A picture of my friend Simon Pouly and his daughter Mariella and me and my son Ephraim. Simon and me got
to know each other several years ago at a workshop that I taught and it clicked between us directly,
since then Simon has learned a lot from me and I learned a lot from him. for the last two years he is
inspiring me a lot on how he is raising his daughter and often already I have gotten valuable advice
from him.
What got much clearer for me now, observing different children and parents, that children
can have huge differences in their motorical development depending on their parents. It is indeed the
obligation and duty of the parent to help the child to develop as well as possible. Several years ago we
as a society got shocked when tests showed that some six year olds cannot walk backwards. If the child
does not get the appropriate support by the parents, if the surroundings of the child are not inviting
for motorical explorations, then the development of the child will suffer. The child is not developing
by itself, it needs stimulus from the environment. It is clear that parents sitting infront of the TV
are not the perfect stimulus. But there is a counter-culture to this phenomenon. On the forefront there
are the people that have a lot of physical knowledge and I see several friends and aquaintances from the
community of human movement practice that are supporting their children to grow up physical able and
therefore connected to the world. Richard Louv wrote about the "last child in the woods" and indeed
probably most children spend more time inside than outside today, but the counter-movement exists and it
does a lot of good for society.
I want to say it again: parents have the duty to help their child
to develop as good as they can. But it is not just a duty, it is also a lot of joy.
Joseph Bartz