How to make Children interested in studies?

What is education? So, basically education is nothing but an enlightening experience. And when a child goes through the process of education system and schooling he/she is full of brilliant ideas, new thoughts and various creative ways to solve any problem and create new things. The parents and teachers only have to act as a facilitator in order to nurture their creativity, by giving them exposure and bringing them a new way to process their thoughts and polish the thoughts.

If we look at the current schooling system, more or less the system has became passive in providing education and learning experiences to children and the real meaning of learning has disappeared somewhere in this process of education. So the question arises how to make education or study interesting for the children? So that “they want to study” not because “they need to study”. Now the question arises what can be done to make children “want to study” the answer is simple (but not easy)!

We normally associate a child not wanted to study – to their concentration levels, their attitude, their obedience etc. however the issue is mostly that we are not ‘engaging’ the child in studies. By engagement we mean that the child is emotionally and mentally challenged, thinking, trying out and learning during the process i.e. his mental and emotional faculties are being challenged –which builds the interest. Unfortunately we have made studies to be a very passive method of gaining knowledge for the sake of some examinations and results.

How do we do this differently and engage the child?

(Answer to this depends on the age / class of the child – not because its age specific but to what level the child has gone through the drudgery of passive learning so that the process of stimulating their minds can be ascertained). For a young mind (age upto 7/8 we can follow the following ideas)

Provide them a nurturing environment where we can give those lots of exposure and facilitate them to learn and acquire new things and also discover their environment. Then they will be able to learn and connect to their earlier learning.

Children are constantly observing whatever is happening around them so we can use this ability in their learning. Give them some time and schedule the extra and free time in the school curriculum when they have to only observe their surroundings and form questions on it. In this way the child’s natural inquisitiveness gets nurtured. Also, when their questions are researched and discussed in the class it will encourage them to enquire and learn more.

Children are naturally curious and they love to experiment. If we look at the NCERT textbooks, we will find that they are full of activities and experiments in each topic/subject. A teacher can encourage children to practically do the activities and also add more to it if needed instead of just reading through the chapters and answering some pre-formulated questions.

Written by Sana Parveen, Parwarish Institute of Parenting Pvt. Ltd.

My Child doesn’t want talk to me (parent) and I need to pamper him to make him talk

The most common reason for this particular behavior of a child is that they know if they behave in a particular way (like showing tantrums or sitting quietly), it will solve their problem or somebody will fulfill their demands.Parents in the current scenario are becoming overindulgent and keeping their child happy has become a goal.

This leads the parent provide for the child’s demands and to pamper the child. It becomes a habit for a child to use the ‘tantrum’ to get attention from the parent and get their way out. As a parent we need to learn to deal with the tantrums of a child.

Parents have to look and observe the family environment. Notice that if any family members talk like this or you, as a parent, respond the child in this way. Children are keen observer and they learn things from his/her environment.

Share your feeling with the child. Tell him how you feel (may be sad, unhappy, alone, etc) when he doesn’t talk to you.;Also, ask him why he is behaving in this manner? Prepare yourself before talking to the child and listen to the child in a non-judgmental way without any preconceived notions.

Finally be straight and tell the child that this behavior is not acceptable and he/she will not get what he/she wants through this route. And in case they want something they need to ask for it in a manner directly without this tantrum. As a parent you would need to be stern to not give-in to the tantrum or else the cycle of fulfilling the demand and tantrum would start again.

Written by Chanchal Gupta, Parwarish Institute of Parenting Pvt. Ltd.