Child And His NEEDS

Somebody once asked me how do you know what your child needs ? How do you decide on a school ? yeah, its tough but in general you know the inclination of your child. What is it that he enjoys? What is it that he likes most? What are the things he can do best ? Then when you ask him questions as to how does he do that he will tell you what goes on in his mind and how he/she does it? I once asked my daughter how can you remember the meaning of a word in hindi when she has seldom heard the word and reading it only once. She told me mamma its very easy for me, the page gets printed in my mind and I scan the page for the word and then I know! Very visual. This is called picture memory. Now does this work for all subjects ? How about maths? Now maths can get tough for her as only remembering will not help her here. She needs a different method to process the information. She needs to be given more pictures/charts/ to process the information which she can do well.

One more thing we need to question about studies is that , If he enjoys doing so many things and why is that he is not enjoying doing something or some subject? Its like if I like to eat so many vegetables then why is it that I don't like some vegetables. It may be because it tastes bad, smells bad, looks bad or simply presented bad. The same vegetable presented in a different way may appeal to you isn't it? That's how it works with children and their studies also. The way it is presented should appeal to the child. You may have heard children saying Maths is hard/hindi is tough? why? question them and you would know exactly what is it that they find hard in it?

If you ask your child questions whenever you are working with them you would understand how is it that he/she is processing the information. Whats his style of thinking ? You need to understand that. Its hard but by questioning you can understand and you will soon realize why some things sound so easy for him and some things are tough for your child.

Finally give more of that to your child what he enjoys and harness his strengths more . This will not only make your child confident, happy , later he/she will enjoy his life doing things he likes to do most .

Now with this understanding I set out to find the school. How is the school giving this information to the children? Are the children able to process it ? If not then there is a mismatch the way it is presented and the way the child generally sees.

I have always asked this question to myself as to what should be the vision of the school? Generally it is not a shared vision between the school and the child. The school aims at scoring 100% results. But what about the child and his needs ? Is it being satisfied ? We as parents get carried away with the scores. But if you reflect back at your own way of schooling you will realise that the school didn't give you much in terms of building confidence in you, giving you the joy of learning, becoming resilient, mainting focus , become a decision maker ? I vouch on it. Suddenly when we are thrown out of school and into the world to make a living we generally fail for we have lost touch with our strengths? Sooner or later we loose interest in what we are doing for maybe thats not what I enjoy for all you know ! I am a living example. Did I like programming ? was that my strength ? sorry ! no it wasn't. It was very stressful for me. Then why did I do my masters ? etc etc. I don't know, I just followed without taking stock of what I am really good at you see. I did do well in that field because of all my other strengths within me.

So as parents or adults around a child become aware of the child's strengths. If the child is doing something focus on the process. Ask him as to How is he doing it? understand his strength. This will help the child understand himself. Make a list of your child's strength and make him aware of that too. Our society is so much focussed on the results that we forget the process. Its not important that we arrived at an answer but its important to see HOW we arrived at an answer.