Sunday is a chance to reflect, and for me, early morning
without interruption, is a great time to review things and ruminate.
I just caught up with our own Face Book page and was scrolling through what has appeared
during our busy weeks and came across Ethan, a young boy of six, who is
autistic, but can play piano instantly and remember everything and play it
beautifully.
I am sure many of you have seen or heard of people who have
this innate skill of seeing or hearing and then being able to replicate (or
even improve) on it, while being labelled “disabled” across the rest of their
lives.
There is some current thinking around that the ‘autistic
brain’ is, in fact, the brain of the future. Parts of it are hyper developed
which then create genius in aspect of being – but the rest of the brain can’t
cope and are sapped... I am not sure I
fully understand this but recognise that it makes simple sense.
What it brings home more to me is the desperate need to
ensure that we nurture all brains to the best of our ability to ensure that
they are as well connected as possible and not affected or rejected by poor
development. I am not talking about
children with Autism (although they are included of course) I am talking about
every new born, who can understand every language, who can relate to positive
and negative attention, who can learn respect and trust, whose needs in the
first four formative years are the most important and valuable.
For those of us who are parents and child developers (and
big people who get to see small people) how we relate to our children to ensure
that they have the best opportunities to take and make use of the world is an
imperative. To see children sitting in
chairs or cots being told what to do, or ignored in front of TV’s and
Computers, or made to queue, or being shouted at to be quiet or to be “good”
or all of the other negative things I do
see in places – some of which are child development centres – is a travesty.
It is essential that our next generation of developmenters
are sparkly and cognoscente of the real responsibilities they have...
Time for breakfast.... Tom xx...
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