27 – GUIDING CHILDREN- CTW-2022-E

27 – GUIDING CHILDREN- CTW-2022-E

CHALLENGED TO WIN by Gregory Fernandez

Chapter 27 – GUIDING YOUR CHILD TO THINK

This chapter is a follow-up to the previous chapter on THOUGHTS, THINKING, and IMAGINATION. The last chapter, on Thoughts, Thinking and Imagination, was about adult thinking for adults. This process, however, starts right in childhood, so we must give this topic all the attention at the earliest possible age.

As a husband or wife, we automatically have Multi Role Commitments. However, we are not only spouses. In addition, we are fathers and mothers to our children. With that, we become teachers, guides and guardians to the children God has so graciously put in our stewardship.

This chapter contains tips that we can use to teach our children to THINK.

We must spend time teaching our children to think. Teaching our children to THINK is one of our greatest gifts. We must fill them with sound thinking; otherwise, wrong thinking will quickly fill the void in their thought lives.

As parents, we should cultivate and nurture the thinking of our children. As parents, we have a moral responsibility to teach our children to reason and think. However, we must also realize that sharp reasoning does not come automatically with intelligence.

Try this simple test on your child and yourself. For example, a basket has ten black and eight blue socks. How many socks must you take out to ensure you have a matched pair without looking?

The correct answer is three.

This example does not call for academic skills but demands the ability to think and stretch the mind beyond the obvious. Thinking is an area where children need help. Schools fill students with data. And the trend is moving more and more toward examination results, gathering marks, and certificate collection. But the essence of education is to use the information to address new situations and questions. In the frenzy of getting a seat in an educational institute, cramming knowledge can become a way of life. This trend may leave less time for thinking. Maybe the aspect of real thinking is pushed into the background, and data collection may take up all the foreground.

Consequently, many children cannot apply reasonable thought to everyday situations. It is not uncommon for a youngster to choose a bike by its colour or by what model a friend has rather than to consider more relevant considerations like price, durability, or performance.

From the intellectual point of view, THINKING and MEMORY-related functions like data collection, data retention, data retrieval, and data output should interline with the ANALYTICAL and CREATIVE faculties of the mind. For the development of any individual, all areas are essential. Thinking is a “pro-active” component that sets the mind’s Memory, Analytical and Creative faculties towards production. Thinking also interlines with the other dimensions of a man, like the BODY, HEART, SOUL, and SPIRIT. It is thinking that helps us in our overall development of the different aspects of ourselves.

Psychologists believe that several problems, including drug use, may occur because young people have not learned to measure action against consequences.

How can we nurture serious, critical thought habits in our children? How can we help them sharpen their minds for a highly competitive future?

STEP ONE:

a) Create a thinking atmosphere in your home. How to begin?

Examine your thinking about thinking. Do not mistake believing that an intelligent child is automatically a good thinker. Smart people may be poor or lazy or quick thinkers who give quick answers. Meanwhile, the slow, reflective child the boy or girl, teachers may chide for daydreaming, could often produce more profound insights. The personal history of inventors and other great people has supported this fact many times.

b) Start Early.

You can challenge a child to think much earlier than most people think. For example, you could ask a child, “What would it be like if the whole world were of cake?” You will be amazed at what comes out in the way of answers and the reasoning behind the thought process.

One of the brilliant and successful business people I deal with has often impressed me with his fantastic ability to think vertically and laterally. From the business point of view, vertical thinking is essential because it helps towards growth, profits, and the future. But from the design point of view, lateral thinking is critical, chiefly because success means picking the proper selection from many possible alternatives. You have to consider the options even though they are not visible.

One day I asked this man how he developed this incredible ability to think the way he does. When he was still very young, he said his father used to sit with him and his brother, and together they brainstormed their way through problems. For example, they had brainstormed their way about building swimming pools and pet houses, discussed what they would do if they had to get to the moon etc. Slowly from this background, my friend set up a small manufacturing business at the age of eight to make clothes hangers out of wire. These he sold to his family members and relatives. From there on, he moved to bigger things. Today he has restaurants and other ventures. The younger brother has also become a business success.

