After School Hours.......

The other day I heard loud noises from our neighbouring house and was wondering what all that noise was . I saw our neighbours son whom I see everyday, shouting at his maid pointing fingers at her. He must be just about eleven or twelve.



I see him everyday in his school uniform even at six or seven in the evening, feeling bored not knowing what to do and whiling away his time talking to the watchman, maid or fighting with them. He does not have any body to play with as theirs is an independent house and he is the only child.



It is the usual story of mother working and the son does not have any one to monitor him. I really feel sad for him. I wonder atleast his parents could enroll him in some classes of his interest and the driver could take him so that he could spend his time in a constructive way.



I was reading that in the U.S. it has become a great concern for the working parents to see how they could keep their children occupied after school hours as studies have found that many children there indulge in harmful activities and the government is trying to work out by having centres which will cater to these children so that they could use their time constructively.



When I was teaching nursery children I found that almost all children knew all the soaps on T.V and knew who is who and would narrate the episodes as though they were narrating fairy tales. And you know what kind of soaps we have on T.V. In some cases where the mother was working the caretaker and the child would sit and watch T.V programmes the whole day . Then there was this particular child who would want to have bindis and dress as they would in the serials. She would also sing the title songs of the serials better than the nursery rhyme!!!!!!!!!



Another child that I know of has been given strict instruction by his working mother not to play outside with other children in the apartment. The child sits inside the house and plays on his playstation the whole evening.



In the above cases children are in the age group of three to nine . But then imagine a teenager who is left unsupervised what with T.V. and net (more on the net in my next blog) causing more harm. Parents who can afford can enroll their children in classes of their interest but what about those children whose parents cannot do so. I wish there was a system which would take care of these issues. Any ideas?