I can tell from my experience that all moms come across two words everyday ' WHY and HOW' as our little ones have just been exposed to this mysterious world. For them, everything revolves around WHY and HOW. I am myself a mom of a 6 year old boy and when i try to see the world from his eyes, I realise that the busiest brains in this world are not of a scientist but that of a kid who is always struggling to solve the new building mysteries around him with each passing minute. A scientist questions the things unknown to him but to our little scientists, the whole universe is unknown or like some foreign land. Just imagine the load of bag full of questions that they carry in their head.To lighten this burden, the first one they look upto is their MOM- their first most loved and most trusted encyclopedia. No one teaches them but maybe by some divine power they already suppose that their mom knows everything and only she can unfold the world of mysteries building in their mind. This is the stage when critical thinking starts to develop in our kids.
If we ponder over those little questions popping up in our kids brains, they might seem very irrelevant to our evolved brains but these questions makes all the difference to our little ones and are in one way also building the personality of our kids. So think, Are they really irrelevant?
Here i would like to exemplify this approach. Whenever i take my kid out at night in the car, his question is " MAMA why moon follows us wherever we go?". Looking at his innocent eyes, I wonder if i can ever explain him this phenomenon as i think he is too small to understand this concept. This is our first mistake;
'UNDERESTIMATING THE POTENTIAL OF OUR KIDS'.
Our kids have a lot of potential in them. Its our job to use it and nurture it furthur. Kids are capable of understanding a lot of things. Its we who have to learn to be good teachers i.e. choosing the right and easy words which are understandable to them.
In the first place, kids always approach us with their queries. They always take the first step forward but we are too judgmental. Our common answer to their queries is " you are too small to understand this". I myself used these words and my child said, " mama, then make me understand". His reply changed my thinking and gave me a new vision.
We teach our kids to not to be lazy but in reality we have taught them to be so by actually showing laziness to solve their little queries. Each question they ask opens door to a new learning and by quashing these questions somewhere somehow we are closing their window of questions and new learning, thereby, in a way we are playing a vital role in hindering their brain development. I know its not very pleasant to read but unfortunately, its true.
Its our responsibility to not to give a deaf ear to these little questions as their relevance can be well established if we see the world from their window. Everything would be so mysterious and at the same time mesmerizing like Harry Potter's land. Its now that we can write anything on our kid's mind. Its now that their thinking process can be developed to a boundary-less thinking.
In my upcoming blog, i will talk about developing critical thinking in kids.
very informative
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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