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Differences between Spanish and Romanian children
During the time I have been living in Cristuru Secuiesc, I have noticed quite a few differences in how children behave here and how they behave in Spain. Although children are children regardless of their race, country or gender; there are always noticeable differences in how they live their childhood.
In Spain, it can be observed that children grow up too fast most of the time. They go from being very young children to being adolescents. Although the reasons can vary greatly, it is usually due to exposure to social media and how these influence their perception of how they should behave in order to fit in. Throughout my experience as a teacher, I have seen 8-year-olds behave as if they were 12, and while this is not all bad, it is sad to see them miss out a part of their childhood to seem cooler to other kids. It’s not frequent to see children playing in the street with their friends or going to the park, unless we are talking about very young children. Moreover, this can also be seen in how they dress or even how their parents sometimes dress them. Instead of wearing cartoon t-shirts or children’s clothes, they wear teenage clothes but in their own size. Even in kindergarten, you can see that they usually wear very neutral clothes, and the motivation behind this is frequently to avoid other kids laughing at them.
In Cristuru, I’ve noticed several differences in this regard. In kindergarten, I see children wearing tutus, dinosaur’s shirts, and even superheroes’ costumes without it being carnival. It’s so refreshing to see that their clothes truly represent their age and their liking. Even in primary and middle school you can see students wearing accessories that perhaps in bigger cities or in other countries would be seen as childish or ridiculous. Also, everytime I go for a walk I see children riding their bikes or playing in the main plaza. Last Thursday, we provided some activities for children’s day’s festival, and we welcomed more than one hundred kids from different ages. One of the activities we offered was face painting, and one would normally think that this was only though for toddlers, kindergarten kids or even primary school students. However, we even had 10-year-old children participating, and they had so much fun and were so happy with their facepaint. They also participated in the sensory game and some of them even made some bracelets.
To summarize, although this is only my personal perception of children here and, of course, every child is different, it’s so surprising to see how children behave differently depending on the country.
