Kids wake up at 5 am so that ...

There are parents who say they find it hard to see their kids waking up and waiting for their school buses to go to school even as the sun as not risen up as yet, because the schools start at 7.20 am

There are kids who because they did not enjoy the way the woke up in the morning remain uptight during the day becoming tired and restless more easily by the end of the day thereby affecting their learning. This in turn affects their grades.

This is of course different for schools that do allow their kids to start school at 8 am and a rather different story unfolds there.

When asked reasons for continuing to start schools early in the day, they were:

• Other parents wanting it that way! [the adult perspective dominates! Yet notice it was also parents who brought up this request?]
• Parents needing to get to work into work themselves by 7.30 or 8 am (especially if you wanted to beat the ERP rates!) [another adult perspective dominates!!]
• School bus drivers wanting to drop the kids off first, so that they may earn more revenue by being also able to pick-up adults to their workplaces. [yet another adult perspective dominates!!!]
• Principals who need to run another session in the afternoon feels she has no choice out! [ok get it? Another adult voice ringing loud and clear!!]
  
• Some who believe that being the sons (and daughters of Singapore), nothing comes without pain. That we must put in our fair-share of pain, in order to enjoy the rewards [the way to become an adult in Singapore, otherwise, as small as we are, we would be devoured, unless we are fit and strong [The early(iest) bird catches the worm syndrom; remnants of our military training, to toughen us up as audlts!!! I don't need to tell you which perspective is this, do I?]

The pattern I am noticing (does anyone see this?) is how much we overwhelm our kids with the perspective and needs we have as adults.

Does anyone know what the child /children really want?

Children are natural learners. Look at the way they had learned to walk. Do we as adults, know how to teach them to do this? Did they not learn it by themselves? If we had learned to walk as adults, after falling down twice, we might even say "that was a stupid thing to do!" and never walk for the rest of our lives!

So I am stumped, can we tell best how that same child needs to learn? Or is this episode and the children just "another pawn in the chessboard of our lives"?