Children should be taught to respect elders but adults also have the responsibility of “acquiring their respect”, said Sudeshna Roy, the chairperson of the state commission for the protection of child rights.
Roy was speaking at a panel discussion last week on early childhood education.
Parents have a responsibility of behaving properly in front of their children if they want their children to pick up the right behaviour and teaching.
“Children should be taught to respect elders but elders also have a responsibility of acquiring their respect,” said Roy, chairperson, West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
She said that if a child was told to bow down to a grandfather or father but he or she saw that the same person was inflicting domestic violence then it was “wrong teaching.”
“If I am bowing down to a person who is cruel, who is scathing, that means I am saying it doesn’t matter, you still respect him... Therefore, we as adults have to know how to behave in front of children and what we are telling them to do,” said Roy.
The panel discussion commemorating the birth anniversary of educator Maria Montessori was held at SPK Jain Futuristic Academy in New Town on Thursday.
Roy later told The Telegraph that to impart the right kind of teaching to children, parents have to set an example.
“If a child from an early age sees a father, grandfather or any other member being abusive, both physically and verbally, it sets a wrong example,” she said.
Suman Sood, director, BD Memorial Junior School and national core committee member, Early Childhood Association, a forum of preschools, said that parents nowadays were more involved in the upbringing of their children than they were earlier.
But there was a need to change their mindset. And it is for schools and teachers to initiate that change.
“When the child is playing in school and the parents feel that all that the child is doing is playing when I am paying so much of fees. For them play is play, it’s not work. Maria Montessori said play is the work of the child and I believe in that. When children play they learn...we encourage schools to adopt play policy and change the mindsets of parents,” said Sood.
The audience for the panel discussion included pre-school owners and teachers.
Sood said technology needs to be used because these children are “digital natives”, but it has to be done judiciously.
The two other panellists were Shabina N. Omar, head of the department of English, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose College, Kolkata, and Angelina Mantosh Jasnani, president, the Catholic Association of Bengal.
“We as a school are deeply inspired by the work of Maria Montessori. Pre-school is a sector which cannot be ignored. What the child is learning in the early years will determine the growth of the child,” said Darshan Mutha, principal, SPK Jain Futuristic Academy.
The school in New Town started this June, and currently has students from Nursery to Class VI.
