10 basic needs of children going unmet today

What are some of the basic needs of children that are going largely unmet today?

1. Need for silence: Children need silence to stay calm and alert. But from the time they are born in urban houses, their fragile senses are subjected to assault from noises from various sources – the blaring TV, constant chatter by adults, the road traffic, construction work next door, noisy battery toys that we buy for them, etc. Noise is the first thing that frustrates children. When children wake up from their sleep they like to have a quiet morning and ease into the day. Just like we adults do. But very often, we start talking to them, exciting them about a surprise waiting for them in the living room, blaming them for being ‘late’ to school, and on and on. A noisy start is already enough for a child to start feeling frustrated. 

Try being by your child’s side when she wakes up, and spending some quiet loving time on the bed until your child utters the first word. (For a chatty parent like me, this is hard! But when I manage to pull it off, it is sublime. :) This silence that we have started the day with (and reducing, if not eliminating, all noises) can then hold the space for anxiety-free and safe times. We also become more alive to the subtle sounds of nature – the rustle of leaves, bird calls, the rain, the breeze. These natural sounds make their way into the child’s soul and make it sing.    

2. Need to feel trusted: All children have a need to feel trusted. Constantly telling them “See, you are going to break it!”, “You might lose it”, “You will fall”, etc. makes this basic need unmet and frustrates them when they are actually feeling ‘Can’t you trust me that I will do my best?’ And when they do break it, lose it or fall, it is worse to tell them ‘See, I told you!’ Their egos get their final bashing with that comment. If we turn this around and tell our children ‘You can do it!’ and trust them with small things and if they mess up assure them by saying ‘It’s ok. We all mess up at times. You can try again’ we can actually help our children become self-confident and trustworthy. Like someone said 'The confidence of childhood is a fragile thing. It can be preserved or destroyed in an instant.' 

When children grow up feeling untrustworthy and lacking self-confidence, another voice in their heads grows louder and louder. It is our voice telling them ‘You will fail!’ that won’t allow them to try out anything new for fear of failure. How can one expect a child that grows up with this fear, to ‘learn naturally’?

We need not trust our children with 1,000 rupee notes, expensive stuff and risky feats. How about beginning with small things that are really ok to be lost or broken? I usually give the bus ticket to Isha when we travel together. She holds on to it tightly and has almost always kept it very safe. I’ve sometimes noticed her holding on to a tattered  piece of paper, an hour after our bus journey was over. When asked why she’d say “You never asked for it back!” One or two times when she does let it slip out of her hands, I make sure she does not feel bad about it.

Isha is a natural climber. One of her dreams is to be able to climb the coconut tree and 'pluck tender coconut for amma’. She is usually very sure-footed and careful while climbing. Once, she slipped and fell off a jungle-gym from a height of about 7 feet. Both Rajeev and I got concerned since Isha didn’t stop crying for a long time. We made her talk, walk, move her arms and made sure there wasn’t any major injury. After a while, Isha stopped crying and felt comforted. She turned around and looked at the jungle-gym from where she fell. Though we both felt tempted to say ‘If you climb again you will fall!’ we managed to not yield in to it. Instead, we asked her ‘Do you want to try climbing once again, this time more carefully?’ She enthusiastically nodded, ‘Yes!’ and did climb for a bit and held on to the bar extra-tightly this time.

Children are, many times, naturally willing to trust their own ability and ‘try again’. If we don’t come in their way, and if possible, reinforce it in them, we won’t have to tell them the story of ‘the king who took inspiration from the spider, tried several times and then won a battle’ when they grow up. They can at times get frustrated about not getting something. Like an infant trying to open a bottle when her motor skills are not developed enough to do it. At those times, we can wait until they reach the point of their frustration and then gently assist them to open it with them. Every time children feel trusted, they learn to trust themselves more, in turn opening up to natural learning.

3. Need for respect: Children are persons too, with a sense of who they are and what they’d like and don’t like. Just like us. Many times, we don’t realize this and take them for granted. When children tell us they don’t want to eat a certain food, we often don’t give them a choice about it. We often threaten or bribe them into eating certain foods they don't want to. This may give us short-term results, but is actually harmful in the long run. Apparently, some research shows that girl children who are forcibly fed when they are children have a hard time saying ‘No!’ when they grow up, and hence more easily succumb to abuse of all kinds. How interesting!

Again, respecting children does not mean giving in to all their tantrums. Respecting them in a real sense is also showing that they need to respect others too. In an equal partnership, it is only when the parents learn to claim their respect (respectfully) the child will really learn to be respectful of both herself and others!  

4. Need for participating in adult’s world and contributing

It is we adults who have separated the child’s world from ours; work from play. Children know only one world – a meaningful world of exploring, creating, celebrating and collaborating. They know only one life, where work and play, living, doing and learning are one and the same.

Children learn by observing adults who are engrossed in what they are doing. They get curious about what they see all around them and participating in them. But today’s homes can be so frustrating for children from the time they are born. First of all, we keep them in closed rooms with walls all around them. And because we feel sad about their having to stare at the walls, we buy them brightly coloured mobiles (toys that look like merry-go-rounds) and colour their rooms with bright colours. These colours can be over-stimulating and be an assault on the visual sense. Over-stimulation can excite the child in an unnatural way and can be harmful, contrary to the belief that it leads to brain development!

When children start crawling and walking, they find that all windows are beyond their eye-level. Doorways are forbidden to be crossed. Dining tables, cooking counters and desks are beyond their reach. At an age when they are waiting to go out there and explore their world sensorially, can you imagine how frustrating being unnaturally ‘locked up’ can be? These holes (plug points) on the wall look curious, but they are ‘dangerous’ and hence forbidden too. The shoes on the shoe stand, many times the only things at their eye level, are forbidden too! It is tempting to reach for all the stuff on the tables, climb on to the window sill to peep out, but they are forbidden too. How frustrating!

