Supreme Patriarch wants adults to set a good example
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The Supreme Patriarch is calling on all adults to use the occasion of the National Children's Day and start setting good examples for the next generation.
“The future of children lies in the hands of older people,” Somdej Phra Yanna Sangworn said yesterday.
National Children’s Day is marked on the second Saturday of every year.
The Supreme Patriarch said children automatically learned from older people and adopted their behaviour.
“Children are important because they are the future of our nation. Since the future of the young is in the hands of older people, it is also the older people who are responsible for the country’s future,” the senior monk pointed out.
Hence, he said, adults should become good role models and learn to take care of the young, who are the assets of the human race.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said her government would help inculcate the sense of duty and discipline in children.
“We will also teach them to uphold the nation, the religions and the monarchy,” she said. “We will teach them to have faith in our constitutional monarchy”.
Her motto for this year’s Children’s Day is: “Unity, Knowledge, Wisdom, Thainess and Technology Savvy”.
According to a Bangkok University poll, 37 per cent of the respondents said they would be able to embrace “unity”, while 24 per cent said they were confident about maintaining their “Thainess”. Some 1.4 per cent of the youngsters, however, said they did not think they could embrace any of the values in this year’s motto.
The survey covered 1,200 children aged between six and 14 in Bangkok and its adjacent provinces
When asked what Children’s Day meant to them, 39.9 per cent said, “the motto”, 24.3 per cent answered “free admission to zoo”, while some 11.7 per cent others said “closeup experiences with military supplies”.
The most popular profession among these children was doctor, policeman and teacher respectively. Only 1.4 per cent said they wanted to become politicians when they grew up.
Asked what was the characteristic of good people, 38.4 per cent said “honesty”, while 36.2 per cent said “kindness”.
Asked what they wanted from Yingluck on Children’s Day, 17.9 per cent said, “iPad and tablets”, while 17.8 per cent wanted smart phones.
Asked what they wanted the most from adults, the children’s most common answers were “unity”, “honesty” and “good examples”.
