Shut the Door! --- Pupils I Remember (6)

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Once I was the form/class teacher of a fifth form. The pupils are 10 to 11 years old. I noticed that one boy was always tired. Especially during the first lesson, he could hardly keep his eyes open. Now I know that the introduction of TV and other media into our lives is responsible for a lot of sleeplessness. I also know that there are many families who send their children to their rooms and tell them to sleep without checking after some time if they obey or if they play with their gadgets. I asked the boy if he watched TV in the evening or even at night but he denied it. It sounded true. Maybe he was ill? I decided to invite the parents and talk about the problem. The mother came and I told her what I had noticed. I also asked her about the boy's consumption of TV. "Oh, no", she said. "We don't allow him to watch TV in the evening". But then I learnt something about their living conditions. They had come from Russia to Germany like many other people of German descent (a long story I can't go into here). They had only constricted room. The boy's room was directly beside the living room. So that he wouldn't feel lonely, they left the door open just a tiny bit - now we're coming to the climax of the story - while they were watching TV until late at night. The boy heard everything but didn't see anything. It's understandable that his imagination was overactive imagining what there was to see corresponding with what he heard. I suggested that they shut the door so that he could fall asleep without torturing his brain. The mother said, "Maybe we should do this. Thanks for telling me". Problem solved. How silly can parents be? --- If you click on the green bar at the top of the page, you can find my other posts on the topic. --- Photo: pixabay