article · Issue No. 4, April 1953 · p. 36
The Child's Corner: The Child and the World
زاوية الطفل - الطفل والعالم · عائدة شاكر صعب
A world brimming with surprises... but may it rightly be left unknown to the child, so long as he is a part of it?? The decision in this matter rests with the parents.
There are parents who go to excess in their love for their child and their protection of him, painting life for him as easy and pleasant, without a single difficulty running through it — and how quickly the opposite proves true, when it becomes clear to the child that life is struggle and strife!
The child sometimes oversteps his rights, so that he fetters his parents' freedom: he prevents his mother from visiting her friends because he does not care to go along with her and prefers that she stay with him — and the two of them, carried away by their affection, bow to his wish. Beginnings like these will lead him in the future to abuse his own freedom, and the reality he touches in the world will strike him hard — for what a difference between his parents' tenderness and the harshness of other people!!
A child is bound to make many slips in his life; if his parents pardon him out of tenderness and affection, he will find in life thereafter neither a pardoner nor one who shows mercy. How far is the stern law from his parents' loving embrace!
The best training children can be raised on is hardiness and the storming of difficulties with an open heart. For how is a child to handle some problem with understanding and good sense when he has never been accustomed to it before? It leads him then into embarrassment — and what an evil this state drags upon him, at times, in a feeling of inferiority.
The child's having acquaintances and friends greatly eases the parents' task in this field, for through mixing with them he discovers that each of them has rights and duties, and he learns that God Most High has granted every individual differing gifts. He discovers likewise that life is take and give: he cannot win his companions' affection if he does not respect their rights, and he in his turn cannot keep their friendship unless he meets them with the like.
Parents must raise their child to love struggle and to face the difficulties of life — not by tyranny and injustice, but by right guidance, and by true love founded on reality, not on destructive sentiments.
عالم مفعم بالمفاجآت ... ولكن أيجوز ابقاؤه مجهولا لدى الطفل ما دام هو جزءاً منه ؟؟ وتقرير هذا الامر منوط بالوالدين .
من الوالدين ، من يبالغون في حبهم لولدهم وحمايتهم اياه ويزينون له الحياة سهلة ممتعة ، لا يتخللها اية صعوبة ، وسرعان ما يتحقق عكس ذلك عندما يتبين للولد انها جهاد وصراع !
يتعدى الولد حقوقه ، احياناً ، بحيث يقيد حرية والديه ، ويحول دون زيارتها لاصدقائها لانه لا يرغب في اصطحابها ويفضل بقاءها معه فيؤخذان بعاطفتها وينزلان عند رغبته . بوادر كهذه تسوقه في المستقبل الى امتهان حريته ، وتصدمه الحقيقة التي يلمسها في العالم فشتان بين عطف والديه ، وبين قساوة غيرها من الناس !!
لا بد للولد من هفوات عديدة في حياته ، فاذا صفع له والدوه عطفاً وحنواً ، فسوف لا يجد في حياته فيها بعد غفوراً ولا رحيماً . فأين القانون الصارم من حضن ابويه الحنون !
وخير ما يتربى عليه الاطفال الاخشيشان واقتحام المصاعب بصدر رحب ، فأتى له معالجة مشكلة ما بتفهم وتعقل طالما لم يعود على ذلك من قبل ، فيقوده اذ ذاك الى الاحراج وبئس ما تجر عليه هذه الحالة من شعور بالنقص احياناً .
ان وجود معارف واصدقاء للطفل يسهل كثيراً من مهمة الوالدين في هذا المضمار ، اذ من جراء مخالطتهم يتحقق ان لكل منهم حقوقاً وواجبات ، ويتعلم ان الله تعالى قد خص كل فرد بهبات متفاوتة . كما وانه يتحقق ان الحياة اخذ وعطاء ، فهو لا يستطيع كسب عطف اصحابه اذا لم يحترم حقوقهم وهو بدوره لا يحافظ على صداقتهم ان لم يبادروه بالمثل .
يجب على الوالدين ان ينشئوا ولدهم على حب النضال ومجابهة مصاعب الحياة ، لا بالاستبداد والظلم بل بالتوجيه الصحيح ، وبالمحبة الحقيقية المبنية على الواقع لا على العواطف الهدامة .
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