Have you ever wondered what kind of Parent are you really? I started thinking about this question after I watched the “Yes Day” movie with my child the last weekend. This is a family fun movie based on the children’s book with the same name “Yes Day”.
I am not trying to review this movie here, rather, I am just trying to share my thoughts about Parenting, which this movie has triggered in me.
- I started observing myself, as to how many times I am saying NO to my child in a day?
- Also, whether I am giving the space required by my kid to try and experiment with the boundaries?
- Is my child really growing up in the cozy confines of the house, without knowing how to react to various situations in the world?
We follow Montessori parenting principles in our house and keep introducing different experiences to my child. But still, on deeper pondering, I had realized that I am really guilty of point number 3.
Now, I know you must be getting more curious about my statements. You would understand it better if you know this couple, Mr. & Mrs. Iyer who is well known as the “Crazy homeschooling family” and how they are exposing their kids to real-life situations in the real world outside, far away from the comfort zones. I mean to say that those kids are watching and experiencing the world by being a part of it. Not just seeing it from outside the car window or doing just some sightseeing.
This pandemic has shown us once again that pure bookish knowledge is not sufficient and the rat race in the outside competitive world is not going to take us anywhere. What we need is quality time with near and dear ones to be happy. If that’s there, then we can be happy even within the limited means. Hence, we need to teach more practical knowledge and application of the subjects they learn in the school/books to real life.
I can understand, the questions are still lingering in your mind about how being Yes Parents would help in giving more real-life practical experiences to kids. I am coming to the same points here.
As per Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, the ideal situation would be to put the kids through the situations and then discuss and hone their learnings. But not everyone can afford that kind of lifestyle for a variety of reasons. But we can still give similar kinds of learnings to our kids.
If we are willing to try out new experiences away from the gadgets even for a limited time then it would broaden the horizons of our kids. The kids have to step out of the confines of the house and away from the gadgets to understand what lies in the world outside. To do all this we need to become more YES Parents rather than NO parents, isn’t it?
We need to say YES to their experiential learning, to step out of the confines of the house and its comforts. We need to understand how a common man is living outside and struggling for their livelihood.
So, I had decided to embrace the philosophy of being YES Parents and tailor it to suit the needs of my household. I am going to say YES to new experiences, new hobbies, more real-world explorations outside the cozy confines of our car, and other luxuries.
Surprisingly, when we discussed these issues with my kid and told him that we are going to use public transport more often after the world opens up, my child is the one who is jumping up and down with excitement that too without any apprehensions. This again comes down to the same point that the kids have more resilience from my earlier post. We parents, need to hone it further with a little nudge here or there.
Stay tuned to know further about our experiments with this kind of YES Parenting.
