Curiosity | Problem Solving | Go Figure it Out

Something happened this weekend, a casual drive became adventures and finally brought in a share of family learning.

Yesterday I told my family to go for a drive to a nearby lake, family was excited as I told them about this lake saying it's beautiful and amazing. It's very close to my home and took 15 minutes to reach. As we reached everyone loved the pristine lake. Out of excitement I thought let's drive around the lake which was muddy road and rain came a few days back so had some patch of mud and water in certain places. Unfortunately my car was stuck in a mud puddle and wheels started spinning. My older son panicked after some time as there weren’t any people and the wheels kept spinning. He started saying let's call someone for help. Me and my wife we both got into trying to collect whatever around and push under the wheels so that it manages traction. We tried multiple things from stone, bricks, twigs, small logs, but no break through. 

In the process of trying out my elder son got involved and started looking into wheels. Why spinning what we can do, get some dry sand from near and push inside, quite a change. We managed to pull the car out after two hours and it was a sense of fulfilment, getting things done, figuring out our self. 

This small drive became a share of surprise, curiosity, problem solving and fulfilment. This was not yet done. There was a change in my son, he was looking things differently and a new surprise came in home at night where his iMac started showing static electricity. I opened the socket to check what’s happening, my son came near by and started watching. After a few minutes he started asking some questions which wire which , how do they work, why is static current etc. He managed to relate his study around serial and parallel circuits during this chat and fixed the problem at the end. This was a change for me where attitude shifted from shouting for help to let's figure out.

Curiosity helped us navigate and solve the problem we had at hand and also left a deep mark on kids that things can be done if we engage and try honestly.