Talking about respecting the old and loving the young - Li Wenzhu's "On the Vicissitudes of the Tao" No. 37

Original Lee Boon Joo

Respecting the elderly and loving the young is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. I have specifically talked about the issue of respecting the elderly in the article "Filial Piety", and this article focuses on the issue of loving children.

Loving children is the instinct of all animals to reproduce, and it is also the action of human men and women who do their best to meditate. Especially in mainland families, the care for young children (traditionally before the age of 10) is almost beyond the limit, "no matter how poor you can't be bitter children" has become the mantra of thousands of households, children are still in the womb to receive meticulous care, after landing is a family in the palm of the "treasure", all hope that children grow up healthy and happy, become a useful talent in the country.

Loving children is a basic project. Many of the foundations of a person's life are formed in early childhood, which is a crucial stage for laying a comprehensive foundation in life, and it is also a lifelong event that determines the fate and happiness of life. American psychologists have found that before the age of 5 is the fastest period of intellectual development, in terms of the normal level of intelligence that people can achieve before the age of 18, 50% of the intelligence is obtained before the age of 4, 30% is obtained during the age of 4-8, and 20% is obtained before the age of 8-18. At this critical stage, the child's influence, education, habits, personality and hobbies are often accompanied by the child's life. To truly love children, we must pay attention to laying the foundation. Unfortunately, in this stage of laying the foundation, many young parents do not have enough time to accompany their children, and a considerable number of children are handed over to untrained elderly people or grandmothers to take care of, rather than qualified teachers who have undergone strict examinations as in some countries. The basic education of children, the most important thing is to ensure the physical and mental health of children, cultivate good learning and living habits, etc., which is the capital of children's life, and it is also a place where we urgently need to be strengthened. Child psychology tells us that the early childhood stage is a critical period for the development of many abilities, there will be language, senses, interests, movements, norms, writing, reading, culture and many other sensitive periods, if parents or teachers can timely find each sensitive period and provide effective guidance and help to children, they will receive extraordinary and strange effects. Many talented teenagers and young college students have been discovered and cultivated in this way.

Loving children is also a social issue. Caring for young children is certainly the responsibility of the family, but it is also the responsibility of the whole society. Because some of the family alone is far from enough, such as the supply of food and clothing for young children, medical care, preschool education, schooling, etc., must rely on society to solve. At present, society still has many shortcomings in this regard. What is more prominent is that the educational resources provided by society for young children are not sufficient, the number of public kindergartens and primary schools is small, and the private kindergartens have high fees, and there is a bizarre phenomenon that children enter private kindergartens and go to primary school is much higher than the cost of college, which is probably also an important reason why many young people are afraid to have children. In recent years, some of the society has been eager for quick success, major and small, colleges and universities have blindly expanded and expanded enrollment, kindergartens and primary schools have increased very little, and some colleges and universities have caught up with the fashion and would rather cultivate excess film and television entertainers than recruit and cultivate preschool education talents that are in short supply in society. There are also problems with the food supplies provided by young children in society, some merchants see the business opportunities that the Chinese people are willing to invest in children, and have developed a lot of food, milk powder, drinks and clothing, toys, etc. for children, but mostly out of their own profits rather than for the benefit of young children, not only the price is outrageous, and the quality is not guaranteed, especially the milk powder that children eat, additives and hormones in drinks, some seriously exceed the standard to affect the growth and development of children. Therefore, loving children is a major social issue, which must arouse the attention of the whole society, gather the power of social love for young children, and everyone will give love and do good deeds to young children, and truly form a good social trend of the public loving children.

Loving children is also an important national policy. Children are the hope of the family and the future of the motherland. Caring for young children is the responsibility and obligation of the family, and it is also the fundamental guarantee for the prosperity and long-term peace and stability of the country. At present, the problems in caring for young children, especially some deep-seated problems with fundamental nature, are ultimately a national policy issue. For example, in terms of policy design and resource allocation, it is understandable that the shortage of funds in some areas such as health and education can reduce investment for a period of time, but it is problematic to push them to the market of seeking profits, and the market that pursues high profits will not pay for social welfare undertakings such as curing diseases and saving people, teaching and educating people. Some government departments have insufficient investment in education, especially early childhood education, which is difficult to achieve in the short term, and do not attach importance to solving the problems existing in this regard, preferring to raise huge sums of money to build government office buildings in excess of standards, rather than pay small money to build kindergartens and primary schools that are in short supply. Private donations for education are a great thing, but there are many icing on the cake to open universities, but few send charcoal to build kindergartens and primary schools. There is also a lack of professional training institutions and strict assessment standards in the training and assessment of teachers in early childhood education, and there is no quality assurance and sufficient source channels for teachers. There are also various policy treatment of pregnant women, and it is also necessary to introduce more preferential comprehensive supporting policies and regulations from the state to units (enterprises). If these problems are not solved, the conditions for caring for young children will be limited, the desire to care for young children will be difficult to truly realize, and the call for caring for young children will not be implemented. This requires paying due attention to it at the national level, strengthening macroeconomic regulation and control and policy orientation, assessing the surplus of early childhood education institutions and teachers as a whole, mobilizing all parties to tilt towards weaker early childhood education according to actual needs, accelerating the construction of software and hardware overall planning, fundamentally solving the problem of children who are troubled by the people in kindergartens and enrolling in schools, creating favorable conditions for the healthy growth of young children, and laying a solid foundation for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

(To be continued)