Let me tell you a secret!
Kids are clever, much cleverer than we think. Do you know why? Because their knowledge is available at each step, in each part of the world, it is in their hands. They live in the modern world and use smart gadgets to get at any information they need at any time and any place. So don’t worry about their education, just teach them to use it.
More importantly, you should strive at creating strong characters, gentle, compassionate, social beings who can make this world a better place for their future. You should bring up respectful and responsible children. The world will be rich with such delightful young people.
My Little Big Guest
I’ve had a little big visitor recently. He entered our flat without saying anything at all. My son tried to take his hand to say hello, but he quickly moved his hand, stepped back and started producing some strange noise that I realized was resentment. To comfort him, I offered some of my kids’ wonderful toys. To my astonishment, his mum told me not to bother because he didn’t like toys! Moreover, he just took a glance and refused to take them.
Then she took her phone out of her bag and asked me for the network password. While she was busy with the password, he ran towards the TV and pushed it forcefully so that it almost fell. Hence, I realized that he wanted TV, so I took the remote to put on some cartoons. However, I underestimated my little big guest! He didn’t like cartoons! What he liked were serious things like the alphabet and numbers! So he approached me and snatched the remote from my hands, producing some strange sound. His mother was so proud of his remote controlling skills and told me, “You see how clever he is.”
Questions
Consequently, as soon as we saw them off, I was interrogated by my kids. First of all, they wanted to know if they spoke that mmm-mmm language in their new country. The next question and maybe the most important was why he didn’t like them. They thought they were not good for him so they felt bad.
In this situation, I only provided some facts and a little explanation of their new life in a new country. I left everything else to their critical thinking, to come to some conclusions themselves. The only thing I corrected here was that it wasn’t their fault and they are great and very clever kids, too.
Later, my children came to tell me that they were proud to have a clever friend and it was not his fault for living in a foreign country where he didn’t have any friends. They said they were sorry for not living near him to teach him friendship.
My View of the Situation
Diversity is richness. It would be dull if we all were interested in the same things, knew the same stuff or were identical people. Even identical twins have their own pace of development and later on interest and knowledge. Thus, differences complement each other and make one whole complete.
In one of my blogs, I write about toys that serve as substitutes for family members. The number of toys could tell the amount of parents’ guilt about being away from home. This time this is not the case. My friend is actually afraid not to be late for something because they work a lot, especially in a foreign country where they have to prove their worth. As a consequence, she thinks that her son has enough toys and play in kindergarten and needs to learn some real stuff at home. However, the best tool for learning on their own, because parents are tired when they come home, is either the TV or a phone.
Once tired parents feel comfortable with a calm child in front of the TV or a phone, they need just a little more time to rest. Little more turns into a lot more and voila, you have a nervous child, with little or no social skills and barely any language abilities.
Children Need Toys!
To be clear, I don’t blame parents. Today’s life is very difficult, one always has to prove oneself in order to get their salary to make ends meet. It’s natural to feel guilty about not being able to devote yourself to bringing up your children. But the question is how to balance, how to give them the right amount, not more not less.
I am not an expert in child development, but I have been working as a teacher, teaching students from 3 to 25, for 20 years and I am a parent of 14 and 6 years old children, thus my experience is huge to tell.
The first thing a child should practice at a very early age is eye contact and manners. By the age of four, a child should already speak, if nothing else than hello, here you are and thank you. Shaking hands is a sign of making friends and starting a conversation. The lack of these three signs should encourage parents to work on their child’s social skills and not brag about their knowledge.
Social skills are needed for society and their knowledge of numbers, arithmetic operations or spelling is needed for themselves. So don’t mix the two. Skills are acquired through toy and pretend play. Allow kids to play, play with them whenever you have time and be their model to imitate.
Conclusion
Whatever wunderkind abilities your child has, don’t deprive them of toys, play and friends. There is enough time for them to be adults, but little time to be kids. Kids need to play and through play, they develop properly and gradually. Never hurry when children are in question. Let them be young, let them take their own pace and do the things they are prepared for at the moment.
Toys are kids’ most important tool and play is their job. Be moderate in everything, don’t shower them with toys because they will not respect them and don’t deprive them of toys because toys have always been children’s children’s weapons and never proven to have done any harm to them.
The last thing to conclude is to choose the right toy, choose natural, choose wood.
Feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comments below! I would love some exchange of opinions or experiences.