Another friend of mine built a total power-driven car at twelve. He used a Chain Saw motor to power his car. He made what most grown-ups would not dare dream of doing at twelve. Over the years, this man and his younger brother and sister have built up the world’s largest pneumatic factory. Their companies are the market leaders in many aspects of control engineering products.

In both cases, their parents encouraged them to think early. Teaching their children to THINK is what every parent should strive to accomplish. The thinking awareness we plant in our children will last forever.

c) Give children something to think about:

Take your kids to museums, read together, and watch TV. Then talk about what you have seen and heard. Do not just walk through a museum and admire the exhibits. Throw out questions. Challenge their imaginations. The challenges you throw out need not only centre around the “plain” and “present.” Challenge them abstractly, like, “What would happen if the dinosaurs came back?” Even things from the not-so-distant past could be interesting, like, what we would do if there were no electricity.

d) Involve the whole family:

Good thinking habits are learnable in small groups, with plenty of ‘give and take’. Even the youngest child has ideas that should be brought out and listened to. So, a formal curriculum is not necessary. And can you think of a different way you might have answered the teacher?”

e) Tell Jokes:

Humour can help teach children that there is more than one way of seeing things. Humour also gives them a light-hearted and carefree way of remembering things. All people recall things better if it appeals to the mind.

Once you have established a thinking atmosphere, it’s time for Step Two.

STEP TWO:

Teach your children how to think critically.

a) Look at all sides:

Use the P-M-I method. The P-M-I process stands for PLUSES, MINUSES, and INTERESTING POINTS. Any thinking subject will have plus, minus, and exciting points. Challenge your child to think about them.

b) Find patterns and threads:

Train them to see how the new topic relates to what I learned last week. How does it fit with the questions coming up? Fitting bits of knowledge together is the foundation of education. By identifying patterns, we can avoid having to learn the same lessons again and again. For example, once a child recognizes how to buy a bike, he will know how to purchase other things.

c) “Even when not broken, fix it”:

Reverse the old axiom. The story of human progress has been one of overturning accepted ideas. People were content to light their houses with oil lamps until Edison came along. Accountants did their accounting with pen, ink, and paper until the adding machine and then the calculator, and now the computer has revolutionized the process.

Young people are less set in their ways and more willing to question existing practices. Therefore, parents should encourage them to make this a lifelong habit.

d) Ask unconventional questions:

Challenge your children with thoughts like this, “Suppose all the cars are painted green what would be the plus, minus interesting points?” (Plus would be, it would be cheaper, minus it would be challenging to find the car in a parking area, and interesting points would be—-?

Questions that help children think are not those questions with single answers like YES or NO.

A question like, “Who was the first man on the moon?” would challenge a child to remember pieces of information. In addition, it would develop the child’s ability for data collection, data retention, data retrieval and data output.

The next stage in the conversation would be to pose questions that help children think. The question could encourage interest in the topic or puzzling or problematic ones. The choice of questions should encourage open-ended answers.

In this process, the child may develop some unconventional ideas. Watch out for this because it reveals the child’s ability toward “Lateral Thinking” or “Associative Thinking.” Encourage the conversation, probe it, develop it further, and find and supply supporting information because, who knows, you may be talking to the next Albert Einstein, Madam Currie or some top echelon of “Tomorrow’s World” today itself. What is inspiring is that you had perhaps set a brilliant mind encouraging and loving towards great things.

Words like Lateral Thinking and Associative Thinking have different meanings for different occupations. An attempt to explain the terms is:

An example of Lateral Thinking could be:

Solve problems by making unusual or unexpected connections between ideas.
Solve problems indirectly and creatively, typically through a new and unusual light.

For example, I had to weld a small attachment to a fully painted and finished machine brought to my office. Conventionally, we use a Metal Shield to prevent welding splatter. Unfortunately, I had no Metal Shield. So, I used cardboard to wrap the exposed rods, but I had no string or tape to tie the cardboard. My son Dominic asked what I was trying to do. He then suggested using a stapler to hold the cardboard in place. It worked. He suggested using an office item to solve a factory-related requirement.

