NCERT Solutions for Class 7 English Honeycomb Poem Chapter 4: Chivvy

In the poem by Michael Rosen, the poet expresses his thoughts about how a child should not be treated. He says that children are always taught things so that it annoys them instead of making them understand. Childhood is a time when a child transforms into a human that they will be in the coming future, but that does not mean to push them to the extent that they start to rebel. Chivvy stands for making someone do something but often in an annoying way. Even as adults, if someone is continuously asking us to do a chore or behave in a certain way, we might lose our minds. Sometimes a child would not say how they feel, but things do get stuck in their brain. Poet has shared his own story from childhood as an example of this.

Childhood is supposed to be when a child learns about his surroundings and everything that his eyes could see, but instead of that, it becomes ongoing coaching of mannerism and etiquette. As we can see in the poem, grownups always nag children about their speaking mannerisms and how they should not speak while eating. Some of these things are indeed necessary, but a continuous reminder of those things is often disliked.

He continues with how a child is asked to behave in public like sitting up straight, being polite to other people by saying please, shutting the door every time, not dragging feet while walking, and making a child feel bad about not having a hankie. Making a child grateful by asking them to say thanks is one step to make them a better human altogether, making them feel bad by saying things like you're not funny or can't do things, leading to an inferior adult. A child is learning and will learn as you teach them. Making them feel bad about themselves is the worst thing any parent could do, which should be stopped. This poem shows the mirror to such parents who want their kids to be perfect. The whole childhood is when children are on a journey to become confident and feel good about themselves, making them into a wonderful human being.