I was teaching math addition to my 4 year
old the other day. I gave him 2 cookies and asked –
Me – "I had given you 1 cookie yesterday and I gave you 2 cookies today. How many cookies do you have?"
My son – 2 cookies.
Then I tried the same using pencils. I gave
him 1 pencil and then gave 2 more. He counted 3. I tried it with crayons and he
counted 3. Then I got back to my question on cookies.
Me – I gave you 1 cookie yesterday and 2 today.
How many do you have?
My son – 2 cookies.
I put up 3 fingers saying each finger is a
cookie and asked him to count. He counted 3 and said “But I have only 2 cookies
papa”. I asked him how. He said – “I already eat the cookie you gave me
yesterday”. He paused for a few mins and added “remember you said think”.
I was trying to teach him math and he
thought me logic.
I was speechless but have now learnt to
expect such answers from my kids. They sometimes amaze me into thinking how do
they even come up with some of the answers they give or some of the questions they
ask.
I had to drop my daughter for a class this
morning and my son too accompanied us in the car. While coming back home, my
son sat in the rear car seat diagonally opposite to me. He had got his steering
wheel toy with him which is a steering wheel and a gear shift that makes
different sounds when moved. My son was watching me drive and was steering his
toy wheel in the same way as I was doing. He said “papa, I want to drive a car
like you when I grow up”. I was almost about to tell him that maybe there will
be no cars with a steering wheel by the time he grows up, but stopped myself.
It then occurred to me. Maybe my kids are
not learning much by listening to me. Maybe my kids are learning more by
watching me; Or rather by observing me. As I thought about this I realized they
have been giving me subtle hints all these years but I never realized this
until now. Every time they said “I want to be like you when I grow up”, “I want
to work on computer like papa”, “I want to drive a car like papa”, … this is
what they were doing. They have been observing me and learning from me. I am
their role model.
The very thought that my kids may be
feeding off of my actions and inculcating them makes me shudder. This is like I
am under constant observation; a whole new kind of surveillance. A surveillance
where my kids are silently watching me, making sense of my actions and absorbing
it to tune their life. It brings in a whole new sense of responsibility in me. I
need to ensure I am always putting the best of me in front of my kids.
As I think about this more, I feel maybe this is
not bad after all. They may be helping me in way. If I go through this surveillance
putting out the best of me now, I don’t have to do a surveillance on my kids
when they come of age. I can be assured that what my kids will do is what I would
have done in the same situation.
~Narendra V Joshi