Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Why is bending down to your child's level to be shunned?

The perfect picture, as three generations of the one family all get stuck into figuring out a new toy. Copyright Sandra Quinn, Quinn's Quandries 2016. 

Yesterday morning, I read an article about Kate Middleton being potentially shunned by the Queen for bending down to her son George during a Royal tour in Canada.

A similar 'incident' if you can call it that, happened to Prince William when he bent down to George at another engagement and the media interpreted the Queen, or so they think, telling him to stand up immediately.

To give you the backstory, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had just arrived in Canada with their two adorable children George and Charlotte. They were greeted by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie.

At one point, Kate bends down to speak to George, as she has Charlotte resting happily on her hip. I shall refer to her as Kate, as I think using the term, 'The Duchess' is a bit highfalutin - I had to Google how to spell this, rest assured that there are no airs, graces or notions of grandeur here.

What we saw was a picture of a real family, despite the Royal titles, if you ask me, and yet the picture is plastered all over the papers and Kate is being chastised for doing something, which the Queen 'may' not approve of.

Ridiculous if you ask me.

To me, children feel loved, respected and like equals if adults get down to their level (literally), sit on the floor to play with them and muck in, so to speak.

My parents used to always say that if an adult came into a room filled with children and didn't get down on their knees and start playing, that they were not to be trusted and it is a measure of trust that I have always used.

I come from a big family - I have five sisters and one brother, and growing up, we all had our own little groups of friends, so our house was a veritable hive of child activity, for a few decades to say the least.

I was also an aunt from a young age and did my fair share of babysitting as a young 'un, so I  am used to kids and they seem to like me (though not as much as they like my boyfriend - even with my own two young nephews, my boyfriend is the solid favourite).

If I walk into a room and there are children playing on the floor, you are far more likely to find anyone from my family kneeling down there with them and getting stuck into the wonderful imaginary game, rather than standing up chatting to the potentially 'boring' adults and drinking tea.

So, I ask you, are you the type to kneel down and start playing or are you the adult who tells the child to be quiet and play in the corner, while the 'grown ups' chat?






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