What Could You Teach a Child?

Ananya sat down to have her milk and asked me to blow into the glass because the milk was a little hot for her. I blew into the glass while replying 'ok,now it's warm'. To this, she asked me why the milk was moving when I blew into the glass. Simple concept for us seems to be something magical to children. I explained to her how we blow air and how the force of air can move light things not very heavy ones. What followed was a series of experiments on what she could blow away, starting from tiny plastic cap, syrup cup, to considerably big lid of a plastic box that she could not blow away.

There are plenty of simple activities that can be explained to kids. Show them just one and they will implement the principle further. You don't even need to tell them what they can do next. All you need is time.

Are you spending enough qualitative time with your child? This is a BIG question to today's parents. All the time we are in a rush, in a hurry to do things, in a hurry to complete all things.

It's wake up time, get off the bed in a rush, bath time for child - just get it done, no talking, no smiles, no giggles, no fun, no knowledge transfer. Feeding time - mute the child with gadget and get it done. Sleeping time - threaten the child and get it done. Are you doing any of such things? Please rethink how you would want to shape your child and spend qualitative time for the same.

This reminds me of another instance where 2 yr old DD1 observed the tongue cleaner vibrating. It happened that her finger pressed and immediately released one end of the tongue cleaner(that is in V shape, within the wall stand) which made the tongue cleaner to vibrate a little. She didn't know what happened. She observed for a while. I was silently noticing what she would do. She repeated what she had just done. It again vibrated and made a little sound. All through the while, looking at her face, I understood that she neither knew what happened nor knew how she could ask me about it. I told her what it was and how it happens. I then glued a stick to the edge of a wall with half of it protruding and showed her how things vibrate when we press and immediately release one end of it.

All this and a lot more learning will not happen if the parent is continuously in a rush to get things done or when the parent is always controlling the child by saying 'don't touch this, don't touch that' or when the parent spends very meagre amount of time with child that usually gets spent in finishing the mandatory tasks in a rush.

So, what are you teaching your child today ?