Magical children
My daughter is magical. She has an amazing ability that no matter how annoying she is, you can't help but love her. I think most parents feel this about their children. But, that is not what makes her magical.
Children are completely innocent and ultimately curious. This combination means that they are not bound by the normal constraints of an adult. They do not need to worry about political correctness or how they look doing something and they don't worry about what someone thinks of them. This frees them to explore the world unhindered until something teaches them that limitations do exist.
My daughter seems to be one child who is a little less unbounded than many and she is about as stubborn as they come and when she wants to do something, she will repeat it until she gets it the way she wants it. But as said, there are limitations.
Some of these limitations are natural and physical like her ability to balance or climb and some are human rule based like the things her parents would prefer her to do or not do. When it comes to making life easier for ourselves as parents, we have failed quite miserably as we do our best to let her explore without our preferences getting imposed.
The challenge in my opinion is finding the balance where a child is able to safely learn the natural limitations reality imposes without conflating the human ones as natural. In my view, the difference between the natural rules is that it allows for a maximisation of possibility, whereas the human ones are a reduction from that point.
As adults, many of our limitations are self-imposed by a set of rules and values that we have taken on-board and into our programming. We then use this often blind rule book to evaluate and navigate our world. Those that are the most creative play by a different set of rules or perhaps, a lower set.
Children not having these rules are able to create their actions and thoughts without a rule book at all. When my daughter dances, she dances freely and does not care if anyone is watching. When she learned to spin , she spun until she was dizzy and fell over. She laughed so much while her eyes and body came to terms with the new feelings. After that, she was spinning, but not until dizzy. She had made a note in her rule book.
As children grow, the rule book gets heavier and heavier and more and more influenced by external sources who want everyone to conform to a certain kind of behavioral set - A culture, a belief system, a political side all get pushed upon them through implicit and explicit means. This leads to a population of people who are more similar in 'nature' but have less diversified thinking to solve problems faced.
School is likely the biggest killer of creativity history has ever known as children are subjected to a one-size policy with hurdles that are set regardless of height. A child is encouraged to 'do well' at tasks regardless of their interest or even the practicality of the tasks at all. They are then measured and graded to make sure they are cookie cutter representations of society.
The next killer of creativity is the entertainment media where people are continually absorbed into consumptive entertainment rather than developmental entertainment. The mass nature of these sources means large cross-sections of the world are pulled into the vortex of similarity, and this is happening at ever younger ages.
Our formative years are vital in the development of our adult selves and we are continually organizing a world for our children based on linear learning and pre-formed activity. Children are less and less exposed to the experience of being free with free meaning; having nothing to do.
No child is bored anymore as there is a phone app to keep them busy in the trolley at the market, a new toy to flash and make sounds to entertain their eyes and ears and a whole lot of various activity babysitters for sports, dance, music. These things are not bad in small doses but, they cannot be the main source of nutrition in my opinion.
It is in these formative years that children build their appetite for the future, create the rule set of many values and habits, and keep or lose their curious mind to explore and the creativity to solve. All children have a sense of wonder at the world until they are told the rules. It is the ones that keep looking regardless of the lessons attempted to be taught that discover the various forms of beauty and solutions others have denied through restriction of mind.
My role as a parent is to keep her alive, fed, happy and not destroy her abilities to build herself. This means making the space for her to explore, not filling the space for her to consume. I am hoping to not screw up and break her mind so that I can save her sense of curiosity so if she chooses, she can use her magical abilities to move mountains.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
My daughter teaches me more about life than any book, teacher or person ever has. She is magical because at times, I am as stubborn to move as one of those mountains yet, she pushes me with ease.
Great read :)
I think you have the right awareness and approach, even though this may well be seen as making a rod for your own back.
I remember playing a game of hide and seek in the park one Sunday with my daughter, she was maybe 4/5 at the time. We'd take turns hiding behind trees and each turn of mine, I'd go a little further away to hide.
On the 5/6th turn, I made a decent run for it and hid behind a large tree, with a feeling she wouldn't search so far. I watched her start the seeking and continually until her hopes dropped to the point she stopped moving. At that point I appeared and made my way over.
She was a little upset, but I assured her I was always watching, and soon enough all was forgiven.
Mean? Too much space? Perhaps, but I wanted to give her as much freedom as she could cope with that day, whilst keeping a watchful eye.
There is a growing trend to do this more and more and send children further afield. Especially in the US where they are worried about pedos, they have sheltered children a lot (in some communities). If children can learn to be alone, solve their own issues and the like, they grow into self-directed adults who can negotiate. This is why the artificial limitations in schoolyards are so harmful I think.
Kids are much more capable than we give them credit.
Right. There was a growth plan in my head at the time. And yeah, I was watching constantly, even though the park was pretty empty at the time.
Yep, the cotton-wool parents not really seeing this and setting their kids up for a stark reality as young adults :)
I meet quite a lot of the protected as they are coming into the workplace now. Some companies that try to bend to the will of the millennials are setting themselves up for disaster as their wants change with the breeze and they don't stick around long enough in one spot to build a foundations. The ones that can manage their gratification will own the world soon enough.
I miss her every minute of every day. Not a day goes by that I don't watch a few videos you've sent or some pictures and as you know my office wall is plastered with pictures of her...I've even had to print a couple more because a couple of the office girls wanted a picture of her on their desks. Seriously, they love her and haven't even met her. She's pretty special.
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WE can talk over the weekend again. Everyone is a bit sick here still (@momone quite sick now) so photos have been hard. What I will do though is put some into a shared folder so you have a link to at least some higher res ones.
Yeah cool...I know you're all not well...Hope to chat this weekend.
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Indeed children are an opportunity for a new beginning. They are an unopened box...a virgin gift, a naive innocence that will later be tarnished by the elements of the world. If only we could hold that innocence forever. Thanks. @tarazkp
We spend so much time trying to teach them right from wrong we forget what an absolute mess th world is in from people teaching right from wrong. It'd be better if instead of learning from us, they went out into the world and discovered what is there for themselves.
There is this sense of feelings in almost all children that they always have their own magic or charm of attracting people to always love them.
Children are innocent until their parents condition them to be like themselves which is generally much less innocent and much more manipulative and aggressive in various ways. They can learn that on their own, they don't need it to be taught to them.
Excatly, you nail it
The problem I feel is thatbour generation did not get it right and are instituting more of the same for our children. Instead of sharing the openness of imagination and creativity, they tend to stick to guidelines in an effort to compete for a future “everyone” wants.
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Everyone wants is a line of best fit that hurts many people at varying degrees of misfit. It is in the vocabulary even.
Excellent post @tarazkp 😊👍
great post my dear friend
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