Child poverty

The EU is right to address child poverty as part of this issue and linking it to the risk they face to inherit poverty from their parents especially if they are out of a job, the father more drunk than at home and the mother unable to cope with all the children. Still, the initiative would need to go further and address an overall problem prevailing in a society not knowing how to give these children a place to grow up in. The larger cultural problem can be called 'poverty of experience'. It results but not only out of a formal system linking all institutions to the economy. There is needed to become much more aware as to what deprives not only poor children but nearly all from making the kind of experiences needed to live in the real world.

'Poverty of experience' begins when children are not allowed to play outside but are kept indoors out of fear as to what might happen to them out on the streets. Inside they spend hours in front of the television or the computer. There virtual images begin to dominate and have replaced with the development of new media real sense impressions. The latter needs a dialogue between senses and experiences made if to stay in touch with reality.

Consequently rather than playing in the mud or roaming freely through the forest, ever more children are cut off from real knowledge to be gained through experiences of the senses. A study about the space children grewing up in cities shows that gradually from knowing the entire city the area familiar to them was reduced first by the parents and other peers to just going around the bloc. Later on it was allowed for them to play only in front of the house till the parents called them into the house and asked them to stay inside. Once trapped in artificial environments the youth of today begins to withdraw. When knife stabbing became a problem among the youth in London, experts concluded seldom do these youngsters participate in discussions at the dinner table and instead of developing empathy for others withdraw to deal only with virtual experiences. The latter is offered by the new media and access is given via the Internet to still more virtual experiences. The loss of empathy underlines a crucial prerequisite for experiences with other people, namely the need for dialogue by which imagination is activated to understand the other but also not to take the present reality as just a given fact no one can change.

A similar problem prevails in the whole education system. Few schools teach children and the youth practical things like building cupboards or farming. Rather a functional and formal educational system is directed towards abstract knowledge while attempting to socialize them in a special direction. Only lately it is being acknowledged that children need more informal education and especially free time to just play amongst themselves. Too many grow up without knowing how to deal with others and themselves in diverse situations while faced by various challenges. Rather than learning by trying, they fade simply away before coming to terms with their experiences.

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Child poverty