When they grow a little older, they start seeking to be part of the adult world and learning by doing with us. But urban adults don’t do anything interesting in their day-to-day lives anymore! We have machines and maids to do most of the work. And entering the kitchen is declared as “not for children”. Just like we adults try to kill our boredom with entertainment – on the computer, TV or phones, we buy children lots of toys. But these can seem like occupying them for a while. Those of us who can see how they can be harmful, buy ‘educational toys and CDs’ hoping that our children are also learning something in the process. It is called ‘edutainment’ these days. Their minds get numbed, hypnotized and stunned, and many times get addicted to these. That does not mean their needs are getting met. A child may get addicted to junk food and crave for it, but that does not mean it is meeting the child’s real needs.

As a parent who is interested in ‘natural learning’, I am increasingly needing to look into how I lead my own life. We don’t have a TV at home, nor do we buy toys – other than those that get handed down or gifted. When given a choice between playing with her toys and ‘working with amma or appa’ Isha many times prefers the latter.

At two-and-half, here is a list of things she can do. She can apply oil on to the idli plates and pour batter into it. She likes to roll rotis and then pass them onto me to be made thinner. She likes to organize washed dishes and put them away in their respective places. She likes to fold small clothes. She likes to put washed clothes on the clothes line, and then put clips on them. She likes to sweep and mop. She likes to put ‘kolam’ (rangoli) and has a great time playing in haldi and rice flour! She likes to measure rice and dal for soaking. She can cut soft vegetables and fruits using a blunt knife, after which I take over to cut them into smaller pieces. She likes to water the plants. And each of these tasks can take about five times longer than it would if we did it by ourselves, and many times messier. It requires at least one parent to have all the patience and time in the world to do it. How is this possible? (We’ll look at this question in greater detail in a later post.)       

5. Need for their time and space

Children need to have all the time in the world to be engrossed in whatever they are doing without being hurried, or being told “Enough, now do this!” As a parent, I know this is not easy especially when you are in a hurry to finish something or get somewhere. But these should be exceptions rather than the norm! (During these times, we make sure that we explain why we needed to pull her away from something and apologise to her.) Otherwise, if she wants to play with her haldi powder for hours, it is perfectly ok! Having said this, even I have a tendency to interfere unnecessarily and catch myself wanting to be the ‘all-knowing’ and ‘controlling’ mother. Not being allowed to complete a task (or game, as we see it) for no apparent reason, can be very frustrating for children.   

6. Need for uninhibited expression

Expression can be in the form of dancing, singing, speaking, drawing, writing and painting. Children are often ‘taught’ how to dance, sing, speak, draw, write and paint. Rules are given to them. When they want to express ‘out of this rule box’ they are 'corrected’. I once witnessed a little girl dancing with beautiful body movements, and her parents constantly kept commenting saying ‘That’s not how it is done! Can you please change your movement, you’ve repeated it so many times!’ and on and on. This voice that keeps ‘correcting and instructing’ them is not at all helpful. Very soon, all forms of expression will be trained to ‘conduct themselves based on what is popularly accepted and validated’ through the noisy mind. And that can never be true art. True art exists only when the artist (i.e. his noisy small mind) disappears.

How about dedicating a wall in the house for painting, drawing, doodling, writing? If you have a tiled terrace floor, it is an excellent canvass for chalk-piece drawing! If we don’t correct or comment on our children’s expression, it will come alive in its own unique form and style. Children will learn their grammar and rules at an appropriate time and pace on their own, with some facilitation. When they begin to express is not the time for correction. ‘Dor’ is a valid spelling for ‘door’, and ‘madar’ is a valid spelling for ‘mother’ in their world! Isha has just begun to speak English. When she says, "I no come play", we ask her "Oh, you don't want to come play now?" she says "Yes, I don't come now!" And I am learning to see this as 'perfectly fine'. :)

Children have a need for expressing themselves physically. They need physical space where they can run about freely and scream their lungs out, which is usually outdoors. Whenever Isha wants to run about and and scream out aloud, she gets to do it as long as it does not disturb anybody. And so, when we really request her to be quiet, she usually respects it and is cooperative.

7. Need for creating

Children have a basic need to create with their beings - their bodies, their voices and their minds. They’d rather make their own toys than have ready-made ones given to them. Give them clay or cardboard (and scissors) and watch their excitement when they make their own toys – which are actually objects that they relate to in a real sense. Participating in work that is creative – food preparation, gardening, etc. fulfills this real need too. There are lots of tutorials available at arvindguptatoys.com to make toys. The joy of creating also applies to 'stories' and 'songs'. Sometimes, Isha and I have conversations like songs, following popular tunes that she likes - 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'Amma Inge Vaa Vaa'.

8. Need for communing with nature

Children have a basic need to stay connected to nature. Nature does not live in the forests alone. Nature lives in the rain, the garden soil, the roadside plants and seeds, avenue trees, birds that visit our window sills, lizards and ants roaming inside our homes, the sunlight that streams in through the window, the stars and the moon that fill the night sky on the terrace, stray butterflies, moths and dragonflies that land in our rooms. Even silver fish, termites, cockroaches and rats are fascinating, if you are willing to separate the issues at hand here! The list is endless, if only we are open to welcoming and receiving them into our lives. But very often we tell our children that soil is ‘dirty’, the lizard is ‘disgusting’, the rain can ‘make us sick’, the insects will ‘bite us’, being exposed to sunlight will ‘tan us’…. And do all that we can to develop animosity in them towards nature. It is worth asking ourselves if we are doing it because our need for communing with nature was unmet and trivialized when we were young!    

