Shaping the Children of Tomorrow

Being a 2.5-year-old son's dad who has spent a lot of time with him, this is an attempt to pen down few of my thoughts on the "Shaping the children of Tomorrow":

When it comes to the next generation, what do they need to lead a good quality of life? How can parents support them by setting up them for a good future? A question that every parent asks themselves. Find below 5 thoughts of mine:

1.      Fuelling inquisitiveness has no substitute

Humans, essentially are inquisitee beings. We learn by questioning, finding answers and further questioning. There is a constant evolution that happens via questioning the status co and every child is borne with this amazing capability. In the last 2.5 years, if I look at the number of questions my child has asked, it would be in thousands and the more you feed them with answers and acknowledge this trait, it is better for the child. Here, in data terms, I would say, “A quality pull (from the child) is always better than a large number of push”. 

2.      Humanity – the one and only value

One day my child stamped on an Ant. Just a couple of days back, he saw a person who he observes closely kill a cockroach. He applied the same logic here. When I saw this, I told him about the ant also having a mother and father, the pain the ant went through when he stamped on it and the dreams of the ant, which went unfulfilled. My son listened carefully and I saw his eyes watering. He could correlate to those emotions as his own. I haven’t seen him kill any animal thereafter. 

“Humanity, is an emotion, which we humans are blessed with in abundance, if explored to full potential, can be so powerful, where it may allow the child to learn all that the scriptures of the world offers, in a very experiential way. This could be the basis for character development, deciding his own rights and wrongs, and defining the way of life” 

3.      He did not fall, not because I instructed, but because he judged it for himself

I have observed that, thanks to god’s grace, my son has fallen a lot lesser than a usual child of his age. When I look at this carefully, I observe that, he is able to judge the situations he wants to get into clearly without much instructions. The sharpness of his intelligence and perception allows him to decide, should I climb up that wall. He may take half an hour, slowly taking baby steps to climbing that wall, but when he does decide to put a firm step forward, it is after he believes 100% that, yes, he will be able to make it. 

This comes from a strong sense of developing intuition, intelligence and perception basis one’s own capabilities. The more the instructions we give, the lesser it allows the child’s brain to develop, restricting his evolution to take decisions for himself. A better approach could be, being there for him at a safe distance, and delaying that obvious instruction which is waiting to jump out of your mouth. 

4.      Your interests are shaped by your circumstances

Yesterday, we came out of our house to take our child to a shopping mall where he can play toys. We also had plans to buy him some toys, which he loves. But, when we got down on our way to the Metro (which again he loves), he saw a place where there was some road work happening. He immediately pulled us to that and started playing with the mud. We, as usually we do, allowed him to play there and that went on for 2 hours after which he felt sleepy and we went back home. 

Later in the evening, I thought to myself? Why did he do what he did, denying the opportunity to get onto a metro train, go to the mall and play there and then buy his favourite toys, on the way back. The answer was simple. While he was much younger, while we were in Qatar, we had a backyard where he used to spend long hours – with a similar setting. When he saw something like that after a while, he got attracted to it. 

Each child is unique. What they love are, to a large extent, framed by their circumstances and what they are exposed to. What they would excel in, would also be, to a large extend, defined by what they love.

“But, as the child grows, we tend to forget this and try to define a formula for them which boxes them to what will earn them the most money. Whereas, their interests might be different. And we know, what is the result of this. Unfulfilled lives.” 

5.      Setting the standards

For the first 1.5 years of our child, we consciously kept him away from TV and mobile. This was to give a chance to him to explore the outside world and be more active. However, post that, he picked up and now watches TV for almost 2 hours a day on an average. Yes, he has picked up lot of good things from it, like the colours, name of vegetables, forming simple sentences, name of vehicles etc. but it is something, which did not go as per plan for us. I look back at why this happened? 

One of the major reasons for this is, the amount of time, the people he see uses these gadgets. What he sees is what he imbibes and not necessarily what we tell him. 

Being role models to your children by action, is so much more important than being capable of giving them the best advices. “Be the change that you want to see in this world” 

I sum it up as follows:

May the inquisitiveness inherent in your child never die, 

May he experientially taste what humanity means,

May his intelligence & perception sharpen beyond your words,

May his pursue his passions beyond economics,

And May he see inspiring human beings all around him