Books take a back seat
The habit of reading, it seems, isn’t finding many takers amongst school children these days.
Many Bangaloreans may associate their childhood with the action-packed adventures of Enid Blyton, or the gentle comedy of Dr Seuss; but with the advent of television and video-gaming, these tales rarely venture from their shelves. Children now spend their time after school glued to the computer, or devouring hour after hour of cartoons — missing out completely on the magic, mystery and fantasy worlds that books offer them. Metrolife speaks to a few teachers and parents to find out more.
Vaidehi, who runs a pre-school, believes that this indifference to books can be traced to two basic reasons. She explains, “Firstly, children don’t have access to many good books, because there are very few well-stocked libraries in Bangalore. Secondly, parents don’t have the time to inculcate in their children any kind of reading habit. The practice of reading stories to your child, for example, is definitely slackening,” she explains.
Another reason that children are switching loyalties to the television and computer, is because it’s what they see a lot of their friends doing. Ranjit, who has a five-year-old son Rochan, says, “My son enjoys puzzle-books and artistic comics like ‘Tom and Jerry’, but he isn’t very fond of reading stories. We hardly allow him to watch television, but he’s caught up very fast on new trends like ‘Ben10’ and other action serials. He picks this up from his friends at school,” he says, adding, “it’s quite scary the way kids are picking up different kinds of technology.”
Television and gaming aren’t the only culprits here, though; movies are also more popular than novels. “We don’t encourage Rochan to watch many movies, but his friends at school do, so he wants to do as well. Recently, he asked me to buy him a ‘Ra.One’ toy because a friend of his had got one. We were quite surprised,” explains Ranjit.
Dr Kakli Gupta, a clinical psychologist who specialises with children, says that one can’t necessarily say children today have given up books for television. “I know a number of children who do both. I think it depends – if children watch television but also spend time reading, it’s okay. But if they watch only TV, then there are obvious implications of not having their own ideas, or the ability to reflect on the material that they're receiving,” she says, adding, “reading is stimulating, and gives more space to the reader to have his or her own thoughts and feelings about what he or she has read.”
Vaidehi believes that the best way for parents to get their children addicted to books is to read to them from an early age. “Storytelling is the best way to do this. Some parents dispense with books, and simply tell their children stories, but this doesn’t inculcate a reading habit in the child. I tell parents to sit with their child, and read out books to them,” she concludes.