Often asked what if a child does not know what he/ she likes?
Here is a small story
After a couple of weeks spent at the campus, one child with tears and anger expressed “I don’t know what I want to learn”.
The conversation was full of ” I can’t do this because…I know I am not good at this…I can never do this for sure….”
Well,we began with a few random things the child could do
Learn five new words
Practice handwriting
Watch telescope
Water painting
We discussed further
- For new words – Read a book of your choice (child choose spiritual) and find words you don’t know. Spend time in the library to find a book of your choice
- For handwriting – Write letters about spirituality to practice handwriting (the child feels that writing is better when writing letters) and write a journal
- Use Binoculars, Magnifying glass, and microscope to look through (the sky is cloudy, can’t see many stars), and also explore night sky and telescope.
- Paint on walls/papers
- Listen toBhajanand useTallamwith singing while listening to the music (bhajans)
- Explore Origami
- Explore different crafts to make and create – use books to create
- Make greeting cards/bookmarks
- Do cooking
- Play with puppets and make puppets
- Play with volume mugs (to explore different volume measurements)
- Stitchingown way, own creations
Few things suggested to the child
- Tell your mind you are capable (the child has many stories of why can’t do that)
- When you do new things, you may find a few things tough – ask for help from us and from your peers. This will help to you to stay with something, not give upand also learn new things. Once you learn new things you may feel good about yourself
Suggested to parents
- Do spend time with the child on daily and weekly basis – what was new, what was challenging, what made you feel achieved, what was joyful, what was tough, what was a repeat and so on
- On a weekly basis do discuss weekly planning – how is the looking at the next week, new things new skills, comfortable, challenging, and so on.
The child began the journey…next day for two hours washed clothes, took part in shadow puppetry, went for fitness, prepared news for a reporter, looked for a book, went for a meditation session, listened to Bhajans and ….and after a week…still not started with new words, finding a book, paint on wall, did not even look at how binoculars look, did not touch thread to stitch, have no idea about paper folding…but got the idea that one can think “what I want to do?”