Isha is most fascinated by lizards. When she finds one on the wall, she goes around the house looking for the kutti paappa palli (baby lizard). In her world, when there is an adult animal, it is invariably the mother and there has to be a baby somewhere nearby! If she happens to spot another adult, she’d consider calling it the father. Apart from all the small ways that we try and connect to nature from our urban home, we go on these long walks in the IIT-Madras and Theosophical Society campuses, which are the green lungs of Chennai. Isha leads the way taking us to all sorts of things from the spotted deer to the tiny mosses that usually go unnoticed. We make sure that we are well fed, energetic and don’t have anything else planned on these special days, so we don’t have to rush through anything and think of getting anywhere else. A three-kilometre walk could take us anywhere between three and five hours!

9. Need for love and touch

All children have a basic need to be touched and held. They feel safe, protected and loved when they are. Meeting this basic need is also very important. Going with this is a deep acceptance of their sadness, crying, anger, etc. whenever they get expressed. "Are you angry because you couldn't get that ball? I understand. I feel that way too when I don't get something I wanted. "Acknowledging, helping them verbalise and accepting their unpleasant emotions helps them learn to get in touch with them, and use these emotions in powerful, constructive and liberating ways.

10. Need for communing with people

We see that some children are extroverted and some are naturally introverted. It is easy to understand that extroverted children need the company of other kids and people in general. However, introverted children also need the company of people in a different way. Every being has a need to feel connected to life. They just aren’t ready to connect to people openly and verbally. But they too seek quiet companionship, when they are left alone (without being bothered too much) but held with understanding and love. They flower in their own unique way, like a bud that blooms very quietly.

But this is also a very tricky area. There are all kinds of people in our lives. Children have a need to be treated respectfully and lovingly, and so communities, families (basically people spaces) where this is lived is usually where children feel safe and nourished. In the cities, it is very hard to find meaningful people spaces, which Isha remembers fondly and asks to be taken to. Many homes are usually blaring with TV noises. Young children (her playmates) are many times aggressive. Many times, adults violate her space and talk down to her. Isha plays with many different children – our neighbours and friends’ kids. They do have sweet innocent play times with joy and laughter. Alongside, many times even 4 or 5 year old kids behave with her like how adults behave with them - provoking, manipulating, bribing, correcting and shaming her. Remember, children imbibe adults’ ways! So our options may be very limited. And that is why it is important to reach out and connect to people who look at their children and their role in their lives differently.

If you bring her up so protectively, how will she learn to deal with all kinds of people?

She is far too young, vulnerable and impressionable to be able to protect herself physically or emotionally. She is like a tiny sapling with great potential, just like a tiny seed the size of a mustard holding the potential to grow into a banyan tree! In these foundational years, it is important to stay protected from danger, just like we sow seeds in a nursey or plant a hedge / put a tree guard around a young plant. The belief is that as she grows older, she will learn to deal with the world from a safe, secure base more confidently, firmly and lovingly. Here is an example.

Indian parents know very well how we adults like to pinch the cheeks of babies and young children. Even when Isha and I are waiting at a bus stop, passers by don’t hesitate to stop for a second, pinch her cheeks saying ‘So cute!’ and go. Isha hates it everytime somebody does that to her. If you think about it, it is actually such a physical violation of children's spaces, and they grow up thinking that it’s the norm. Earlier, she used to cry and get upset every time someone did that to her. Then, we used to step in to tell people not to do that to her. (It is our duty to speak up for these vulnerable beings, who trust us and look to our protection.) As she grew a little older, we started explaining to her that people actually did that because they liked her and they didn’t know that she didn't like it. ‘How about telling them that yourself? If people want to connect to you, what do you feel comfortable doing?’ She said ‘They can shake hand with me!’ So these days, she tells people 'Apdi Pannatheenga. Enakku Pidikkathu' (Don't do that. I don't like it.) And then people invariably back off feeling surprised, sometimes offended, sometimes appreciating her confidence. We step in to suggest that they shake hands with her, which restores the smile on everybody's face. :)

Natural Learning - FAQs 2

If saying ‘No’ comes in the way of learning, does it have any place at all in parenting / educating a child?

But can we examine every single time the voice in our head screams ‘No’? Can we put a check post, stop it every time and ask ‘But why?’ and then see if it is worth it? Walking on the road without holding an adult’s hand, doing anything near a gas stove, playing with currency notes, breaking stuff, etc. are a strict ‘No’ for Isha. She usually respects the ‘No’s because we have established a pattern where we don’t say it unless we absolutely mean it. We normally don’t misuse our power to say ‘No’.

Kids are usually reasonable when we adults are reasonable with them. Times when they are cranky from hunger and sleepiness are usually exceptions! Excepting those times, Isha almost always checks with us when she sees new things "Is this safe to use? Can I drink this water? Can I climb on this?" It is amazing how children really trust us with our power to say ‘No’, if we learn to use it sparingly and responsibly. And we absolutely mean it every time we do. This means that once we have said ‘No’, it is usually non-negotiable. No yielding in to manipulation by the child. Of course, this is not a rigid rule, but a general one.  

Again, what does all this have to do with ‘natural learning’?

Only a free mind can learn freely. An anxious and frustrated mind becomes guarded and resists learning. Remember we talked about how children taken out of school invariably ‘shut down’ initially when left alone? They are basically working on unconsciously ‘freeing their mind’ so that natural learning can then take over!

Freedom for children does not mean ‘completely disengaging from their lives and worlds’ and letting them do whatever they want to and however. We need to learn to engage with their worlds on completely new terms; on the terms of ‘equal partnership’. Yes, as parents, we need to build a healthy partnership, where we are both equal participants.

In a parent-child relationship, we are naturally given more physical power over our children. We may be tempted to misuse this by turning it into authoritative power by raising our voices, deciding for our children, manipulating them, etc. But, that does not help build partnership. And unless we become partners with our children, we cannot enable a meaningful process of natural learning.

Can you give some examples of how to build partnership with our children? What would it look like?

