“…my earnest and sincere hope that all of us to work together for the future generation regardless of whom or where we are. Our primary concern is for each and every child to have a better future, a better quality of life and to be strong and healthy citizens of a robust, productive, caring and united nation. Ultimately the objective is to safeguard these precious assets of the nation, so that when they are fully developed as a competent human capital, not only will they benefit individually, but the nation as a whole will reap the rewards.” (YABHG. DATIN PADUKA SERI ROSMAH MANSOR WIFE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA ON “CHILDREN AS A NATIONAL ASSET”: 10th May 2009)
Childcare is certainly an important part of today’s life because more and more parents obviously need the external help in bringing up a child while adhering to the current needs of the society. However, while childcare providers are exposed to standard methodologies in developing and extending these services as business ventures, the conventional baby sitting mindset still do exist; total mental and physical development of a child is not seen. Since, we are dealing with people from different background, ethnicity, geographical location and culture, the variation here should be clearly understood by the policy makers as well as the executing team. Again, the concept of variation and Sustainable Controlled Condition should be blended into the system that drives these objectives and the noble intentions forward, so that the outcome of a holistic childcare processes (validated) can be realized.
Numerous childcare related programs are being implemented throughout the year by various government and non-government agencies or even the private sectors as their CSR function, however many of the programs ends with an output. Yes, programs have been executed, budgets completed, so many participated and that’s about it. When we go down to the ground to see the impact of such programs we certainly see the certificates the participants got, but nothing much on the implementation of what had been learned – leave alone the basics. While there are participants who have diligently followed what was taught, poor participation of the parents often enslaves them into the old ways of doing things. This clearly shows that in handling of many issues, we tend to deal with them in isolation without considering the other actors; the interested parties. We also need to realize that when such programs rolled out to groups of housewives or single mothers (predominantly of whom, in this context, are of poor or low income families with low education or without any formal education, dealing with some what educated parents may be an uphill task). Talking about holistic approach to proper childcare, not all the parents are aware of what is it all about. Tendency of parents picking up wrong information here and there makes the matter even worse. Remember, if a content of a procedure is understood wrongly, people will do all the wrong things very correctly. A structured flow of the right methods and mechanisms to would-be-parents and other caregivers must be made in order to have control of these issues.
Another matter that needs attention is also the fact that variations always exist and the challenge is on how are we handling them when they come by. What parents, caregivers, baby sitters and child related service providers should understand is that every child is an individual. While we may have undivided love towards our children, but the failure to understand the variation of their characteristics will lead us to end up with the wrong decisions in their growing (as a process).
Changing the mindset is certainly not an easy task that’s for sure. However, the thought that we have created the best system but the attitude of the person is not right, can be seen as very shallow thought indeed. This is because a system can be created overnight but making people realize that the system works for them is an uphill task all together. Let us look at the diagram below:
Based on the diagram above, we can see that while a person can be given training after training (which may increase a person’s knowledge in a particular topic), as long the as the individual experiences not a sense of change in his or her belief system on a particular matter, the person will never see the change in the attitude and subsequently the corresponding behavior. This is the reason why, we should not stop at attitude but look further into a system that instills the right belief in order to see the right behavioral outcome. Again a short term change in the attitude is also possible due to certain experience but the tendency to revert back may happen for the underlying belief element was not touched.
There’s no doubt that a child needs a wholesome parental love and care, however these important dimension may not be realized in all instances. It may be replaced by another individual under various circumstances (single parenting due to death or divorce, orphaned, childcare services and so on). So, childcare provision is a very noble intention that replaces the biological parents for a short while or a long period of time. Yes, this is when and where these individuals should play their roles well by creating a sustainable controlled condition in up bringing the child with the support of all the relevant authorities which govern the dimension of child-welfare in the country.
In Malaysia, while we are moving towards many noble intentions that would bring the people together to realize a developed nation (in all given aspects), the inability to create a sustainable controlled condition in the developmental efforts of any kind including the matter discussed may never see us with the right outcome in our short life. One way to look into this matter is to create systems that work for us, which instills the belief in people that we at par with other developed nations. A lot of positive things are happening out there, but perhaps we are still taking a very slow step forward, especially in the context of childcare. This includes the law related to child custody for instance. There have been numerous cases where child custody is given to the wrong side (mother or father) and without any monitoring. Such ignorance on the matter and slow movement to the amendments of the relevant law has even ended in many tragic outcomes, such as child being neglected, molested, raped or even killed. Another usual scenario is also a very short term outcry while the matter is still highlighted in the media and then all fizzles out. So, the change should be to move from an output based mindset, which may give us the short term thrills but to more realistic outcome based thinking.
We can always paint beautiful pictures about whatever that we are advocating through various mechanisms including short term benefits with monetary gains but in order to realize the actual outcome, we should make sure that the people involved have the right beliefs at all times. These beliefs should be further strengthened with the right experience with the dynamism of the various interrelated systems that were or currently being created.
“The Key to survival in this very fast changing world, is by understanding the holistic Dynamism of Quality in all aspects that touches our life, failing which leading us directly to extinction”
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