Welcome FlowerChild

As we grow older all our experiences give us wisdom, knowledge and unfortunately also patterns with which it is safe for us to live and sometimes to survive. Our experiences then prevent us from living the life we deep down in our heart want, but do not dare to go for. Simply because our experiences made us insecure, scared, ashamed or guilty.

Young children are still free of these ‘negative’ experiences. They have the freedom to explore their unique core competence. We as parents and teachers, have a duty to observe our children objectively, so we can together discover, cherish and motivate their passions. Make sure they will not forget later in life what it is they do best and enjoy most without any effort. In that way we secure a happier next generation.

This little 6-year old girl from New Zealand has an amazing talent. And it must be great to know at a very young age what your strengths are and to be able to practice and develop your talents. There are not many young people who have the same opportunities. Often school, homework, parents’ wishes, TV, games, and other obligations drive children away from their first and inner passion. As a result later as adults they feel they do not lead a fulfilling live, they are dissatisfied and suffer from depressions or will finally get a burnout. To find out what the inner passion of a person is we need to change the school systems and make parents and teachers aware that it is not important how much children learn, but how they can find out what drives them from the inside. I hope that very soon there will be new systems installed that make our children people with strong inner desires.

It is a bit ironic how we get to work on projects that are very commercial on the one hand and very equitable on the other. This week at JuniorSenior we have had creative sessions about what tweens (9-12 years old) like to win in competitions and it is amazing how hard it is to satisfy a group as young as these kids. Most of them already own gadgets worth at least € 1.000,00.  They have mobile phones, MP3’s, Nintendo DS’s, cameras, computers. For less ‘cool’ gadgets they are not motivated to join in prizewinning competitions.

We also worked on another problem: how to teach this same group of tweens to manage money and become wise and well informed consumers. When we want to develop a financially sound society, the best place to start is with our youth. Make them aware that every manufacturer wants a share of their money and that it is very important to take control of it.   

By Anne Marie Kelly of Mediamark

For kids ages 6-11, the Internet is much more of an entertainment platform than it is a venue for communicating, with most of the entertainment occurring within the home.

Within that age group, 71.1% of kids accessed the Internet in the past 30 days, according to the most recent data from the “2008 American Kids Stud” conducted by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI).

Based on the results of the in-home survey of approximately 5,000 youths - along with an accompanying survey of primary adult caregivers - five characteristics emerge with regard to kids and their use of the Internet.

1. Home Is Where the Action Is

Of the 71.1% of kids who used the Internet in the last 30 days, 83.4% did their Web surfing at home. School was the second most popular location, at 29.6% of kids, followed by bookstore/library at 6.82%.

Within the household, a very small percentage of kids who used the Internet in the last 30 days (10.9%) had Internet access in their own room. Those respondents were virtually evenly split between boys (48.2%) and girls (51.8%). Only 17.0% of those with access in their room said their parents allow them to self-police their surfing activities.

2. Don’t Instant Message Me, I’m Playing Games

Kids are far more likely to use the Internet for entertainment than for any other purpose. Among those who visited the Web in the past 30 days, 81.2% reported having done so to play online games. And it’s not just the guys who are sharpening their hand-eye coordination in the digisphere. Of these gamers, 50.1% were boys and 49.9% were girls.

The incidence of game playing decreases along with age - 83.8% of kids ages 6-7, 81.5% of kids 8-9 and 79.1% in the 10-11 age bracket. Other popular activities among kids who used the Internet in the last 30 days were: watched videos (34.7%); “did stuff for homework” (32.4%); and listened to music (30.6%).

3. Style-Conscious Kids Also Among The Most Tech-Savvy

Nearly one in three U.S. kids ages 6-11 who used the Internet in the last 30 days agreed with the statement “being ‘in style’ is very important to me.” These style-conscious youngsters also tend to be the more tech-savvy. The style-conscious set is 48% more likely than all kids online in the last 30 days to download music; 33% more likely to shop or look for things to buy online; 29% more likely to say their parents let them go anywhere they want on the Internet; 34% more likely to use the Internet to listen to music; and 19% more likely to watch videos online.

4. Television Web Sites Are The Most Popular

Of the nearly 50 Web sites measured by our study, three of the top five are TV sites (Disneychannel.com, Nick.com and Cartoonnetwork.com) among kids who used the Internet in the last 30 days. When kids aren’t frequenting these entertainment sites, they’re apparently looking for other sites to visit, as the fifth most popular destination was Yahoo.com.

5. Advertising Draws Kids To The Internet

More than half (57.0%) of kids who surfed the Web in the last 30 days did so because advertising drove them there. This group was fairly evenly divided by gender: 50.9% were girls and 49.1% were boys. While advertising motivated 50.4% of kids ages 6-7 to Web sites, it did so to 62.0% of youths in the 10-11 age set.

In the Netherlands every year around 50.000 children between 12 and 16 years old drop out of school without returning. Some of them just stop school because they prefer to work, but a large group has very poor future chances and a potential risk to end up in criminal circuits. In many other countries there are similar dangers. The education for these children needs to be adapted. Outside school they are not supported and treated as a valuable individual with talents. Their only chance to have a happy future is school. Teachers for this group are not only teachers, but also mentors, psychologists and even a bit father and mother. These teachers need to be trained to become professionals who really care for this group. “Students are more likely to succeed when they feel connected to school” is also the conclusion of the experts. “Increasing the number of students connected to school is likely to impact critical accountability measures, such as: academic performance, incidents of fighting, bullying or vandalism, absenteeism [and] school completion rates.”

The teachers have the “golden key” in the battle against criminality!