To build effective partnership, we need to respect our children and earn their respect as well. We need to trust our children, and earn their trust as well. We need to give them their space, and claim our space as well. We need to insist on their keeping their word, and keep our word with them as well. We need to help them understand their boundaries with other people, and assert our boundaries with them as well.

Equality does not mean that a child’s and the parent’s ability to do everything is the same. Equality in a healthy partnership between child and parent would look like this: both of them would have equal freedom to point out if the other makes a mistake and have it be accepted gracefully. Equal partnership helps establish safe and respectful spaces which enable ‘natural learning’. 

Other than to allow a child to be curious and explore, what else encourages a free mind?

Children have a certain set of basic needs. If they are met, then the mind remains free. Unmet needs often lead to fear and frustration. They in turn lead to withdrawal and aggression. How often do we see young children who are exuberant and joyful in a quiet way? They are mostly either withdrawn or boisterous and aggressive. Don't we see more aggressive kids these days than we used to? Many of us brush it off as ‘some inexplicable phenomenon’. But the fact is that the present day urban lifestyle is designed to breed frustration, and hence aggression. I notice that girls are usually withdrawn and whiny, and boys boisterous and aggressive. May be due to a combination of biological and cultural reasons!

What are children’s ‘real needs’? How are they going unmet? How can they be met?

Warning: Agreeing to undertake this journey from this point on would need us adults to start looking into ourselves, our ideas, beliefs and priorities in life, be willing to unlearn many things. Many times, we would need to be willing to look to our children to lead the way for us. As we understand the following needs of our children, we will begin to slowly realize that most of them are actually our basic needs as adults too. We will also begin to realize how these needs were very often unmet when we were children, and how much pain it has caused us unconsciously.

But the good news is that if we really understood children’s needs, we can make way for our children to inspire us and help us get in touch with and heal from this pain in ourselves. As parents who are already on the path led by our daughter, we can assure you that it has been absolutely fascinating and rewarding! Very intense, nevertheless.

Before moving on to understanding children and their needs, I’d like to share how we see our daughter and all children in general. Isha is really a spirit that has come seeking bodily experience, and not a body seeking spiritual experience. She has come seeking a unique set of experiences, to learn a unique set of lessons in order to fulfill a unique life purpose. Like every other child has. So, she has come with a certain inner knowing about what these are. Though there are some basic needs common to all children (which we, as parents, have some control over), needs also vary from one child to another based on the kind of life experience they have come here seeking (which we may not have control over). But what we can do effectively is to prevent things from disconnecting her from her inner knowing, not add noise to her life and head.

Before proceeding any further, I'd like for us to read Kahlil Gibran's words on 'Children'. It is a beautiful passage that I begin many of my days with!

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Natural Learning - FAQs 1

At home, she gets very bored with nothing to do. I don’t know how to keep her sufficiently engaged.

Quite obviously! If we sow seeds on a piece of land where the fertile top soil has been completely eroded, we cannot expect to sit back and expect 'natural farming' to happen. Similarly, we cannot expect ‘natural learning’ to happen while living in nuclear families and unnatural apartment environments, which offer very little that is meaningful for our children to draw inspiration and learn from. If you think about it, this is the first time in known human history that humans are living in pairs boxed up in concrete houses, without an apparent need to know their neighbours even!

How about entertainment? Of course we are not talking about mindless TV programs. How about educational cartoons, books, the discovery channel, etc.?

What would happen if we start correcting the problem of infertile soil by feeding the plants with chemical fertilizer? The soil’s fertility will reduce even further. The plants too will get bloated with salts and water, and become more prone to disease and pest attack. (Applying organic fertilizer is definitely better than this, but again unsustainable and expensive if bought from outside the farm.)

In the same way, to kill our children’s boredom, we have invented entertainment of different kinds. Like junk food cannot satisfy the nutritional needs of the body, entertainment cannot satisfy the learning needs of the mind. But both junk food and entertainment (like chemical fertilizer) are addictive by nature, producing sick and obese people, who are prone to physical and psychological diseases and disorders. 

Yes, this includes even educational entertainment or ‘edutainment’ as it is called these days. Irrespective of the content of the cartoons, books or other TV programs, the mind is passively processing images and information given to it, without any kind of active participation. That is the last thing that the mind is seeking. It craves for real contexts, real experiences and sensorial interactive learning, which is quite the opposite of what even edutainment can provide. Carefully chosen educational programs can be used sparingly to supplement real learning. But without exception, it can never be a substitute for natural learning.

Certain toys like building blocks are definitely much better. But even they come next only to ordinary articles of daily use and ordinary materials like containers, sheets, stones, twigs, etc. that they learn to use creatively. Books may be good for older children. It is best to keep books and images away from young children and help them experience everything with their five senses. Even stories that are told orally rather than shown with pictures are better for the child to develop her imagination.

A more sensible approach with plants, then, is to build the soil with organic matter, which will make it come alive with microorganisms, insects, reptiles and eventually birds. Soon a rich and thriving ecosystem will evolve where the plants can then live and grow naturally. Likewise, in the case of children, we need to create vibrant and diverse ecosystems, which will enable natural learning.

How do we go about creating these ‘vibrant and diverse’ ecosystems living in the cities?  

One thing is to dream up ideal living and learning environments for our children and for ourselves, which will amount to dreaming up another world. This is an important task in our hands, but we’ll save this for later. Fortunately, unlike plants, we are mobile. So, creating ‘natural learning’ environments for children can be achieved with some amount of mobility and traveling to many existing spaces. But even within our own homes, there are so many possibilities and opportunities for natural learning that we could pay more attention to. Yes, without TVs, computers and toys. Let's start with those!

What kinds of spaces and activities are you talking about, inside and outside home?

