Captain Planet — #2 Child Development

Nurture the Future

Here are few important points we should be paying more attention to:

1. Reply all their “Whys??”
2. Know what they learn
3. Non-Tech Friendly
4. Value Education

Reply all their ‘Whys??’

I was afraid of asking questions.

Even though I was not able to understand, I won’t ask questions.
Reason was inner fear which I had and it was installed since I was a kid.

I’m very sure it happens to most of us.

So which are the fears that stops us from asking?

1. “What if my question is silly?”
2. “What if my teacher gets angry?”
3. “What if I make a fool out of myself?”

And just because of these reasons, I restricted myself from asking questions.

Let me tell you a story which helped me get rid of this fear of not asking questions.

In my Masters class, we had a professor who was 91 (2 years ago) and had hearing problems.
We were instructed, if you want to ask questions you need to walk to the white board and ask.

Well for me this was even more troublesome, as I was having no intention being in a state where people make fun of me for not knowing simple question.

I seldom got up to ask.

But I always heard a call from behind “Professor!!!”, and Jeff (a very good friend of mine) walks up to the board and asked questions, which were most of the time my questions as well.

Sometimes I noticed that the professor was in a state like “I already answered, it’s such a simple thing” but Jeff was always calm and he will ask till he gets his answer or the professor postpones to answer.

From this experience I was very much impressed, I started believing that others were having the same problems that I was having and that did change my habit of not asking questions.

Not everyone is lucky to have this attitude like Jeff or experience to observe like I had which eventually changed my perspective.

I was really surprised by this, because where I came from, if you ask questions you often get replies like

“We already discussed in the previous class, where were you?”

“Why aren’t you paying attention?”

“What’s wrong how many times do I need to say the same thing again?”

These statements are not most of the times and also not even directly referenced to you, but listening these replies few times are enough for kids to stop asking questions.

We need to take this fear out of the kids by genuinely replying to all their “Whys”.

Know What they Learn

“This is no where related to grades, grades doesn’t matter at all”

Habit yourself of conducting session with kids with these questions:

1. “What interesting things you learnt at school?”
   (They get the chance of demonstrating their interest)
2. “How can you put those thing into use?”
   (This will enable them to think on the usefulness of that teaching)
3. “Let’s do a project from the knowledge you gained at school”
   (However small project may be, but they will get the pride of doing things on their own)

Non-Tech Friendly

We don’t want this

Technology has trapped us into thinking that what’s real is what’s online.

Technology is great, but with kids we really need to limit it. And here’s how we need to:

1. Emphasis on Excessive Outdoor Activities
   — By excessive, I mean variety of activities.
   — Encourage them to get into as many activities as they can.
   — Don’t force them to compete.
   — Instead, explain them the importance of those activities and show them examples of what they can achieve if they do it.
   — If they like it, they will definitely succeed in it.
2. Teach “Online Life is not Real Life”
   — Kids tend to inherit culture passed down by adults(80s and 90s people). — It’s very important to make them start believing that life in real is more important than social media.
   — People are different on social media and in real life.
   — Like, comment and Share people’s talk and not just their statuses

Value Education

“No person is bad, it’s just the circumstances”

The above sentence is supposed to be installed as a primary thing in kids brain and then surviving, self-defensive and other techniques should be installed.

If it’s strongly implanted the kid won’t have negative qualities like hatred, jealousy, enmity and several more.
Kids in return will ask or think for reason for specific reaction from others before judging.

They will be more caring, giving and respectful to others.

This is what we need on this planet.

Thank you

I really appreciate the time you took in reading the 2nd part of my series Captain Planet.

If you like it please share it and you can follow me on Medium.

One really interesting thing I will be sharing in few months.

Also checkout this video.