http://www.rebeccawearrobinson.com
My weekly blogs have moved to my new web-site. I hope you’ll visit me there so that we can keep the conversation about keeping kids safe in the water going.
Children are not small adults. Children do not have the emotional development that adults possess. (Well, some possess more, but that’s another story.) Children are continuing to develop at a rate that boggles the mind, that boggles their own small mind. And ‘children’ means birth through age 19, sometimes even 21, until the brain and the body have stopped their tumultuous and rapid changes.
Water can help that development. I’m going to be doing a series of blogs on the ways water positively helps children’s development – all children – disabled, autistic, gifted, ‘average’ (though I believe all children have exceptional, unique gifts – they just might look different).
Mr. Rogers had it right 42 years ago. He understood children. He understood how to reach children positively. I think we all need to listen to Mr. Rogers one more time. Oh yes, relax and remember what it was like watching Mr. Rogers – he speaks slowly and deliberately – almost jarring to our modern-day bombardment of information – but Mr. Rogers knew about that as well.
Water is everywhere. It is a source of life – only oxygen is a more immediate physical need. Water is a central theme in all of the world’s religions for its cleansing, purifying and life-giving properties. Ancient cultures around the world have deified gods associated with water and appeased and worshiped them. Water is the source of battles – from the ongoing conflict over the Colorado River to the development of the Panama and Suez Canals. And what will happen to the region when Yemen runs out of water? How about all those archipelago nations with the ocean lapping ever higher at their doorsteps?
We can’t live with too much, we can’t live with too little. Just as with any other healthy relationship, we need a balance.
For thousands of years water has been revered, feared, fought over, but most of all, respected. So how have we lost our connection with water? Why have we dumped it into the large and controversial bucket of ‘natural resources’? That’s kind of like saying the sun is just an exploitable source of light. Yes, water is a natural resource. Coal and timber are natural resources, but they do not have an elemental force beyond human control, water does. Does the word ‘tsunami’ mean anything to you?
I’m voting to have water elevated back to the status it deserves – a fundamental life source. A powerful force of nature. A source of healing. A source of cleansing. A source of health. A source of joy.