Needs and Wants

[avman]

Today I taught groups of 1st graders a session in Junior Achievement. This is a great curriculum where volunteers go into the schools and teach brief lessons on family, community, and business to students. The lesson today was on Needs vs Wants.

 

The curriculum states that a Need is something a person absolutely can't live without. When I asked the children what they felt a Need was I got a variety of answers. Some came up with good ones like food, water, clothes. Others had more interesting ones like a puppy or an ipod. But one answer kept coming up that really surprised me.

 

The most common answer was "I need a family that loves me". Not I need my family. I need A family.

 

This particular school has a big population of children that come from very troubled backgrounds. They've seen a lot in their very young lives. It shows in their faces.

 

Anyone who doesn't think that a divorce, domestic violence, drug use, or just plain neglect doesn't profoundly affect children at the deepest level - you are very wrong.

[Seraphim]

This is so true. I feel so sad for those little souls. I have seen so many kids that come from the backgrounds you have mentioned and it breaks my heart.

[thejigsup]

Divorce is a killer for kids. You should only get divorced if there is a threat to someone's life or health (physical abuse). "falling out of love", "I'm so unhappy", "we don't have enough sex anymore", "he/she doesn't get along with my family", are NOT good enough reasonsa for divorce if there are children involved. I used to work in a Family Law office and what happens to kids, even during the best of divorces, is a crying shame. I never saw one child who benefitted from the experience unless they were being protected from abuse.

[OptomisticGirl]

As an adult who watched her parents go through a divorce and was emotionally and physically abused, I 100% agree.

[petite]

I have heard this before many, many times. It's always saddening and at times depressing to see how many children are suffering. When I was in India, I got to see the lives orphans had, I've seen what some are experiencing here, in the first world but to see it there was just so shattering. The amazing thing about these children is that they are fighters, and with help I believe they can become good adults, but I think most if not all will carry the effects their childhoods had on them into their adults lives, marriages and families - sometimes this can be a good thing and other times bad.

 

I don't think it's just divorce that separates families, it's death, violence, wars, drugs; children from all walks of life that have a hard childhood without anyone to care and love them really wish they could have a good family that actually cares about them.

[Capricorn3]

It's so sad and what's so absolutely heartbreaking is the fact that it's so prevalent. One sees and hears these things every single day. So many broken and dysfunctional families all over the world. Breaks my heart.

[DoGGYtREAts]

Agree wholehartedly with OP, Having myself come from such a 'family' where both perents were completely detached and unstable due to drug/alchohol problems.

[hers]

Thank you for posting a wonderful lesson avman. It just goes to show how little thought we as a society put into major decisions (admittedly, myself included) that can affect others.

[avman]

Yes it's something people forget easily. Today in one of the same classes I had the students draw a picture of a job they or someone in their families do. This is meant to be as simple as helping out with dishes or feeding a pet. But that brought one little boy to tears and he told me that "My mom used to have a job but she lost it and I haven't seen my dad for a really long time!"

 

*sigh*