I cant wait to share my insight about parenting that hit my head lately. I hope by writing it here, it will remind me to back on track when things get rough and I am getting back to the old way of parenting. Well, this is so simple to explain, but so hard to be exercise in daily life.
Some facts:
1. A child is a “small” human being that capable to absorb a lot of information, knowledge and capability since he/she was in womb. Most of time they learn by modelling other, copying from their environment (mostly his/her parents).
2. The best way to understand something is to “find it out” by oneself. When we construct our own understanding, (those “aha” moments), it will be stay in our head. When someone else tells us what to do or gives rules to follow, even when it was for our own good, we still consider it as obligation, and our brain is not learning anything except repeat things that bring reward, and avoid things that bring punishment. A learning is not happening.
3. Then, the only way to teach to other people is to inspire them. Gives model, do the talk, until the pupil is seeing the beauty in it and try to copy. When a child inspired by the parent, he/she will copy his/her behaviors.
4. Parents should not only “protecting” the children, but “facilitating the learning process”. Yes, that means that the child must have “failure” to learn from. The best thing parent can do is to show that his/her family is a “safe” home, source of “unconditional love”, where he/she can run to when things get bad.
5. Every human is unique, and has his/her own “mission” in this world. Therefore, each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, passion and interest, character and behavior, talent that are different one to another. It is a mistake to aim the same skill, character and success for all of human kind, as human body has its own shape and function, we have our own roles and responsibilities.
6. Nature and nurture are both have the same contribution in child success. The best way is to find what is the “nature” (passion, interest, strenght) then develop the “nurture” in that area (persistency, hard work, team work, etc).
7. The world is continuously changing, education is stay the same for tens of years. The delay between the process and result is more than 20 years. Things that is important in industrial era (content, uniformity) are considered important in education, while the world has moved to creation era (creativity, problem solving). It is irrelevant to teach children to skill and content that is valid in 10 or more years ago.
Cerita Mama Fabian 