I am not yet ready to start making a list of spaces and activities for our children at home and outside. I will, in a bit. But there is a more important and challenging step to be followed even before that. And that is to ‘step back’. My teacher Fukuoka called it ‘Do-nothing’. ‘Stop doing.’  

Stop doing what?

Stop coming in the way of life! Stop the voice in our heads that does that!! Something that happened yesterday will help me explain this.

Isha carefully walked up to one corner of our living room and sat down on the floor. This was a relatively unswept area of the room and had a few cob-webs too. The voice in my head immediately said 'Isha, don't go sit in that corner. It is dirty. Come here!' with a disgusted look on my face. Thankfully, I caught the voice before the words were uttered and asked Isha 'What are you doing sitting in that corner?' genuinely interested in knowing what it was that took her there! Isha said, 'Amma, look at this spider!' with an excitement that was really contagious. I started looking with fascination at this otherwise ordinary everyday creature! The shared experience was something special. I gently left Isha alone with her spider and got on with my work. She spent a good half-hour watching it and following it wherever it went. Of course, her hair had to be cleaned and her clothes changed for they were full of dust and cobwebs. But hey, it was well worth it! :)

(You can read another related story about getting wet in the rain here!)

The moment children are born, we see that they have already learnt to do so many things. Like breathing, for instance. And they continue to learn so many things everyday. They shake their arms and legs, they learn to turn over, to sit, to crawl, to stand up, to walk, etc. All of this learning is completely biologically driven.

We never tell babies “Ok, now shake your legs and arms.” We know they won’t unless they decide to. We never tell them “Now, don’t shake your arms and legs! Be still.” We just let them be. Have you noticed that babies can laugh more joyfully and effortlessly, (even when compared to a three-year old) because they are allowed to ‘just be’? Now, might there be a connection between their sense of freedom, their joy and their learning?

Children are effortlessly ‘learning naturally’, just like they are breathing. But as they grow older, when they are ‘just being’ curious, expressive, participatory, exploratory, we thwart their freedom - life and learning - with the one word ‘No!’ that we repeat so many times every day in so many different ways. We need to stop that!

I want to share two more stories here.

Sometime last month, I was waiting with Isha for a doctor's appointment (for my sister's leg fracture). The wait was in an outdoor garden. An old lady had come with her grandson. He picked up an interesting looking pod that had fallen on the ground and began to examine it. The grandmother immediately shouted at him and said 'Chee, Chee! Drop that now! It's dirty.' A few seconds later, Isha went and picked it up and the lady told Isha the same thing. I stepped in and told her 'It's really okay for her to keep it and play with it. It is just soil, after all!' The lady did back off on hearing that. A few moments later, the boy hesitantly picked up another pod from the soil and saw that the grandmother didn't say anything this time. After a few moments, the old lady asked her grandson 'Can you give it to me for a second? I'd like to see what it is!' with a childlike curiosity and a smile on her face! 

It is quite something to watch what happens when someone gives us (young and old) the license to be curious and explore. Everybody is waiting to be given the license to be a child, and 'learn naturally'. :) This is what I mean by 'the flow of life'.

This morning, Manish, Isha's 6 year old friend and Isha were playing at home. A few pieces of ice that had been removed from the freezer were kept in a large container. Isha went to it and picked it up in her hands. Manish went to Isha and said in a big-brotherly tone "Isha, drop it. Don't touch it. It's not good for you." Isha refused to listen to him. I told Manish, 'It's ok for her to play with it. Nothing will happen.' In a few seconds, Manish started playing with the ice saying 'Isha, jolly-a irukku ille? (Isn't this a lot of fun?)' and inventing cute ice-games between each other. They both spent about five to ten minutes with the ice and had had a new experience with it. Every new experience of a fresh and free mind is learning. With our limited minds, we adults may not be able to understand and measure these 'learnings', however hard we try to.

Yes, as the first step, even before we start thinking about‘what we should be doing to enable natural learning’, we need to understand ‘what we should stop doing to allow natural learning’.

Natural Learning - Some clarifications and disclaimers

Peace, not comfort. Healthy discomfort, not conflict

Whatever I am writing about the ‘way forward’ is my vision for our children, for our families, for the world. I have a strong critique about many things we are not doing right as parents and as a society. But I also fully acknowledge that we are living in very challenging times, with lots of constraints and pressures. It is not easy to follow even things that we have deep convictions about. For all our critique of the TV (and not having one at home), Rajeev and I resort to suggesting to Isha that she watch ‘Dora’ on the laptop when we absolutely need our space and time and don’t have a baby-sitter! This is a unique challenge that nuclear-family living presents us with. 

It is very easy to start feeling inadequate about ourselves as parents and then feel guilty. Over the past few months, I’ve received many mails from parents who have consistently expressed this feeling. I, as a mother, am no exception to this emotional phenomenon either! My appeal to all of us is to be compassionate towards ourselves and not beat ourselves up. It can be draining and unproductive. Having said that, it is easy to also become complacent and say “Yeah, whatever! I’m sure they’ll turn out fine” feeling too comfortable where we are to look for change. In one line, we need to make peace with what we are and what we have, and not get very comfortable settling down there. We mustn’t let healthy discomfort turn into conflict either! Yes, it is indeed a very fine line that we must walk. What does it take to do that? 

Keep the questions alive in us. Pursue them sincerely one moment at a time. Acknowledge that we did our best in the previous moment. Strive for something better in the next. Continue to have conversations around important questions. Take slow and sure steps that don’t hurt us. Some steps may need to be baby steps and some others, giant leaps. For, someone said “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps!”

Roadmaps, not blueprints!

These steps, big and small, may be different for each parent, depending on where they are with many things – family situation, financial situation, living context, their own clarity on things, parents’ needs, etc. So, let’s not work on any kind of a blueprint for our lives. Let’s build a vision for ourselves as families and communities. Then, let’s make roadmaps to guide ourselves in our unique journeys. And share our unique journeys with each other, so we can inspire and collaborate with each other in meaningful ways. This is our approach as parents.

