My uncle has, I suppose, read a lot. He told me a little about child psychology. "Suhail, what you said is right! It is not by coincidence that a place where education starts at seven became the place with the best education system. What we don't understand is that the best education a child can get comes before he is 6. And the teachers are not school-teachers and may not even be barely educated. The first teachers for a child are his parents and his peers. They form him for a large part. This is how it works..."
My uncle's point was that a child goes through different stages in his childhood. Stage 1 is upto 6 years. It is stage 1 that shapes the perceptions of a child, the same perceptions that would take him into his adulthood. A parent might find mistakes in the way his child ties the shoelaces, the way he eats his food or the way he wets the bathroom floor. This is because, the parent finds it different from the way he himself used to do it. The parent wants the child to be him. So he says, "this is not the way you tie your shoe-laces, this is not the way you do that, this is not the way you do this..." and so on. The child notes everything unconsciously. An alarm clock is set in his mind, that buzzes each time the child is about to do something in the future: "This is the not the way you do it."
In stage 2 (6 - 12), the child corrects his vision. There are some things his parent told him not to do, but the parent always does. Slowly, in stage 2, the child forms corrections in his perceptions. With this, his views change a little, but not much. But, from stage 1 to stage 2, the child has formed everything that will shape his future. Very few children, if at all, come out of the perceptions he form during this time.
In stage 3, he is public. I believe stage 3 would be 12 - 21. The child is asked to sing on stage. He wants to do it but the alarm bells ring, "This is not the way to do it. You cannot do it." Unknowingly, the parent had switched off one key ingredient of success from the child's mind, when he was still a child under 6. That one key ingredient is confidence. Confidence is the ingredient that makes us attempt the impossible. Only, my uncle was just explaining an example. This could go anywhere. Some children turn out to be violent based on their childhood. Some turn out to be leaders in their chosen field, whatever that is.
I put the psychology into the context of two families. One family had a father who was very critical of children. He just wouldn't allow his children to do anything on their own. Today, all of the children have that deep down rotten feeling that, "i'm good for nothing" or that "i can't do it". They are all bright by birth. Somewhere in between, they lost the courage to attempt impossible things. They lost their sense of adventure. Only the first feelings are difficult to set in. Once, you have the basic rotten feeling inside, you go down to doom with much ease.
The other family had a very "free" father. He never expected his children to behave the way he was accustomed to. He let the children's imagination grow with them. He would never say what to do and what not to. He places his trust in his children. And eventually, the children turn out to be as good as their father. One good quality they developed over the years is that when they aim for something, they aim really high.
The two instances are only indicative. You may have more examples, you can write to me at suhailrasheed@gmail.com and there may be cases where the opposite happened. Any views are welcome. I have utmost gratitude to my parents who raised me between both the ends. We weren't raised too "freely" nor were we raised in strict disciplinarian systems. We've attained fairly high goals, though. My final point is that, the way you want them to grow up does not matter if the way you put it across is right. But, whatever energy you give them, positive or negative, the best time to give it is when they are young and under 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment