Sunday Club
That day I was discussing stuff about our kids with my friends. I noticed that for most of them the pattern of what these kids will end up doing was the same or at least the plan was same
All wanted to focus on raising good moral kids, provide them everything , focus on their growth opportunities and mostly a lot of them will go aboard for higher education or stay back in India and focus on their careers
I don’t see anything wrong with the above and nor would you. But as I thought more It hit me that when ever we talk about doing something for the greater good, we think about doing something for kids who are deprived and focus on them. Again you or I will not see anything wrong with this too…..but then again does it not make equal sense to also focus on kids who have been fortunate enough to have everything too?
As the next generation takes over, would it not be great if the kids who have had everything also have the right seeds of thought ( about social responsibility and awareness ) planted in them at the right age so that some percentage of those will tomorrow use their time and prosperity to do something for the greater good?
Think about it, the fortunate kids who will be growing up in prosperity will hardly get a natural chance to understand the ‘other’ world for them to even think about their relative position in the world. It will not be their fault if they don’t get these realization as we would have raised them in a ‘fortress (i.e. protected environment)’, saving them from many of the realities of the world…
But I think we as parents can do all the things we want to for our kids but also do something cool and interesting to spend time with them, create awareness and have fun on the way….hence ….’Sunday Club’…
The premise of the Sunday club is to spend quality time with our children in a group environment focusing on making social awareness fun and insightful
This will achieve 2 things in one shot…an answer to spending quality time with our children, making social awareness a insightful and fun activity and on the way making good like minded friends…
The structure would be as follows:
Meet every Sunday/other Sunday for 1 hour with parents and children (both or one parent)
Decide on a program which is a combination or discussion areas, movies, documentaries, field trips, lectures, meeting / inviting people who can share
Lets take each one separately:
1. Discussion areas: Decide areas where we would want to provide knowledge and insight to our children in a way they would understand. Categories can range from social awareness on issues such as poverty, child labor, education opportunities, class issues, to other ones such as deforestation, wildlife conservation, global warming, demographic richness,
2. We can find movies , documentaries which are relevant to the above areas and see those together and then have group discussions on them
3. we can arrange field trips to places, organizations whereby we can see and experience the above areas e.g.: NGO’s , schools, social projects, farms, animal shelters, nature trips etc
4. We can invite people who can come in and talk to our kids and us on any of the above topics ( this can be people we know etc)
- For all the above, we will need to be cognizant of the age group of the kids and manage the events so that they don’t become a drag.
- One of the things going for us would be the fact that these kids will be in groups so we need to encourage interaction and discussion…have them speak out
- we will need to ensure that there is no sense of competition or bickering which develops as the only selfish intention we have here is spending quality time with them and learn on the way
- the parents will needs to be the folks who come together and decide the curriculum ( for a lack of a better word ) and then research and take turns managing the club for the day based on the topic/activity
(with the internet, this becomes so very easy! ) …
- we should encourage the older kids to participate a lot as well as sometimes prepare and manage the discussion
we will decide a good mix of the above for each Sunday so that the preparation gets spread out between parents and also variety makes it more fun and interesting and not a drag for the kids …
The way I see this happening is that it would be targeted for a building or a building complex where the goal and structure can be discussed with parents and the interested and likeminded families can come together and start this.
As time progresses the structure and the content gets logged for future use and then it can be passed on to friends who can potentially start it in their neighborhood and so on and so forth…
Who knows … one day we can have a meeting of various ‘Sunday clubs’ and discuss experiences and suggestions…the kids can talk and provide their insights and areas they find interesting and…
Ohh well … I dream…but then isn’t it what it’s all about? J
Abhijit
26th June 2008
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