Choose Your Words Wisely !

Sometimes a picture itself is worthy than thousand words. One such picture is given below. Observe it for at least five minutes and try to understand the value of your words used with your child during your day to day interaction.

Pic Courtesy: “The Good Quote” page on Instagram.

Yes, this is one horrific picture which is capable of giving goose bumps and can make us perspire thinking that how can we damage our child’s brain just by using some words e.g. “I don’t have time for this “, “You are capable of nothing”, “This is your fault !” , “You are good for nothing”, “Your brother is smarter than you” etc. You might not have used these words or phrases intentionally but yes we all use these with our children. As they say “A pen is mightier than a sword” so is the power of words and its influence on the delicate brain of any child. Choose your words wisely while dealing with your child, find out a replacement for each and every negative sentence you have used with them. Use words like “You can do it better” instead of “You are good for nothing” OR use “Give me some time, I will help you” instead of “I don’t have time for this”. Sit and pen down few motivational one liner you can use to reinforce your child’s confidence and ability to learn. Don’t screw their brains with negativity; feed them positively on each step of development. A child’s mind is like delicate clay, you are capable of moulding it and strengthening it. Don’t waste this opportunity.   

Look through you child’s eyes !

Look through a child’s eyes

This world will appear a big surprise

You learn without paying any price

These young minds will cover miles and miles.

A child’s mind has always been an interesting topic to study among the various psychologists around the world as it is less conditioned by complex mind of an adult. Children can see, observe and perceive things in their own natural and distinct way which may be completely different than a conditioned mind of an adult. To understand a thing better, we all need to look at the world through their eyes as they have the capability to imagine and make things possible without the fear of failure. To strengthen our understanding about children, a renowned child author Dada J.P Vaswani has written several anecdotes in his famous book “101 stories for you and me”.

One of the interesting anecdotes of this book goes like this “Once a businessman returned home in the evening and settled himself in an easy chair, and started reading the evening newspaper. His five-year-old son disturbed him, again and again. To keep the boy busy, he took a world map, which was given in an advertisement, tore it into bits, and passed on the scraps to the child, saying, " Go and fix the world map together, and I will give you a box of candies."The father was sure that the boy, having no knowledge of geography, would never be able to do the task. Within a matter of minutes, however, the boy returned bringing the world map. Astonished, the father asked, "How could you do it?"

The boy answered, "Father, behind the world map was the face of a child. I put the child right, and the world came out right!"

The above story tells us about the creative minds of the young children which can work without inhibitions of trying anything new. They don’t need to be taught anything, they just need to be motivated to explore the world on their own. They need to be nurtured in such an environment where their innate instincts and capabilities are never shadowed by our pre conceived idea of this world. There are endless possibilities in this ever growing world and many great inventions, discoveries, technological advancements etc. are still left to be explored. So, take out sometime from your busy schedule and sit with your child to look at this world through his or her eyes. You might come up with a complete new definition of this life.

  

List of suggested readings for your child

In one of our previous blogs we discussed about significance of reading habits. Often we feel confused about the age appropriate books for our child and we end up buying a wrong pile of books. Hence we are sharing a list of suggested readings below for your child according to different classes. This will help you save a lot of time to find the perfect read for your child. Keep Reading! Keep Learning!

Class I

• ·        Story of my Life (NBT)
• ·        Tyltyl’s Adventure (NBT)
• ·        Ripe and Ready (NBT)
• ·        Balloons for Me (NBT)
• ·        The Scare (CBT)

Class II

• ·        Bravo Kamla (CBT
• ·        Nine Little Birds (NBT)
• ·        A House of Bamboo (NBT)
• ·        Joy (Read India)
• ·        Smile Please (Read India)

Class III

• ·        Boond ( NBT)
• ·        Something Special ( NBT)
• ·        Rescue ( NBT)
• ·        Holidays Have Come by Rabindranath Tagore (NBT)
• ·        The Three Strange Travellers by Enid Blyton

Class IV & V

• ·        The Banana Robber by Enid Blyton
• ·        The Walkaway Shoes by Enid Blyton
• ·        Matilda By Roald Dahl
• ·        James and the Giant Peach By Roald Dahl 

Class VI & VII

• ·        Stories by Rabindranath Tagore for Children
• ·        Going Solo By Roald Dahl
• ·        George’s Marvellous Medicine By Roald Dahl
• ·        Treasure Island (Abridged / Illustrated Classics)
• ·        Robinson Crouse (Abridged / Illustrated Classics)

Class VIII & IX

• ·        Life of Pi by Yann Martin
• ·        A Town Called Malgudi by R.K. Narayan
• ·        The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai
• ·        Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
• ·        The Time Machine (Abridged / Illustrated Classics)

  

  

Give them wings, but don’t decide their flight!