An example of Associative Thinking could be:

To solve problems more by non-material incorporation. It is not the association of physical items to solve a problem but rather the use of ideas, mathematics, and psychological approaches.

For example, use wall colouring to create a mood. For example, to have plain white or light colour walls in a hospital. In contrast, paint the walls of a kindergarten room with colour-intensive images. In the hospital, the effect is SOOTHING, whereas, in kindergarten, the intention is to stimulate the mind to learn, imagination, variety etc.

e) Say what you mean:

Precise words not only prevent misinterpretations but also help in sharpening ideas. For example, is the boy down the street a “friend” or merely an “acquaintance?” Likewise, when a classmate is called a “nut,” ask your child what they mean. Defining terms is a demanding mental discipline, but it helps your child clarify his thoughts.

f) Seek a second opinion and a third:

Children often shake their convictions, wait impatiently for another speaker to finish, and repeat what they said earlier. By not listening to others, they remain ignorant of ideas that could broaden their outlook.

Get them to consider other points of view for instance, when your child describes a neighbourhood playmate as “dumb”, ask a brother’s or sister’s opinion. The answers may open the first child’s eyes to unthought-of possibilities. Similarly, watching and reading the news can teach the important lesson that those identical bits of evidence could have different interpretations.

g) Wear the other person’s shoes:

Urge your child to try to understand how other people think and feel. The real essence of this teaching comes out when it is personalized, like: “If you were in his place and someone did the same thing to you, how would you feel? ”

h) Write it down:

Writing is a rigorous intellectual exercise, but it does good practice for thinking. So, it is “Thinking.”

i) Think ahead:

Encourage children to consider short-term, mid-term, and long-term outcomes. One of the most important questions to ask the child is, “And then what?”; “Do not study for the exam and then what?”; “Keep making faces at your playmates and then what?” It is difficult for young people to think about tomorrow or next year. Yet what happens today is bound to affect the actions and thoughts of tomorrow.

j) Study:

Thinking is no substitute for information, and information is no substitute for thinking. Both are necessary for intellectual development. You cannot find a new application for electronics if you haven’t learned electronics.

k) Keep at it:

Young people do not develop the habit of logical thought overnight. It is like learning a piano; the first time you play after a lesson, you may forget all you have learned and thump away. But eventually, the tasks will become a part of you.

Thinking takes practice, but it’s worth it.

One day I came across this writing. I want to place it here.

Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte

If children live with criticism,
They learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility,
They learn to fight.
If children live with ridicule,
They learn to be shy.
If children live with shame,
They learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement,
They learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance,
They learn to be patient.
If children live with praise,
They learn to appreciate.
If children live with acceptance,
They learn to love.
If children live with approval,
They learn to like themselves.
If children live with honesty,
They learn truthfulness.
If children live with security,
They learn to have faith in themselves and others.
If children live with friendliness,
They learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

Dorothy Law Nolte, PhD.
These lines are the author-approved short version.

In a way, I cannot end this chapter without mentioning things I learned from my children, my parents and Rose.

The tone of the next few lines up to the end of this chapter is different. The style is not Greg, the factual writer, but rather that of Greg remembering his childhood or Greg, the parent of two delightful children. The lines between realism and fairytale may not be too distinct.

With Rose, things were different. But then, there were blurry lines between knowing if she had two or three children. After all, Kids will be Kids, even after they become dads.

Anyway, let us move on.

Ramona and Dominic went to different schools. Each school taught them another grace before meals. We often asked the children to lead the family in the grace before meals, and everyone followed the leader’s grace for that meal. For example, Dominic’s grace was a sing-song rhyme: “Thank you, God, for the world so sweet, thank you, God, for the food we eat, Thank you, God, for my Mummy and Daddy. Thank God for Grand Pa and Grand Ma(s) —.

One day I felt there was an extra word that broke the rhyme, but the verse soon caught on again. So, I asked him to say grace alone again. I noticed that he did indeed add an extra word. He said thank you, God, for the food we ate “Yesterday” —-. So, I said: you should thank God for the food we eat today because we already thanked God for the food we had yesterday. He said: I ate yesterday, so I am thanking God. I have not yet eaten this food, so I must thank Him after eating. I had to explain to him that the food was his – that no one would take it away from him. His sister is not going to grab something off his plate, And Mama is undoubtedly not going to do that because if she wanted to, she would have already eaten everything in the kitchen. And, if the gravy is not out of chocolate, there is no fear that Dada will take it away. He displayed logic. Logics and analysis have become a part of him ever since.