Our daughter is only two-and-half years old! This means that our direct experience in parenting is only that old. But both Rajeev and I have been interested in understanding ‘conscious parenting’ and ‘learning’ for over a decade now. We have been actively pursuing our own unlearning and learning through conversations with parents and educators, reading, watching films, reflecting on our own schooling and life experience in general, visiting alternative schools, etc. What I am writing is based on all the ‘Aha! moments’ I have had based on what I’ve been able to assimilate from all these put together!

Yes, Isha is special. Just like every single child on this earth is!

On reading the following stories I have shared about Isha, if you get the idea that she is an unusually super kid who is exceptional, then you might have missed the point completely. We are only sharing a story about what is possible when a child is free and parents are sincerely aspiring to tune in to a process that is very natural. Every child is special and is waiting to express and use her intelligence in her own unique way. It is said that though intelligence is fundamentally one, it can get expressed in as many as seven different forms. 

·        Visual / Spatial – ability to understand and produce images

·        Verbal / Linguistic – ability to use words and language

·        Logical / Mathematical - ability to use reason, logic and numbers

·        Bodily / Kinesthetic - ability to use body movements and handle objects skillfully

·        Musical /  Rhythmic - ability to produce and appreciate music

·        Interpersonal - ability to relate to and understand others
·        Intrapersonal - ability to self-reflect and be aware of one’s inner state of being  

Having become subservient to ‘industrialisation’, our civilization has artificially ended up valuing logical and linguistic abilities over all others, and hence the emphasis on ‘Maths and English’ over the others. If we were to change that and value all forms and expressions of intelligence equally, then we will see that every child is intelligent and special, and capable of the most extraordinary of things! So friends, this is not Isha’s and our special story. We are merely sharing our experiment and experience as honestly as possible to see if it can inspire more such experiments in ‘tuning in’ to something that already exists.

Lastly, I have used 'I' and 'we' interchangeably since my husband and I are largely in sync about our philosophy of learning and living. Of course, with minor differences in opinions about details here and there. With ongoing enriching conversations about fresh insights, new experiences and new questions. :)

Will continue with FAQs in the next post.

Swami Vivekananda on Education

Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man.

Knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man “knows” should, in strict psychological language, be what he “discovers” or “unveils”. What a man “learns” is really what he “discovers” by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. The plant develops its own nature. The child also teaches itself. But you can help it to go forward in its own way. What you can do is not of a positive nature but negative. You can take away the obstacles, and knowledge comes out of its own nature. Loosen the soil a little, so that it may come out easily. Put a hedge around it; see that it is not killed by anything. You can supply the growing seed with the materials for the making up of its body, bringing to it the earth, the water, the air that it wants. And there your work stops. It will take all that it wants by its own nature. So, with the education of the child. A child educates itself. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Within man is all knowledge, and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of the teacher. We have only to do so much for the boys that they may learn to apply their own intellect to the proper use of their hands, legs, ears and eyes.

Liberty is the first condition of growth. It is wrong, a thousand times wrong, if any of you dares to say, ‘I will work out the salvation of this woman or child.’ Hands off! They will solve their own problems. Who are you to assume that you know everything? How dare you think that you have the right over God? For, don’t you know that every soul is the Soul of God? Look upon everyone as God. You can only serve. Serve the children of the Lord if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any of His children, blessed you are. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship.

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilating of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. If education were identical with information, the libraries would be the greatest sages in the world and encyclopedias the rishis. To me, the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collection of facts. If I had to do my education once again, I would not study facts at all. I would develop the power of concentration and detachment, and then with a perfect instrument, collect facts at will.

Are you educated? Getting by heart the thoughts of others in a foreign language and stuffing your brain with them and getting some university degrees, you consider yourself educated. Is this education? What is the goal of your education? Either clerkship, or being a lawyer, or at the most a Deputy Magistrate, which is another form of clerkship – isn’t that all? What good will it do to you or to the country at large? Open your eyes and see what a piteous cry for food is rising in the land of Bharata, proverbial for its food. Will your education fulfill this want? The education that does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy and the courage of a lion – is it worth the name?

Worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly. Love him all you will, but think for yourself. With the teacher, our relationship is the same as that between and ancestor and his descendent. Without faith, humility, submission and veneration in our hearts towards the teacher, there cannot be any growth in us. In those countries which have neglected to keep up this kind of relation, the teacher has become a mere lecturer; the teacher expecting his five dollars and the person taught expecting his brain to be filled with the teacher’s words and each going his own way after this much is done. But too much faith in personality has a tendency to produce weakness and idolatry. Worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly. Love him all you will, but think for yourself.

When there is no holiday, everyone is teacher, everything is resource and everywhere is school! Part 2

I never expected such a spate of emails to land in my inbox from parents who read and resonated with my first blog-post on homeschooling! It's been a wonderful journey connecting to so many of them over the past couple of months. Here is another set of FAQs based on questions I have been asked. 

If ‘homeschooling’ is not what you want to do, then do u want to do ‘unschooling’?

Different parents have different philosophies and approaches. In the ‘homeschooling’ approach, parents decide to replace the school by the home, so that subjects can be learnt without the stress of the school. This also gives them time to pursue other things. Specific syllabus is defined and covered in different subjects. The children are prepared to write exams to go to college. And so on. There is a wide spectrum even among these parents. Some are more goal-driven than others. Some are more structured than others. 

