When to help a child?

The general perception as on today is that the children are exposed to a lot of hard work and they are not able to cope up with the same.There was a report in which it was mentioned that because of the knowledge explosion most of the children and young adults are filled with a lot of information all the time.The researchers have even warned that this may cause problems and the structure of the brain might also get changed and that we do not know will be beneficial or harmful.The reason of taking up this matter is that sometimes people misinterpret information with knowledge and learning which is not the case in reality.The information available and learning are different issues because information is something which is learnt from  external sources but the real learning takes place within and that is so well depicted in the statement by Swami Vivekananda in context of education that education is the manifestation of the potential within an individual. Learning can not take place until somebody work and make efforts all by himself.People discuss a lot about the concentration span which help a person pursuing on something for some time.True, but the most important thing which should be talked today is self confidence and enthusiasm to try to solve a problem on our own before seeking the help of others.

I came across one surprising experiment done by a group of people who set up a school basically meant for the children of the parents who themselves were not educated but wanted their children to study and be successful in life.The parents and children were asked to sign an undertaking in which they were to agree for long hours of the school and hard work even after the school hours. Many parents who thought that they were not able to extend any help to their children in a normal school, they always were a support to all the other children enrolled in this new school. The school timings were from seven thirty in the morning till five in the evening. Afterwards the children were asked to spend around three hours to complete their homework. Due to this the children were forced to spend more time on studies than anything else. As far as the physical activities are concerned the children were encouraged to take part in them during school hours.This three hours home work duration was too much to everyone and initially there were problems to all children but slowly and gradually they got used to the routine.The result of this was very much evident to everyone at the end of the session when these children performed at par with any other child from the so called good schools. What made that to happen was a case of study and the people found that these students were exposed to difficult situations of completing their home tasks all by themselves and there was no help easily available to them. Moreover, they were forced to solve the problems themselves and this gave them an exposure to learn more in comparison to the other children who were served the solutions on a silver platter.Three hours home work was not much in terms of quantity but there used to be only fifteen twenty problems which were to be solved by the children.It was found that average time taken by the children to get the solution of one problem was more than ten minutes. They were trained to find the solution and not to give up before they have tried at least for about twenty minutes. The children became used to of spending as much time as required till the  solution of the problem was found.

Another survey was done in USA and that was how much time the school children spent on solving the problem before they give up and seek the help of others.It was found that maximum time spent was five minutes before the children gave up and the minimum time was thirty seconds.The average time spent was about two minutes.Look at the other case where the children spent more than ten minutes before they gave up the efforts and sought the help of others like the teachers or anybody else.You can very well understand the reason behind the good performance of the children from a school where they were motivated to try themselves than seeking help of others.I have not come across any such study in our country but the general perception is that our children used to spend a lot of time on solving their own problems before going to somebody else and that was probably one of the reasons why they perform so well if they get an opportunity to work abroad.But now the things are changing and due to so many helping hands available to many of them they give up so early when they do not get a solution and approach a tutor or parents for the solution. The time spent in self efforts is getting reduced and that is not a good sign for learners. It may appear to have saved the time of the child today but what is the use if he/she has not learnt how to face problems and find the solution. They become habitual of resorting to find solutions from others.We come across many cases where the mother or the tutor completes the homework of the children.We should try that our children  spend time on solving their  problems on their own and then as per the need external help can be extended.The children should be encouraged to spend  to spend at least ten minutes and may be more than that depending upon the nature and the complexity of the problem. If we do not do that and provide the ready made solution then we in no case helping, but harming them.