"Not enough time" to read

to your children? Do you think your child's teacher should be doing this instead?

The Premier of this state has been making much of reducing the dependence of children on screens for entertainment. The primary focus is still on "sport" as the most desirable alternative form of "entertainment" for children. "Reading" is, supposedly, second. This does not necessarily mean "just books" but also newspapers, magazines, comics and the like.

I have been thinking about this and there is a word which comes to mind - and that word is "control".

Playing sport in childhood is all too often controlled not by the children themselves but the adults in their lives. My generation played "cricket" and "footy" out in the suburban streets without the supervision of adults. This was in addition to the wild games where imagination took over and they hunted "cowboys and Indians" or "space men" or something else. These games were not played in teams under adult supervision with an emphasis either on "everyone" participating or the team "winning".  We did not go to "footy practice" or "tennis lessons" unless our parents were wealthy and we were keen to learn.  Now it is expected that children will do this so that they are "safe" and "supervised".  Perhaps it is understandable but is it a good thing?

There seems to be a similar issue with reading. Parents who are "time poor" are finding it difficult to read to younger children (and even older children) at night. Getting children into the "library habit" with regular trips to the library is also a problem. Once there I also believe there is another problem. 

Elsewhere in this blog I have mentioned how a young girl once looked up at me in the library and said, "I'm sick of AIDS and death and divorce. I just want a good adventure story."  The issues of AIDS and death and divorce have now been taken over by stories about "blended" families, same sex parents, same sex relations, "transitioning", refugees and drugs. These are the topics of many "serious" books being written and published for children here. It is what I have found on the library shelves but is it what children really want to read about? 

It seems to me children are "captive" readers. Unlike adults they only have access to what adults choose for them to read. There may be no way around this but it does mean that adults have more control over what children read than what adults read. 

There are a good many books on the library shelves that I have no desire to read. I do not have to read them because nobody is telling me I "must" or that "this is what is available because we think it is what you need to be reading about". I can still find the equivalent of a "good adventure story" if I want to read one.  The options for children are more limited and their reading time is also more limited as adults control more of a child's "leisure" time. It is possible that some children have very limited leisure time. Why would they want to spend it reading only about social issues instead of sometimes escaping into a fantasy world?  

If we want children to read and imagine and escape from climate change, war, refugees, racism and more then surely we need to give them well written "adventure" and more? Perhaps I am wrong but is it time to say "reading should be fun sometimes"?