Parenting is not just a difficult but a responsible job. With each step taken towards the betterment of our child, underlies little insecurity about the child’s untold future. Often we hear parents saying “I want my child to become an engineer, doctor, dancer etc. In such cases parenting guidance becomes ever bothering expectations and burdens a child. Though we all talk about holistic approach towards learning;which includes curricular and co curricular activities both given equal importance.  Yet many of us still feel afraid seeing their child’s developing interest in any other co-curricular activity e.g. music, arts, dance etc. The reason is we still think that this may lose a child’s interest in academics or the child may lack in other important skills to be developed. Hence, this leads to restricting of a child’s natural talent or molding your child’s hobbies and interests according to your own interests.

An educated parent of today enrolls the child in variety of hobby classes which is commendable, but at times those classes are decided by a parent not by a child. It’s also noticed many a times that we often feel very irritated if our child frequently changes his/her interests and criticize this habit thinking the child is indecisive or good for nothing. This negative attitude stops a child in exploring his/her innate talent. In the attempt of giving best to our child, we don’t give them scope of trying something new and to make mistakes. As a parent we have to understand the fact that our task is to do our jobs sincerely without pressurizing our child.

We need to provide them exposure of variety of skills be it curricular or co-curricular and let them decide what they want to become in their lives. We need to support their disappointments and celebrate their success. We all should aim to make our child find his/her special interest rather than pursuing the approach “Jack of all but masters of none”. We can nurture them, guide them, provide them opportunities; yet we have no right in making them what we want. 

Young children are like little birds waiting to fly high.

Give them wings, but don’t decide their flight. 

Inculcating Reading Habits in Your Child

“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body” by Joseph Addison

The current developing scenario of our Indian education system, aims to achieve holistic growth of a child. And we as a responsible parent are working and supporting our child to reach to his maximum potentials of learning. We make our child learn, help in project works, send him to his favourite hobby classes, take him outdoors to rejuvenate himself , yet in all the above mentioned things we forget to feed his/her mind. “Reading” is the most neglected component of learning and hence there are only few among us who actually lay emphasis on this. We crib upon poor writing skills of our child but forget to understand that writing is the last component of learning which comes after Reading. Our child is becoming a robot, he doesn’t read, he rote learn the concepts due to poor reading habits. Reading is the exercise to the mind; it generates curiosity, imagination, creativity, empathy and so many endless qualities in a developing child. As a parent we should follow few tips given below to inculcate reading habits in a child since the beginning of childhood:

1. Become your child’s role model:

Read in front of your child to develop his interest in books.

2. Take him to a book tour:

Take your child to a nearby book fair or any library / book store to give him the exposure to variety of colourful and beautiful books.

3. Listening is a Key:

Reading aloud to your child develop his interest in the books even when He is an infant and has not yet started speaking and reading.

4. Share bed time stories:

Go back to the roots! Remember we all enjoy our grandparent’s bed   times Stories. Take out some time and read at least one story to your child before he sleeps.

5. Create a small Reading Corner:

Use your creativity and make a small reading corner or a reading shelf at home. Fill that corner with some interesting and attractive books with colourful characters. Believe it! Your child will surely pick a book and start reading.

In the end, remember not to combine technology with reading habits especially during childhood. There are various E- book readers i.e. Kindle etc. available these days and you might think to gift it to your child. Don’t do that, as those E-readers are not as attractive as colourful books and can never turn a non-reader into a reader. You can save this idea of gifting E- reader to your child for future, but not at this tender age. Hence, Keep Reading! Keep Learning!

Parenting Vs. Over Parenting

With development of our country, the educated parents now a days are more vigilant and concerned towards their child’s mental and physical growth. Now they understand the importance of education and strive hard for making their child a competent individual in the upcoming future.A good parenting is indeed a necessary responsibility yet there is a thin line between parenting and over parenting. While loving and nurturing our children, we as parents sometimes forget our own individual lives and start taking their lives as our own. Giving our whole life to them is not the making of an ideal parent. Recently a friend of mine shared that his child who has just started with his play school, behaves in a stubborn way and can’t tolerate whenever his facilitator denies him anything. Then during the talk we have discussed that may be he is not habitual to these things at home and gets what he wants. While parenting we need to remember this fact that preparing your child to become independent is as necessary as providing them with protective environment to grow. Similarly, on the other day I was reading a psychology book in which Sigmund Freud earlier cautioned that too much parental love and affection turn their children into immature and dependent adults. Over parenting makes you a machine who is always monitoring the child, leaving no scope for doing mistakes and learn from them. Such children too often feel irritated and assessed all the time. Children with over parenting problems behave as a free bird the moment they are out of their parents’ sight. Sometimes, they even display contrary behavior at home and at school. Moreover, loving your child doesn’t mean always worrying for their well-being. Nurturing your own life will help you understand an individual’s need and helps you fulfill the communication gap between two of you. Instead of over parenting, become your child’s support system which is ready to accept their mistakes and always ready to discuss their problems. Hence, become your child’s best friend and nurture the spiritual bond between two of you.