‘Unschooling / deschooling’ is a term used to talk about the process of de-conditioning the mind. For those who use this term, ‘schooling’ stands for a process of conditioning of the mind by being told what to believe without questioning. Schooling happens not just in schools, but also in the family and community, where elders (who are themselved conditioned) thrust their ideas and thoughts onto the children’s minds. They could be 'western values', a certain notion of ‘success’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘scientific progress’, a certain idea about our history, etc. without enabling or allowing the mind to go through its own process of exploration and discovery. In this context, the terms 'unschooling' and 'deschooling' are used to denote a process where learning is taken back in one’s own hands, i.e. beginning a whole new process of learning on one’s own terms. This involves reconnecting with our own sense of intuition, listening to our inner voice and then rigorously scrutinizing all that we believe to be ‘our ideas and thoughts’. (For instance, "Dams are temples of modern India." or "Traditional India was backward in Science and Technology".) Ivan Illich, a famous thinker of the mid 20^th century, wrote a book called ‘Deschooling Society’ where he says that entire societies have been ‘schooled’ (conditioned to think and act a certain way, and create a certain kind of institutions) and they need to be deschooled collectively. 'Unschooling' and 'deschooling' are more relevant for adults than for children, who haven’t been schooled in the first place.

‘Natural Learning’ best describes what we believe in. Once, a Japanese agricultural scientist named Masanobu Fukuoka surrendered to nature and started farming. After about 40 years of experimenting with ‘natural farming’ he declared that the approach of modern science, which is what he was taught in school and college was fundamentally flawed. He said that it was taking mankind farther and farther away from ‘true knowledge’. He said "Nature, not man, grows plants. Man can merely stand back, watch in awe and assist nature, if and when required." He didn’t merely philosophise about this, but demonstrated it on his two-acre farm. Its magical productivity attracted thousands of visitors from across the world – farmers, students and scientists alike. Interestingly, there is no hidden secret to this. We all see forests and how they have taken care of themselves for thousands of years. Undisturbed and natural forest soil has everything to sustain a rich ecosystem. They don’t need pest control, they don’t need to be watered, weeded, ploughed or fertilized.

I love what Kahlil Gibran had to say about children. “They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.” Just like plants are life's expression of itself. When children, like plants, are left alone they know what to learn, and when and how to learn it. We just need to trust nature’s way, and create rich, diverse, safe environments for them. Then, they’ll pick up what they need and will ask for help as and when they need it. Or, if we are really tuned in, we will know when they need help.

What about ‘alternative schools’? Don’t they enable some sort of natural learning?

Alternative schools today are the next best thing to regular schools that stress our children out and rob them of their dignity. There are schools that we know respect children for who they are, nurture their creativity and leave their dignity fairly intact. But we have a few issues with these schools as well.

* Ideals get diluted: The moment we walk into any school, however radical their founders aspire to be, we see that they are forced to satisfy the demands of parents who want their children to fit into the society. This is where they begin to compromise on their ideals. I can understand this to a certain extent. I am part of a collective that runs an organic store. Though some of us running the store started it and still hold on to some high ideals, we end up compromising here and there to accommodate the needs of a variety of 'customers' who may not buy into them fully. And because we need a certain number of them to keep the store going, there ends up being a dilution of ideals at many levels. So, we end up choosing what we can't afford to compromise on (our core values) over what we can. I guess that that is what many schools are forced to do.

* Children are pressured (however subtly) to do group activities:  The moment we put one person in charge of a bunch of children, it becomes impossible to let each child do his/her own thing. Then, adults tend to structure their time to be better able to manage the herd. I find it insensitive to tell a child, ‘Enough of that, now let’s do this.’ It feels like distrusting their inner guidance. Young children’s learning process is biologically driven, just like a sapling’s growing process is. A sapling knows best which way to turn for sunlight, which way to send its roots for water and minerals, which minerals to absorb at what stage of its growth, etc. doesn’t it? Similarly, children’s bodies lead them to where they need to be, get them naturally interested in activities that are best suited to that phase of their development - physical, mental, spiritual, etc.

A child may want to spend a whole day in the water or the sand. We believe that there should never be ‘enough’ of any activity unless there is a danger lurking around or she needs to be some place else (or doing something else) for some real reasons. There is also a notion among alternative educators that 'structured time' disciplines the child and gets her ready to fit into the world better. We need to go deeper into asking ‘why so?’

* Priorities are already defined: For older children, even alternative schools set the syllabus and decide what they need to be learning. Doesn’t ‘setting a syllabus’ mean deciding for each child what subjects / areas of life are more important than others? For instance, I always wonder why ‘English’ and ‘Maths’ are considered to be the core and essential subjects in all schools! Why not make painting and dancing core subjects? What makes them extra-curricular? And also, why not make Sanskrit or Tamil equally important languages for study along with English? We have such a wealth of essential life knowledge locked up in these scripts. Are we subtly, yet strongly, giving our children messages like ‘Your language (and hence your culture) is not as important as the English / American?’ and ‘Mental ability (solving math problems) is superior to physical ability (dancing) or creative ability (art)?’ Even 'alternative schools' produce far fewer artists than engineers and managers that drive our industrial system.

Materials (like those prepared by Maria Montessori) are definitely very useful for children (and adults like me!) to learn mathematical concepts in a fun way. But the question I'd ask even before that is, who defines that the child should learn specific mathematical concepts? One of the arguments is that 'It is easiest to grasp certain concepts at certain ages'. As parents, we believe that when a child (or an adult) has a real need for a certain specific knowledge, then nothing can stop her from learning it. That is the nature of learning! Without exception. For instance, at the age of 23 when I wanted to become an economist (with absolutely no math background) I devoured workbooks on Calculus and Statistics and fared very well. At 27, when I got curious about the ‘History of Indian Agriculture’, nothing could stop me from reading books on history. While in school, my most hated subject was History! Also, before children turn seven is the time when they have the ability to effortlessly learn five to seven languages simultaneously. Why not allow the child to immerse in various language environments, rather than sit down and learn math concepts? On what basis do we adults decide what our children should learn? This is an open question that we need to really explore and dialogue over.

