting them and giving them concepts that we are immortal. They have to understand that death is a normal part of the life force that ever flows through the universe.

Let us share with the children the fact that life is not only pain, misery and despair as heard and seen on many television shows and in the newspapers. Instead let’s share the miracles and fantastic beautiful things that are also happening around us. Teach them the miracle of life.

Frederick Moffett says it best: “ Thus a child learns, more through trial than error, more through pleasure than pain, more through experience than suggestion and telling, and more through suggestion than direction. And thus a child learns through affection, through love, through patience, through understanding, through belonging, through doing and through being.”

During our “ Month of the Child” month, let’s guide the children in their choice to become winners, not losers. And let’s also remind ourselves we still have the same choices. Viva the child!

Strictly a personal view. Anthony Pellegrino writes every Monday and Tuesday. Mr. Pellegrino can be reached at tonypell@saipan.com