This is showing on the HHS website.
ShrekOnPlaying
So HHS is encouraging children to get out and play. Hooray!
And they're doing it with a popular kid icon and street language that includes the word "booty" as in shake your... Which brings me back to the recent uproar in the kid-lit world about words.
The responses about a dog's scrotum appearing on page one of the 2007 Newbery winner, THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY, are fairly well documented here. LuckyScrotumDebate
Here's a link to the criticism that started the whole controversy: HowDoIReadScrotumAloud?
And one of the follow-up criticisms. OneLibrarians'sObjection SORRY-these links do not seem to work anymore.
Author Neil Gaiman's blog post adds a little Brit humor and perspective IN HIS FEBRUARY 20, 2007 POST. He has an update on February 28, 2007 from a Medina Ohio Librarian that is very touching. NeilGaiman
But if a word in a book can arouse such a backlash of prudish fear, I wonder when the censors will get to this HHS / government offering.
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
31. Heard on the Pathway
Friday evening I was walking along the Beach Road pathway, getting some much needed exercise. When I'm shuffling along at my loser's pace, I feel a kinship with all of the healthy, active folks who jog past me. I'm part of the community enjoying Saipan sunsets and the sound of the ocean. I'm a contemplative person, mulling over the day's events and enjoying other thoughts, both the mundane and the complex. In other words, I'm alive.
At one point, a child raced past me. Then I heard the mother call out, scolding the child for running. "Stop running," she said. "You'll get tired." And I thought, what are you doing to your child? Why shouldn't a child run on the beach path? What's wrong with getting tired, especially after sunset when bedtime can't be all that far away? Is this a child with a heart disease who must guard against over-exertion? There was no indication of this.
And this isn't the first time I've heard parents scold their children for doing normal, healthy activities in an appropriate place. I've witnessed parents I know telling children to stop jumping and leaping from spot to spot when they were playing out of doors. I've listened silently as other parents I know caution their children not to "get dirty" when they are at home on a Saturday afternoon and nothing is about to happen.
What's wrong with some exuberant exertion? (Nothing) What harm does a little dirt cause? (None)
I've also heard praise for the sluggish, the lazy, the apathetic. Puh-leeze. The child who sits still, the child who doesn't wander far, the child who lacks the curiosity to find out what's making that noise, causing that light, creating that smell may be an "easy" child to care for now, but in the long run these are the children who face obesity and boredom.
I don't say anything when these things happen. I feel it would be rude to insert myself unwanted and unbidden into someone else's parenting decision.
But to my own daughter, I say run, run and run faster. Wear old clothes so you can get dirty. Move, go outside, and have fun.
At one point, a child raced past me. Then I heard the mother call out, scolding the child for running. "Stop running," she said. "You'll get tired." And I thought, what are you doing to your child? Why shouldn't a child run on the beach path? What's wrong with getting tired, especially after sunset when bedtime can't be all that far away? Is this a child with a heart disease who must guard against over-exertion? There was no indication of this.
And this isn't the first time I've heard parents scold their children for doing normal, healthy activities in an appropriate place. I've witnessed parents I know telling children to stop jumping and leaping from spot to spot when they were playing out of doors. I've listened silently as other parents I know caution their children not to "get dirty" when they are at home on a Saturday afternoon and nothing is about to happen.
What's wrong with some exuberant exertion? (Nothing) What harm does a little dirt cause? (None)
I've also heard praise for the sluggish, the lazy, the apathetic. Puh-leeze. The child who sits still, the child who doesn't wander far, the child who lacks the curiosity to find out what's making that noise, causing that light, creating that smell may be an "easy" child to care for now, but in the long run these are the children who face obesity and boredom.
I don't say anything when these things happen. I feel it would be rude to insert myself unwanted and unbidden into someone else's parenting decision.
But to my own daughter, I say run, run and run faster. Wear old clothes so you can get dirty. Move, go outside, and have fun.
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