I am choosing this below excerpt because it deals with what we are exactly talking about -'How to let the child blossom' and not inhibit...
Typical child and parent behaviours which INHIBIT inner development.
punishing children for telling the truth, thereby making lying and blaming much more sensible alternatives, in their eyes for the future.
Being a person who uses excuses and blames others. "I never got anywhere in life because of - my spouse, my parents, the economy, or whatever."
Using "Its not my fault" as a regular part of your vocabulary.
Using pills and medicines for all sorts of pains and troubles, and encouraging your children to believe that pills will make them better.
(I especially liked the above point. That's something I too believe in strongly.)
Doing their homework for them because it is too hard for them to tackle.
Putting the major emphasis in life on being right. Encouraging aging children to never admit to being wrong by never ding so yourself.
(What a point! :) When I joined EZ Vidya I had a major block on whether what i am doing is right or wrong. And I would be surprised that the organization believes that 'its ok to be wrong!'. When I go and train teachers, I can see the same block even with the teachers. And they would be surprised that in our sessions we would emphasis that mistakes are part of learning and its ok to be stupid!')
Being concerned with impressing others in your dress, purchases and lifestyles.
(So true. In fact while I was teaching the higher secondary students for couple of years, I have observed that all that they are proud of is the latest gadgets they posses, the 'in thing' vocabulary they use, etc. And as part of my teaching I would stress a lot on 'Its not important as to what you have outside. but its more important as to what you have inside your head')
Demanding that they respect you and parenting out of fear.
(I am loving this... Its really true that most of us think, even unconsciously or subconsciously, that by instilling fear, people would listen to what I say and also that there is a lot of respect that i earn. But a little pause and a sensible thinking is all that is needed to understand that the respect that is earned through fear is not really going to help. In the last training that I had in one school I was having an interesting chat with one of the higher secondary teacher. She was complaining that few children were not learning well in her class. And the only question I asked her was 'Do you smile at those students? Do they like you?' Its not possible that we always scream at someone and expect them to well behave and learn well in our class when we are conveying the message that 'I care a damn about you. Better do what I say.' For any person who wants to be a sensible leader, this is a very key point.)
Making grades more important that knowledge...
Well, i am going to stop here. Let's internalize these points for now. I shall continue with other points in my next blog...
It’s an observation, or is it a block!
ReplyDeleteWhen we observe children, there are many categories of children
- will study or do home works (home fun) without anyone asking them to do or without any force.
- Few will study once after parents or teachers saying.
- Few will need little more attention on them to go to study.
- There are few children they can get concentration until and unless they get scolding or by force alone they get into study.
So question is
As teachers or as parents or guardians, is it not we who have to understand the child's mind, and accordingly we need to act.. Is that correct
or
Same logic of smile and soft words will help the child to blossom??
Smile,
Ramya
Hi Ramya,
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right.. Every child has its own way and as you said its upto us to understand them beter and give the right triggers for them to act. In fact the other interesting things is that 'We want the child to behave in whatever way.' Let me try to explan - Lett's say a child broke a plate. I know that the child did it but still I go and ask the child 'Did you do it?' in an angry tone and inside my mind I am expecting the answer no from the child and the child responds saying no. Now the question is is it because I expect the answer NO from the child that I framed and asked the question in a certain way or is my question natural and I intuitively know that the child is going to say NO!
So as adults we want our child (subconsciously) to behave in certain way and we frame our question or statement to trigger that action in the kid.
Now in the same situation as an adult I expect the child to say YES then my question and tone would be very different. Since I know that the child only broke the plate I would not even put it as a question.
So I strongly believe that we expect certain kids of behavious in kids and that is what the kids exhibit.
In the above case a parent is conditioned that his/her child WILL NOT study until it gets scolding. So that will become the reality!
Hope I am making sense! :)
We the adults are half as good without children. Children actually make us better humans. We learn more from the children than what they learn from us. It is a no ball, but it is delivered and had an effect, though nullified. It is true that we learn from the children though we may not like to admit it. We are at our best behaviour in presence of the children, we control our anger so that the children don't get any bad impact of our unpleasant behaviour.
ReplyDeleteParents are often over protective about their 'assets' not giving them enough freedom to think. We channalise their thinking process focusing only on academic excellence. Anything other than that like sports and entertainment is a waste of time. We don't realise that creativity, imagination are more important than knowledge and intelligence. We discourage children from being creative. Telling a lie also is a creative talent. We have to note in which direction the child is going while encouraging the child to tell the truth and not punishing the child. We force the child in to an unhealthy race to achieve academic superiority thus killing the child's creativity and imagination.
Hello Santhosh,
ReplyDeleteAgree with your thought, still some clarification!
Each individual child has its own character, which comes by birth, some will be naughty, some children will be smart, some will be active, some other way.
Few children if we observe, they will be keep asking questions, what is this, what is that, few children not at all interested in all those, they are stick to something, in their own world. So in the same way, those who have intense curiosity they will learn soon, those who don't have much will take much time, but our today's education system doesn’t wait for the slow one to reach the fastness. It just goes fast, faster and fastest. In that case to make the child run fast in this fast world, channelizing the child’s mind is very necessary right?
2nd thought is, when a child does a mistake, we can correct it with love one’s, but if it repeats then should punish, or else mistake will be repeated.
Smile,
Ramya