How to make your child a super child!
Every parent nowadays wishes their child to be among the best. Rather our parents thought the same way too!! Most parents, from the early age of a child, think their children should be doing things in their life, which they could not do in their own career life. In this effort most parents become too anxious. And in their anxiety they overdo (rather force would be the right word!!) things with the child beyond child’s potential.
Each child comes to this world with a set of genetic material which by stimulation with the environment leads on to development of overall personality of child. Each child is unique and has natural curiosity and learning potential. Parents need to realise this. But in their anxiety at times parents don’t realise this and at other times even if they realise, they follow their own mind set. So even though parents want to do the best things for their kids, unconsciously they lead on to restricting the child’s natural abilities and potential.
With both parents working in lot of households now and their expectations lead to focus mainly on education, which leads to limited skill development. As the education level raises child hardly gets any time to nurture their natural talent. Education in long run results to a fixed job and life after sometime becomes stereotyped and boring.
Further a person hardly thinks of any alternatives and prefer not take any risk due to their established patterns of thinking. This may result in various problems at different stages of life. There have been lot of reports coming up in last few years of children feeling more and more stressed, at times abusing drugs and becoming drug addicts and at times taking up a hard option of suicide. As a grown up person the above lifestyle may lead to a midlife crisis and life would seem to move like a bullock cart rather than a limousine!
So what should parents do? That’s a hard question with no answers, which are either totally right or totally wrong. But there are a few things, which parents can do to make their child a super child. I would call a child as ‘super child’ who has grown up in most areas of life including the social, academically, sports, building up relations and above all carries the positive outlook towards the life as a whole.
So following are few things depending on child’s age which parents may follow to make their child a super child!
First 2 yrs:
This is an important phase in child’s development. Lot of parents stop with feeding the child and taking care of basic needs. They think child would learn or grow by itself. That’s not true.
Child’s brain development depends on stimulation of his movements and senses. So there should be regular stimulation of listening (chiming bells, playing rhythmic tones of music, talking to child etc), Vision (moving things in front of child and stimulating eye movements). Gentle cuddling of the child all over the body and gently (remember gently!!) moving the arms, leg neck etc will all be of great use in brain development of your child. Remember this needs to be done on a regular basis. Even if you and your partner work during the day, make sure somebody does it. Of course, the child too gets tired, so do handle with care!!
Further its important to smile and show positive emotions (Faces, movements of body). You will see wonderful smile of your child, which will last throughout the life!!
Two to five years:
This is the phase of exploration for child. The child will run around and will try to explore the world with all its curiosity (Just think of any parent who do not scold their child as naughty for making him or her run behind. Dear parent remember that it only means two things. Your child is getting smarter than you and that you are aging!!)
Encourage child to touch as many things as possible and try and tell the name and purpose of particular object. Further take them to parks, make them run around and give expressions to their athleticism!! You will see the world’s best smile when you do that on your child’s face. Try and engage in interactive play with your child (like playing throw ball, catch me if you can game, sitting and playing toys etc).
From age of 3 years start teaching child few words and rhymes. Encourage questions of curiosity from the child and if the child points or asks about something, remember to give them a nice account of things. If possible give them a chance to experience it (I agree you just can’t take them to moon for now, but in future you may be!!)
Further recite as many stories as you can to the child. Some parents think that TV is the best learning material for children!!. Remember TV one-way interaction, in which the child just receives from that idiot box and soon child understands it to be not interactive. So, the time spent with your child is the best lifetime investment, may be better than gold, shares or property.
Six to seventeen years:
This is the golden period when you can achieve your expectations and also make your child talented. However parents fail due to two reasons. They focus only on studies and never show adequate encouragement in developing other skills. I do agree that from the Indian context, education is important (Otherwise you will not see so many successful Indians in all possible affluent countries in the world!). However it is essential to remember that other activities are also important to develop for your child to develop into a talented one.
Following are few steps you may follow to achieve that
- Encourage child to play with other children (This helps developing social skills, and competitiveness skills)
- Spend some time to teach child (Don’t trust the tuition teacher alone!). Make teaching more interesting by verbally rewarding the child
- Try and balance the studies and play. Make the play as positive reinforcement for studies they do. Also make child’s interest a reward depending on studies. Don’t be unfair to child by misbalance. Don’t make him study for 4 hrs and in reward allow play for only 15mins.
- What most parents do is to encourage only for studies and they leave children by themselves to play! Remember this is wrong! Whenever possible, go with the child and motivate him. Appreciate child’s performance and encourage to do well. This will lead your child into top gear and you will see the results, when you do it
- Always listen to your child and also encourage them to speak about their experiences in school and outside. This not only improves a child’s communication skills, but also the bonding with you (Remember then you don’t have to cribb and your child will listen to whatever you say!! Yes that is true!!)
- Never compare the child with another child and also never criticise in a negative manner. Try to be positive and appreciate even a small gain and that will motivate the child to perform better. Even criticism should be put in a positive manner and give them rewards (Cuddle, Sweets, visit to favourite place, favourite toy and so on!).
- If you find child interested in any particular extra curricular activities, try to encourage that and make him adopt that as an effective hobby.
Overall this makes your child optimistic and also self confident in long run. Remember it is not easy to do this, but the effort is definitely worth it!! (You will appreciate when your child grows up!!)
In short for making your child grow to its potential, spend more time with the child, try to provide them with adequate mix of education, play and adequate development of hobbies. It not only allows the child to work with motivation to achieve parental expectations but also helps your child to nurture its own talent and there by become a self-confident and an able person. Further by doing this you give your child two bright eyes to see this world in a different perspective!!
Dr.TSJ Anandaram