* Teachers are not necessarily seekers: Children don't learn what they are taught. They imbibe what they experience. If a teacher says 'Be respectful' a child might store that information in her head and use that 'knowledge' to write an essay on 'respect'. But it will not help her to learn to be respectful. A child naturally learns 'humility and respect' by observing a teacher who is truly humble and respectful in her interactions with people, nature and things around her in her day-to-day living. No being is perfect. But I wonder how many teachers in these schools sincerely aspire in that direction!

Are you saying that all our children’s learning can be unstructured all the time? Don’t they ever need a structure?

From whatever I have known and understood, I am taking the liberty to generalize that all young children can do well with unstructured time. By this, I certainly do not mean a lack of routine or a structure to their day. I am convinced that all of us (from the time we are born) can function better with a daily routine. What I mean here is structured activity time, which can be seen even in the most alternative schools in India. 

Young children love to spend their time exploring the world and making sense of it on their own terms, at their own pace. They are learning by absorbing and imbibing everything around them like a sponge. Have you noticed how children look with wide eyes? Nothing around them – sensorial, verbal, energetical - escapes them!

Right now our focus is to help Isha experience a lot of different environments and take the time to have conversations with her; conversations not to dump our interpretations on to her, but to help her connect to her own questions. As she grows up still being able to listen to and follow her inner voice, her intuition, she will be able to understand and articulate her interests that will go towards fulfilling her unique life purpose. Towards this, she will naturally seek more in-depth knowledge and skills in specific areas. Then structured learning becomes more necessary. She may have to join classes scheduled at a certain periodicity for certain durations, with specific home assignments, etc. If she is apprenticing, which is one of the best ways to learn, she will have to structure her learning time around the teacher / mentor’s convenience. This was the spirit of the old ‘Gurukula’ system of learning Science and arts in those days.

Ok, but what is lost if we do structure the time of young children?

By structuring young children’s time, we gradually disconnect them from their own inner guidance. We tell them “Now is not the time to swing. Now is the time to sit down with your blocks.” They initially resist and become frustrated. Frustration leads to aggression or withdrawal. Then, they are bribed with chocolates and ‘good-girl’ titles to silence their inner voice and submit their will to authority, however 'sweet' it might be. The gradually start to internalize the message that ‘adults know better what they should be doing with their time’. They gradually lose self-motivation and self-confidence. Loss of self-confidence also very subtly sows the seeds of arrogance. And they imbibe the ‘arrogance’ of adults that they know what the children should be doing, and perpetuate the cycle of being disconnected with the flow of life!

‘Natural Learning’ might work for children who have a natural drive to learn and achieve. My daughter is not the kind who can do that on her own. She never gets to do anything without being pushed. 

This is something I’ve heard time and again. I can’t imagine that there can be any child on this earth who doesn’t have the drive to learn. This is just a story that many parents have made up in their heads about their own children. And worse still, narrate this false story to others in front of their own children, without realizing how humiliating and hurting it can be!  

A ‘natural learning’ mother once wrote in her email, “fish swim, birds fly, children learn…. you bet” I just loved this line and since, been quoting her a lot. Yes, children’s learning is as natural as birds flying. If your child does not have the ‘drive’ to learn, then there is nothing wrong with her. There is something really very wrong with the environment she is in. She is 'shutting down' as a way to cope with her trauma.

Rajeev and I had spent an entire day in a ‘free school’ in the US once (The New School in Newark, Delaware), about ten years ago. In these Free Schools, children are not told what to do. They are really free to come and go, as they like. They resolve conflicts among themselves in a beautiful way. We watched one such session. They even manage the funds of the schools. They make their own rules and put them together in a ‘Rule Book’ and follow them because they are theirs. They sign their own attendance as they come and go. Older kids step out of the school (during school hours) into the community and come back. They even ask to just be left alone! To us Indians, who’ve been told that children can never be trusted with this kind of a freedom, and that if they are, then they will most certainly misuse it and become lazy and irresponsible, this might sound stupid or even scary. But, the experience of parents, teachers and psychologists across the world, time and again, has been that when children are left alone (and are not instructed unnecessarily) is when they become more intelligent, lively, responsible and self-driven. This is because their own intuitive intelligence and joy of living and learning take over. This is nature's law. A child being an exception to this is only as rare as a bird that cannot fly or a fish that cannot swim.

Melanie, the founder of the New School, narrated many stories to us during our visit. She told us that many children who ‘shut down’ in other schools were brought to hers. When they join, they have absolutely no interest in anything at all. They have been through such an assault that they simply look to be left alone when they come. These kids want to be outdoors and play all day and not do anything else. They have been denied such time so much, that that is all they want to do. This ‘lack-of-interest-in-anything’ (as it is perceived and labeled by us adults) goes on from a week to a few months. After they have wound down and are saturated with their outdoor-play time (which is when they have recovered from all the mental assault of continuous instruction and being kept indoors), they come inside the building. They then simply pick up other specific things like books or musical instruments. They slowly begin to get very curious and interested in a variety of things.

Even Albert Einstein, a critic of the schooling system, said “I had to cram all this stuff into my mind for the examinations, whether I liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problem distasteful to me for an entire year.” So if Einstein went through a whole year of ‘distaste for scientific problems’, you can now relax if your daughter wants to simply laze around when left free. Acknowledge and respect this ‘lazing around aimlessly’. When we are sick, we rest in order to heal, don’t we? We don’t call that time ‘unproductive’ or ‘a waste of time’, do we? We’ve got to have faith in life’s processes, tune in and wait, for months if need be. Something magical will unfold after that!

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Q: At home, she gets very bored with nothing to do. How do I keep her sufficiently engaged?

Q: How about educational toys, books, CDs and TV programs?

Q: Doesn’t all this mean that one parent needs to sacrifice his/her time for the child?

Stay tuned for answers to these questions and more...