Holiday times always make me wonder how child-friendly Ireland really is. Restaurants are among the worst offenders.
If adults are foolish enough to order starters, the younger ones will have started chewing the legs off the table from hunger by the time their food arrives.
Food may be a misleading term, given that all most restaurants seem to offer are nuggets that look as if the meat has been pre-masticated, or deep-fried sausages with chips and beans. One of my children has a dairy allergy. Recently, several places we have attempted to spend money in have been unable to provide a single thing he could eat - not even a piece of bread from a wrapped white sliced pan in a place that sold sandwiches.
Then there are the toilets in shopping centres, with locks that little people cannot reach, and the washbasins that mean Mum or Dad has to lift the child, and operate a push tap at the same time. Hand-driers won't work because the sensors are designed for tall adults, not for the children who cannot trigger them. I guess the people who designed these facilities believe trousers are good enough towels for children. Not to mention the relentless commercialism that blatantly targets children.
Certainly, things have improved in some areas, for example in the provision of play spaces, but, by and large, Irish society often acts as if we would all be far better off if people were born fully-grown at the age of 21.
What would a child-friendly society look like? Aside from all the practical things such as ramps into buildings, and aisles in shops that would actually take a buggy, what do parents and children need?
It seems to me that it is not child-friendly to promote a model of children's rights that sees them almost like miniature autonomous adults. Children's rights are different to adults in that they need to be exercised on their behalf. A toddler can't complain about the rubber nuggets except by seeing whether they bounce on the floor. A child with special educational needs can't act as an advocate for him or herself. The responsibility for ensuring that children's rights are protected lie with adults; first and foremost with parents, and then with all the significant actors in their lives, such as teachers, neighbours and so on.
When children get a chance to express what they need, it usually turns out to be reassuringly simple. There is a gorgeous little exhibition in Collins Barracks museum at the moment. It is an exhibition of ceramics made by senior pupils in the Good Shepherd national school in Churchtown, Dublin. With the help of teachers, children went through a process where they had to enter imaginatively into a place that meant something important to them and that was central to their identity in some way.
The school was part of an artist-in-residence scheme funded by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Artist Terry O'Farrell encouraged the children to develop first drawings and then three-dimensional ceramic models of themselves and their special places.
The children worked in a dedicated space in Collins Barracks, and with the gentle guidance of O'Farrell learned the techniques they needed to translate their visions into reality. The pieces were completed back at the school and later fired in the artist's kiln.
The special places range from a Cavan cow symbolising a much-loved grandparents' home, to a waterslide in Florida, to the gates of Killiney Hill, to bedrooms, to a beautifully decorated park bench that is the centre of one girl's imaginary world. Each completely different, they all tell a story of the need for space and fun, respect and security, loving families and an education that allows them to grow and blossom.
When you dig a little deeper, though, it rapidly becomes apparent that this is much more than an art project. It began two years earlier, with the imminent demolition of Hughes' Dairy in Rathfarnham, a major local landmark that symbolised an entire era in some older people's lives. The young people undertook a history project, with interviews with senior citizens, visits to local sites and other research. That project led to the incredibly enriching artist-in-residence experience.
Not content with the ceramics project, the school has also produced a book, The Line between the Bridges, that contrasts the era they live in with the lives lived by their grandparents. The book is available from Rathfarnham bookshop and Collins Barracks. It is not just about the move from trams to the Luas, or skipping games to Wii consoles. It is a loving recreation of an era that is gone, but at the same time an evocation of the bonds and links between one generation and the next.
None of it would have happened without the dedication of the teachers, or the imaginative scheme funded by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council. The children were consulted all along the way during the project. One of the most fascinating aspects is the fact that while the classes involved include children from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and ability levels, I would challenge anyone to spot the difference between their special places, or between the work produced by the academically brilliant and the children who were receiving learning support.
When children are taken seriously, and given appropriate structures and support, labels begin to become meaningless. Each child is as unique as the creations they made, and has the same fundamental needs, even though some children need extra resources and time to show what they are capable of.
For example, the work in Collins Barracks had to be structured like a military operation. There were three groups, and only a small number could work with the artist at any one time, so the teachers and special needs assistants facilitated other kinds of learning using Collins Barracks as a resource. One of the things that the children most appreciated was learning real techniques and using real artists' tools. In other words, they liked being seen as capable and responsible.
It is easy to focus on what we do not do for children. The little exhibition could be dismissed with a cursory glance, but the story behind it serves as a kind of parable for what we can achieve when we really try to build a child-friendly society.
bobrien@irish-times.ie