Children: Inquisitive Minds

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 
― Albert Einstein

Being a father of three, I have always been extremely captivated by my children. Watching them growing up is both fascinating as well as educational.

Naturally inquisitive and creative, one can learn a lot from these tiny beings who scamper around the house shoving their fingers into sockets, touching hot irons and keeping their parents on perpetual alert mode for their safety.

However, even though the natural tendency is to admonish them and stop them from repeating their ‘follies’, what one is actually doing is curbing the natural curiosity that the child is born with.

Experiences are life’s best teachers and it is especially important for such growing minds to explore and experience more in order for them to understand the world around them. This not only helps in their overall growth but also instills the beginnings of innovation in them. Therefore, it is no wonder that children can sometimes find brilliant solutions to problems that leave adults completely baffled.

This, thus, brings to mind one incident when I, completely bamboozled by how to open a jar of jam, was trying various means of prying, pulling and pushing with all my strength to no avail. It was then, completely defeated, that I approached my wife, only to have my little one look at me in disdain, grab the bottle from my hands, plonk it into a pan of hot water and watch the lid come off with a ‘pop’.

Astounded, I bent down for an explanation. What I learned was something to keep in mind for the rest of my life.

Having submerged miscellaneous containers and toys in his hot bath water every day, my little boy had observed that sometimes the lids of his said toys would open up with a ‘pop’! So, the basics of physics (of expansion being caused by heat and contraction by cooling) which one learns from textbooks in probably high school was applied in practicality by my infant son, using only his curiosity as a tool.

Children are natural investigators who are not fearful of dreaming. They question the workings of everyday things that adults usually accept as the norm. Learning from them, one must too try rekindling their primal instinct of experimenting, questioning and innovating to be able to thrive in this ever-changing world.

So, allow your children to experiment and question, let them play in the sandbox and chase after ducks. Provide them with the opportunity to innovate and learn from them the life skills that will enable us to together change the world.

After all,

“The soul is healed by being with children.” 
― Fyodor Dostoevsky