Let the children learn naturally

Since the time the joint family structure has lost its existence and in many cases both the parents are working there have been problems of different nature. The parents of the newly born children acquire information about the parenting from different sources like the magazines, books and the television etc. Many a times the information may not be correct and might have been in different context which proves counterproductive to the growth of the children. Many parents share it with the teachers that they spend a lot of time with their kids and try to do everything possible for them but still the children do not perform as per their expectations. When we talk of the performance what does it really mean? Most of the people particularly in our country equate it with the academic achievement. The same was the case with other countries as well and that is the reason many people did extensive research in this field and came out with wonderful results. Nowadays the children are being forced to do accelerated learning which means learn as many things as possible in the shortest possible time. That makes the things more complicated and difficult for the parents as well as the children. Why does it happen so?

There may be many factors like the desire of the parents; family pressure, peer pressure etc. and some of them have already been discussed in different articles. The other important factor is the information which the parents or would be parents search and get from print media,eletronic media or any other source. All the information gathered from these sources may not be right because sometimes the research done includes very limited number of people taken for case-studies. In some cases, the research may not have been completed and the results of some areas are published and the people jump to some wrong conclusions. One example might clearly my point. It was considered that music can make the children more intelligent and many parents in America rushed to the music classes for the newly born child because they were told that the brain develops the most by the age of three. The parents thought that listening to the music will increase the IQ of their children.But,there is an interesting story in this theory also. One research study was published in the year 1993 by Professor Raucsher and her colleagues. She and her team did the experiment on about eighty college students. They were asked to complete a task before and after listening to the music. It was found that the students who were exposed to the music could score more than the ones who were exposed to the silence. The researchers were not sure whether this was applicable to all task situations or it was task specific. They also found that the effect of the music was only for eight to ten minutes and after that, all were same. The media grabbed the opportunity and published the story in a manner as if music makes all the difference. Later on, another study in 1999 proved that  music does not have any effect on the IQ level but the mood of the person exposed to melodious music, might be affected. This is one example in which we find that the anxious parents get impressed because they are desperate to do everything possible to make their children learn things which help them to perform better than the other children.

What I feel is,that the efforts made by the parents to expose their children to some artificial situations and forgetting the natural way by which the children learn more, is the problem.It has been observed that the children are provided with many CDs and the video games to improve their skills. But the parents forget that the natural games and the activities will help the children more than the artificial games. Even if the natural games are scheduled in the time table by the parents and the teachers which do not allow the children to feel relaxed but are taken as another task to be performed by them, they will not learn anything until they feel completely involved in doing that activity. When we talk of the stories narrated by the grandparents in our country and the children would gather near them listening to these tales and fables,it was an excellent way of learning. The children used to play hide and seek by making use of the space and the things available at home,was again an activity based learning. The father or the mother talking to the children informally while doing some work in the garden or the kitchen would make the children learn,experience and express.

The problem faced by the parents in today`s time is that they are in the rat-race with others and also with self. They are not chasing others as per their strength but competing with others whose strength may not be known to them. They pass on the same to their children also and the pressure keeps on increasing. Our country has become a centre for marketing and that situation has made many enterprises to venture in the  schools as well with alluring marketing strategies. You find so many gadgets available and the salesman will make you feel that if the same was not procured by you or for your child he/she will miss on something great and will be left behind in this race of learning more. Everyday a new product is launched in the market in the name of making the learning easy and enjoyable. Most of the claims made by these companies are without any scientific studies. They try to prove that their product is better than other products available in the market. I do not mean to say that all are like this, but it is very difficult for the parents to understand what will work for their children. I asked one honorable person who was arguing for his product to be introduced to our children,if he had made any scientific study which confirms his claim and if it was so then what has been the improvement in the performance of the children. The answer was yes, but unfortunately that person never came back to us. So, the parents must understand that whatever children learn in the natural environment is the most enduring and enjoyable by the kids. Costly games and all artificial things may not help our children rather will help the companies which market them. Very rightly said by somebody that Einstein never used flash cards but still contributed the best to the society.