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Lately I’ve somehow been thinking about kids and the way they value and view things around them.

And here’re some of my thoughts.

Little children heavily depend on adults, especially their parents and their main caregivers, when it comes to finding information on everything in their ‘world’.

They observe their surroundings, adults’ reactions to things, words they say and things they do.

If they watch a TV programme from the Animal Planet channel and their parents are often heard saying something like, ‘Oh look! The lions ate the poor little deer. How cruel!’, then their kids slowly learn to view lions, tigers and other similar ‘predators’ as cruel animals out to eat defenseless animals (rather than learning how in the animal world, there’s a food chain and predators hunt because they need to in order to survive).

And if we often make negative judgements in front of our children (like, ‘Urgh! That restaurant’s food doesn’t taste nice!), then our little ones will pick up similar judgements too (ie. negatively comment on things around them).

Other than the parents, kids also learn from the media, TV, teachers and friends when they start school. That’s why to me personally, I find it very critical for us parents to always try to be aware of our own actions and words as well as ‘monitor’ what our kids watch, read and hear.

Though it’s not always possible to control our kids’ environment, especially after they start school (ie. being physically away from us for a period of time), I personally believe we parents can still put in the needed effort to follow our kids’ developments and the kinds of exposure she’s getting. At home and outside.

It’s never an easy task, especially since perfect parents are non-existent.

But I guess we can always try our best.