How to Create Great Future Leaders Out of Our Children
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Loading... - Amon Mostafa
- 18 Jul 2022
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The above is message I received from a kid who is my son’s age. No please, no respectfully addressing the adult he’s messaging, no thank you. Nothing.
Who raised this ill-mannered child?
Today’s child is governed by his or her smartphone, just like the adults around him or her. Today’s youth is full of doubts, lost and unsure of what answers to look for.
A child that is disconnected from his or her ability as an individual pays a heavy price — they have no peace and they struggle with relationships and direction in life.
Who is to blame?
As parents it is our responsibility to bring up a functional, independent and respectful citizen of the world. In other words, we have to be living examples of the type of person we want our children to become.
And if so, who is responsible for this self-leadership? Us. We are.
Today parents have an even more responsible job to help children discern given the early access to technology that children have.
As parents we have to think hard. Think. Because that’s the skill we will need to pass down. If you want your child to be successful as an individual, you want them to cultivate their capacity to think and then do things for themselves so that when you are not around, they can do that for themselves and problem solve! They learn about patience and their potential when you show it to them.
My hope with the examples stories posed with regards to the essential life skills will give you a glimpse into a better projected future of your child(ren).
1. Giving the child space to make a mess
Whether at home or in restaurants, today you may find parents putting devices in front of their toddlers when they’re being fed. Their little child doesn’t learn how to feed him or herself. That child doesn’t know how the food on her plate reaches his or her stomach. If the device is taken away from her, she can’t eat. She throws tantrums. She is learning to be impatient, distracted, ill-mannered and helpless. When she goes to nursery or kindergarten, she will wonder what to do with her body, her hands and arms. She will be expected to be civil at the table with everyone and eat her snack.
The child is very much capable of feeding him or herself. Of course they may very well mess up their clothes, face or the table. Either the parent worries about the mess and the cleaning up they’d have to do, or they think it’s cute to feed them because they are little. If the family has a helper, then it becomes the helper’s job to feed their child.
Children being little at that age might make it seem that there won’t be as much a problem once they’re older. That assumption is very wrong because children are learning from a young age how to be in the world by how they conduct themselves around their parents or immediate care-givers.
This child whose house I was visiting recently was sitting with her father at the dining table with a sketch pad and crayons. Dinner was about to be served soon. So her parents wanted to move her things which is a completely and utterly unreasonable thing to do to a 2.5 year old child engrossed in her world of art. To the child who hasn’t been appropriately communicated to, the parents are ruining her playtime, her imagination, her everything. She will rebel against them.
The problem wasn’t what she was doing, it was where she was doing it. If she were to do the exact same thing in her little corner of art, with her parent or by herself, then the problem to move her sketch pad and crayons wouldn’t arise.
There might also be another problem. That would be to get her to eat. There was obviously no communication prior to the art activity occurring at the dining table. No one explained to the smart child that she’d have to say ‘bye-bye’ to the crayons and sketch pad for a short while because it would be time for dinner soon, promising her that the activity could be resumed after she successfully fed herself like a 2.5 year old girl absolutely is capable of. Distractions and toys of all kinds are available to her, and the adults around her are at her beck and call, attending to her every cry with zero ability to communicate “No” to her effectively.
Most parents want to get the kid-feeding over and done with. The child may or may not understand this breakfast-lunch-dinner routine. What’s more important is for them to understand hunger. Read More...
