Freedom word sounds very liberating and often scary. the struggle comes when it comes to “freedom with responsibility”. I take freedom to use resource the way I want to, what about the responsibility to care for that resource?
I take freedom to choose what I want to do (comfort zone), but what about the responsibleness of what I need to (challenging goal)? Freedom is not free, it comes with a cost. Cost to challenge myself, cost of discomfort for me.
Often it is scary for parents “freedom to do what I want to do” and “what if the child does not choose what the child needs to work on. When the need to work on maths, science hindi, english, history come from our own thinking…………there is no freedom. When the need to work on the same topics from child’s own thinking , there is freedom. When the need to work on challenge comes from child’s own experiences – there is freedom.
So what do we do?
- Shall we not create challenges for the children?
- Shall we not push them to learn other topics (other that their own comfort zone)?
My answer is – We do all the above, but with the focus on “thinking” rather than the topic itself or with the goal to teach them the topic. We can teach them subject but we need to make them experience their own thinking. When the need comes from my own thinmging 0 there is freedom.
So instead of worrying about freedom and not pushing them, let us push them to achieve “freedom with responsibility”.