Recently, I had a breakthrough. A ate her first pizza! Now, you might wonder why this is such a big deal. Why would I want my kid to eat “junk food”? Well, as I’ve mentioned time and again, A is a picky eater. She eats a handful of dishes prepared in exactly a certain way, often force-fed with bribes. Combined with our love for travel, it gets inconvenient with lugging around a rice cooker and ingredients everywhere.

I’ve come to realize that pizza is common denominator food, available world-wide, and isn’t as unhealthy as we think when we have control over the ingredients (from trust-worthy sources and home-made as far as possible).  A has taken an interest in cooking and baking recently, and I’ve taken advantage of this by encouraging her to participate in preparing dinner and have her eat the same food as the rest of the family, with no screens or bribes. I fight my motherly instincts to make her eat more everyday! We follow a Montessori philosophy at home (more on this in a future post) and she uses a ladder to reach the kitchen counter and participate in the daily cooking, an activity she loves. This has been a worthwhile effort.

I’ve also observed that she has a love for strong bold flavors. For example, she will always choose a pesto pasta over a mac ‘n’ cheese. So I decided to have her make her own pizza, choosing her own toppings. First, I asked her what she would like on her pizza, showing her a few options. She made a face and rejected the more traditional option of marinara. No worries, I asked her if she would like a pesto pizza. While she was suspicious (“Do you mean pesto pasta or pesto pizza?”) she did agree that she would like to make a “pesto pizza with cheese”. Brilliant! Step 1 had been accomplished – that was further along than we’d ever gotten with pizza before. And I ensured that she was involved with every step that followed.

Next, we had to buy ingredients. Trader Joe’s is a family favorite, where we all love shopping for our treats, in a trust-worthy, vegetarian-friendly environment. I asked her to please help me shop for ingredients. Since we were in a hurry that day, we chose to buy our ingredients rather than make the pesto at home, but that worked out very well as she loved looking around and finding the pesto and cheese off the shelves.

Finally, it was time to go home and make the pizza! By now, the excitement had amped up and she was extremely excited to make her own pizza. This turned out to be one of the easiest cooking experiments I had ever done with her. Other than getting the pizza in and out of the oven, she could do everything herself. She patted and rolled the dough into a circle, eagerly “painted” the pesto on the base, and got a kick out of heaping on cheese on the pizza (of course with chef’s treats of bits of cheese to snack on!) She watched eagerly through the oven door as her pizza baked. When the pizza was done, she bounced between her feet while we sliced it for her. She was so proud of it! And, best of all, she ate  satisfactory amount of it!

It just goes to show that kids are way more capable than what we give them credit for. In fact, other than a light dusting of flour on the counter, the entire activity proved to be mess-free with A developing a sense of cleanliness and order as well.

“I did it!” These three simple words are possibly the most important ones that your child will ever utter. For, not only has your child achieved a task, but they have also identified that they have accomplished said task, and feel proud about it! It is a crucial milestone that a child recognizes achievement, for this is an important factor in motivation. And without motivation, where would more achievements come from?

In order to help a child achieve something, one has got allow the child to make mistakes. I mean, if you get something right the first time you try it, chances are you probably haven’t gotten a chance to learn it well. This is something we forget often when we are working with little ones. In their process of learning, children need to be allowed to make mistakes. You don’t need a child who’s a mini-Picasso, the next Shakespeare, or a Ramanujam Junior. All you want is a child who enjoys learning!

One of the most important things to keep in mind to help a child achieve a goal and feel proud about it is to set attainable yet challenging goals. For example, for a child who knows his alphabet and reads sight words and other simple words, this goal could be to read a picture book with up to one sentence per page. A book with several sentences per page may prove to be too challenging, yet a book with mere word identification may not interest the child enough to pursue the task. This is something that schools should keep in mind as well as they design instructional activities for their students. If the child requires a parent to do a task assigned, then the instructional activity has not been properly set. After all, we want the child to say (proudly) “I did it!” not (disinterestedly) “My mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/someone else did it!” Especially at a young, tender age, such assignments set a precedence that a child can get someone else to do their assignments!

In this regard, it is also important to increment goals gradually to keep them challenging. One of my favorite tools in this regard is the competency map. Simply put, a competency map is a tool used to determine the order in which goals are set. For example, a child should learn to identify the alphabet before being asked to read a word. Increment goals sequentially and ensure the child has accomplished pre-requisite goals before pushing them further. Forcing a child to work towards a goal that they aren’t ready for may have the dangerous effect of making them averse to learning – we definitely do not want this!

It’s also crucial to keep goals interesting. No matter how good a child feels to accomplish a goal, he/she needs motivation. Interest is a huge factor in motivation. Offer a child a bright colorful picture book with images interspersed with text and a book with just text, and the child will show more interest in reading the picture book. It’s also important to align goals with the child’s interest. It’s okay for the child to pick arts and crafts over music, or sports over dance. It’s important for parents, caregivers, and teachers to align goals with the child’s interests.

Of course, another great way to motivate is to incentivize. Children (anyone really) do great when they are rewarded for their efforts! One great way to incentivize is to maintain a “reward chart” that recognizes efforts. For example, you could give your child a star for a job well done, and a reward for every 5 stars. While this method seems like you’re making your child work harder, it is a great way to positively reinforce and boost your child’s confidence, and encourage accomplishment.

