Discovering and investing in your children

As a parent you are an expert and no one is better than you when it comes to raising your child. The only way to discover your children is to observe them. How will you know if one of them is the next Richard Branson or the next Buffini, the next Einstein, Venter, Imhotep, Tesla, etc, if you do not expose them to different activities and/or tasks? Every child has a potential and discovering it will help you to chart the course of their development.  Every child is inquisitive and it is very important to discover, at an early stage, the things that excite their mind. In this age of trying-to-make-ends-touch, I know it is difficult for some parents to sit with their children and have a conversation. Everything is not about money, the time you spend with them is worthwhile and you will get to learn a lot from them. Take them with you to shopping and let them learn the first lessons of practical economics. They understand that you hardly have time for some of these things but they will appreciate your little effort at trying to expose them to different things. Charity must begin at home if she will be of help to the society in future.

At an early stage, a child will start to show signs of what s/he will like to be in future. With good planning, they will enjoy their childhood while at the same time learn how to become useful to the society.  It could be that they like working with numbers. Some show signs of being good at fixing things up. I could remember that my elder brother was good at fixing things up and he later became an engineer- first at home and then to the wider society. We never took any appliance to the electrician to repair since we had an engineer at home. One loved travelling and later became a scientist. She still travels round to research.  If you find out that they like telling stories, you can start by introducing interesting books to them. Don’t leave that shelf empty. Fill it up with interesting stories if you did like to hear one in the nearest future. What your children like to do is what they will start to show interest in from an early stage. You can even start by asking them what they think they will become. Every child has a dream and you can make that dream come true if only you can discover it, invest in it and motivate them to work hard towards achieving it. They have to be awake to see that dream come true. A journey of a thousand miles start with a step and making that right step will ensure you keep them on the right path to success.  

They can achieve success but to maintain success, they have to keep properly motivated so as to keep trying since it is not all about succeeding but maintaining success. They might not really want to do that which they are very good at- reason- it is boring. These days, it is very easy to find a student that doesn’t like reading or writing. How can they be good at what they want to do if they cannot read or write? Often, it is boring to take some notes or even write some letters. It is boring for them but we can make it interesting. They will see your contributions as punishment. Never mind, when they grow up, they will thank you for this misconstrued punishment. It is natural that the training of a child will always seem as punishment to that child. They want to laze around and play games. There is nothing wrong with that since all work and no play make Jack a dull boy but Jack has to understand that to play hard, he has to work hard first. Sometimes, young people could be lazy but you have to push them or even carry them to climb those steps and reach the apex.    

Find their interests and invest in their skills. Let them understand that they have to work hard for that next video game or bicycle. If you start to reward them based on their hardwork, they will learn to imbibe the habit of hardwork. It is as simple as that.  You will hear them moan but never mind, they will giggle at last. Anything you can do to make your child stand out from the rest of the crowd is a great investment. Every little helps. The class you see today will be that future society. If they are able to get into that top school, it is highly probable that they will get a good university place and then a great job will follow. It all depends on what they really want to do. In this time of global competitiveness, it is important to make them stand out. Introduce them to new things, find out what they like and invest now before it is too late.

Matthias Ifejika
Private Educator at Leanon.