RIGHT TURN
Instil a positive attitude
Quality time: Engaging children in games like carrom strengthens the family bond and enhances their confidence.
There are few ancient slokas about good parenting, which say that infants like to have expressive body and facial gesticulations by elders. Being touchy and frequent hugging eliminates psychological problems like inferiority complex and introversion which might creep in at a later stage.
Children learn initial communication from positive gestures. At a later stage, teaching rhymes, poems and songs improves their vocabulary and pronunciation skills. Reciting them before friends and relatives shrinks their stage fear. At a later age, they should be persuaded to go through few head lines of the news paper to express their viewpoints during dinnertime for mental stimulation. Some psychologists also suggest dance, if they show interest in it. In Greek, kinesis means ‘motion’. Dancing releases kinetic energy and enhances body-brain memory connection.
Children require more direction than instruction. Earlier, without apprehension, parents used to send the children to the forest, where they served the Guru at the ashram. After watching them for years, the guru taught appropriate skills based on their interest and calibre. Now also parents send them to corporate colleges, but the difference is that they expect education pertaining to lucrative jobs, irrespective of the child’s interest or ability.
Productive interests
In order to make children do better, we need not make them feel worse. We should do their part. Taking kids to the libraries, cultural shows and plays, accompanying them to new places like museums and interesting sights enhances their ‘productive interest’ towards life.
Use complex and multi-clause sentences such as “Often I find you talking excessively on phone, instead of teaching your younger sister as you used to be earlier” as opposed to simple sentences like “Don’t waste time”. Children when exposed to more complex grammatical structure show a higher degree of language development.
A child acquires imagination skills from fourth year. Limiting television-viewing time at this stage is a must. Divert their interests. Engage with painting sets, clay modelling, sporting and construction toys, reading fiction and non-fiction books and playing indoor games like chess, carroms etc. These activities strengthen the family bond, enhance their confidence, and keep them away from unproductive hobbies. “The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children,” is an old Chinese proverb. With proper care and understanding, we can certainly change the second part of it.
YANDAMOORI VEERENDRANATH
YANDAMOORI@HOTMAIL.COM
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