Talk to the hand
It's hardly surprising that a preschooler who has been spending his whole life (all 4 or 5 long years of it) around the family dog would assume that canines and humans are on the exact same level as far as the hierarchy of creatures is concerned.
Keeping a family dog does have benefits in that it provides occasions for play in the home as well as opportunities to teach kids about responsibility. Also, having a pet around is a good way to demonstrate to a child what he is and what he is not ("we drink our milk from the glass, we don't lap it up from a bowl like Pepper does"). Another thing you can tell kids when they're behaving more like four-legged creatures is that for humans, there is such a thing as manners. Dogs can be taught tricks; persons learn manners and what these are for.
You can learn a thing or two, if you please, by checking out the following -- from the book Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss :
Manners are about showing consideration, and using empathy. But they are also about being connected to the common good; they are about being better. Every time a person says to himself, “What would the world be like if everyone did this?” or “I’m not going to calculate the cost to me on this occasion. I’m just going to do the right thing”, or “Someone seems to need this seat more than I do ”, the world becomes a better place. It is ennobled. The crying shame about modern rudeness is that it’s such a terrible missed opportunity for a different kind of manners — manners based, for the first time, not on class and snobbery, but on a kind of voluntary charity that dignifies both the giver and the receiver by being a system of mutual, civil respect.
And what's more...
Being friendly and familiar with strangers is not the same as being polite (as we have seen), but if it helps us to overcome our normal reticence, all right, be friendly. Yes, we live in an aggressive “Talk to the hand” world. Yes, we are systematically alienated and have no sense of community. Yes, we swear a lot more than we used to, and we prefer to be inside our own individual Bart Simpson bubbles. But just because these are the conditions that promote rudeness does not mean that we can’t choose to improve our happiness by deciding to be polite to one another.
You may access the article from The Times Online
posted by sunnyday at 3:45 PM
3 Comments:
Silent Rain Drops said...
I like this post - it's a good description of how to teach children both respect for animals, and a deeper respect for human life.
11:28 PM AsianSmiles said...
:)
Aren't we sooo blessed that we didn't grow up in a country where people tend to say, "talk to the hand"...?
Pinoys are naturally friendly and we just love to talk to people from all walks of life!
If we are careful enough, we learn a lot from strangers too :)
:) :) :)
sunnyday said...
Silent, if this post does that, i'm very happy! =)
Asian, you're right. The life-loving, family-oriented and people-respecting culture here has something to do with it, I guess. It's such a blessing indeed =)
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