Most importantly, have fun! We always want our children to enjoy learning and have fun in whatever they accomplish. Play games to learn, allow for wiggles and giggles and simple joys, and you will find your child picking up the joy and pride of accomplishment in no time! I wish you and your child the best of luck and joy, and a life filled with “I did it!”

Educating our children is something we plan for pretty much from the get go. Be at it at home, the playground, daycare or school, our children are constantly learning, and it’s our job as parents to ensure they get the best education possible. However, that means different things to each of us. Before we proceed, let’s talk about a term that often gets glossed over – that is lifelong learning. What is lifelong learning? Lifelong learning is defined as the “ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons”. This translates to our children, or even us, for that matter, being students for life. In order to ensure lifelong learning, we need to keep learning fun and exciting. Does that not seem elementary? We do, indeed, learn throughout our life, and children are definitely learning everyday and everywhere, even when they are trying to learn to hold a spoon at home or play on a new slide in the park. At this point, learning is still exciting. So at what point does learning get associated with pressure, and  hinder with the spirit of lifelong learning?

For example, let’s take the milestone of learning to read. Why do we want our child to learn to read? Is it because it is a requirement, to learn to read by a certain age? (If so, what was that age, and how did you arrive at that age?) Is it in order to succeed in their careers later in life? Is it because reading is a key to the wonderful world of books and knowledge? A mother of toddlers may feel that children should learn to read by age 5, while a mother of an older child would disagree saying that her voracious reader started reading by age 6. Ideally, a child should have to read only when they’re really ready. In fact, contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that early reading does not have a direct correlation to lifelong learning. By forcing a child to read just because he/she is supposed to, we would be associating reading with pressure rather than fun. Instead, we can easily associate reading with fun, by exposing children to a wide range of age-appropriate books. For example, a colorful picture book with clear, large printed words is very attractive to a young child. By offering fun books, with different topics, to our kids, we provide our kids with great exposure, allow them to express their interests, and ultimately, making reading books fun. This practice will ensure that the child will WANT to read, as opposed to reading because they HAVE to.

So let’s start with a discussion on the curriculum offered in different schools. In some places like the US, private schools claim to be a year or two ahead of their corresponding public schools in curriculum, while other countries like India, parents have a choice between CBSE, ICSE, and other Boards of Education, all of which are equally competitive. The reasoning behind exposure to a high curriculum to keep students engaged and to ensure academic success throughout life. But does exposing a child to a higher level of curriculum than they are ready for invoke a spirit of lifelong learning?

And then there is the system of written examination, which is followed in most schools. Nowadays, children start taking exams very young. Preschools have interviews, and there are elementary schools that have entrance tests. Frequent evaluations are performed throughout the school year to assess how well students are learning. Tests and examinations are needed to evaluate how well a child is learning, but the way in which they are executed also matters. Do these examinations, which encourage students to score higher marks, teach children that we learn for the sake of examinations? Do examinations foster a sense of achievement (or on the other hand – fear!) in kids? And by ensuring that students cram for the exam, are we saying that students need to learn for the examination and not for themselves? If continuous examination encourages the students to learn for the sake of examination, then this system directly goes against the spirit of lifelong learning.

So why do we parents fall into the rigor of milestones and examinations with our kids? One reason is that we want our children to be successful in life, and typically this success is associated with career and prosperity, which is tied in with attaining more marks. But to what end? Do we really need our six-year-olds headed to coaching classes after a long day at school, instead of playing in the park? Do we need our elementary school-aged children participating advanced classes which they don’t really enjoy learning, or should we expose them to a variety of arts, sciences and hobbies which may or may not lead to a fruitful career? (And when did career become the focus for children who are so young?!) Another reason is that vicious circle called “peer pressure”. Of course, when we raise our kids in a society where high curricula and milestone-based learning are the norm, both parents and children are bound to face peer pressure to confirm to society. While a certain amount of peer pressure is good and needed, it’s getting to a point where everyone is under pressure to perform and the goal of lifelong learning gets neglected in the process.

With this in mind, let’s talk about a few ways we can foster a sense of lifelong learning in our children:

1. Read! Read anything and everything that seems to interest your child. While there is no perfect age by which a child learns to read, it is never too early to start! Colorful picture books on a wide range of topics like animals, space, food, culture can open a child’s eyes to a wonderful world, and teach children that reading books is exciting for life.
2. Fun with toys! Toys are one of the most engaging sources of learning for little ones! If you want to know how some of the most common toys promote learning, click here.
3. Go out and explore! Learning doesn’t have to happen from a book or a classroom. Go for a hike or explore a museum. The playground is also a great source of learning. Even a grocery store is a source of learning, where the littlest ones learn colors, fruits, vegetables and the older ones can learn how to pay for their favorite treats (for example, “Do I have enough money for one treat or two treats?”) Who says math can’t be fun?

Personally, I am not in favor of forcing children to learn to read, or add and subtract, or memorize facts by a certain age just because I believe forced learning invokes fear and does not promote lifelong learning. In order to promote lifelong learning, we need to show our children that learning is fun and exciting. While academic success is definitely valuable, I think we’re going at it wrong. In order to achieve true academic success, it’s gotta stick – and to make it stick, we must encourage our children to love learning for life. By giving them a strong foundation of lifelong learning, we are paving them a path for true success in life.