Ramona’s approaches were educative in a caring way. Besides cleaning the dog’s ears of wax and occasionally brushing his teeth, she would think it was necessary to bring up the dog well and bathe him. In the bargain, I think the dog thought he, too, should return her the favour by vigorously centrifuging the water off in a motion-filled performance. Many robotic specialists would have been happy to come across the algorithms that enabled that form of canine gyration.

Ramona also thought it necessary to put all newly learnt words into usage. Most often, she used new words very accurately. However, there were times when I would have settled for a different choice of words. For example, we spoke about Goldilocks and the Three Bears on a Saturday night. The next day as we passed by the church, she made it a point to instruct Dominic, with all the authority of his one-and-a-half-year older sister, to behave himself even in the church compound because you never know, Jesus may come lumbering out of the church.

So amusingly, I was learning that children, too, grow up and teach us things that we may have said the same way many “moons” ago. She later went on to love books and became a fast and very retentive reader.

I studied at Montfort in Yercaud. The first time I came home from the Boarding school 3000 miles away, my dad made a dozen or more planes and suspended them with thin, almost invisible thread from the ceiling. I was nine at that time. My life with planes, however, had started long before that. My dad worked at the airport and had sufficient authority to take me to see every new aircraft that came to the country. When I was 3 or 4, he brought me to the airport to have breakfast every day. I believed every Pilot and Air- hostess knew me. They were “Friends of an aerodynamic dimension.” Some even had blond hair and blue eyes. And all had twinkling eyes.

Even though no one explained why Pilots and Air- hostesses have blond hair and blue eyes, it was easy for me to figure that out; after all, I had four whole years of experience on planet Earth. Moreover, my reasoning was quite logical: if you flew too close to the sun, your hair would turn golden; if you flew too long in the sky, your eyes would become blue; and if you flew among the twinkling stars, your eyes would twinkle too.

I marvelled at how “iron” could fly. In those days, when I was young, there were only three metals on Earth – Gold, Silver, and Iron. These three were the only metals on Earth because my storybook never mentioned any other.

Now I was back home from school, marvelling at a room full of aircraft. There were propeller machines, and jets had all come to see where I had gone all these months. My father was always MY INSPIRATION FILLED, DAD.

While I was at boarding school, my dad lovingly built all the planes with his very own hands. There were plane kits everywhere, even under the pillow. There were modeller paint and glue, tools, and aircraft specifications for every available plane in the skies, regardless of their country of manufacture. And a boy and his dad talked amid the Star Fighters that flew at Mach 1.4 and the famous Spitfires, Mustangs, Migs and Mirages. Then, in the distance of time, were the Phantom and the Mig 27 codename “Foxbat.” It was the homecoming of a boy to the most outstanding human teacher he ever had – His Dad. When the boy turned, he saw his mum quietly taken in the atmosphere of awe between the two men in her life – (who are, of course, all hers). Then she said, “Food is ready” – It was now her showtime. – We had to go.

Today I build production and test machines for different industries. Most of the machines I made are automatic. Sometimes I investigate the distance with a thought model of a structure, rotate it in virtual 3D space, and look at it in my imagination from every angle. Like the boy who looked up at the sky and wondered how iron could fly. Then I look back in time and think of a man who used his ability to allow his son into his work every day to marvel at technology. We were “that team” to discuss the future of “Flying Jets.” My feet, at that time, were not quite long enough to reach the ground when I sat on the office chair, so the feet swished into space as our discussion flew through the skies at heart-lifting speeds. Those were thought-provoking moments when decisions happened with one elbow on the table. Naturally, someone had to command the sky. There were other times my dad spoke to me about more lofty matters, and I could feel pushed to the back pan of the seat with the force of many Gs. The feet would stretch forward. A cockpit canopy, visible only to me, would extend from one chair’s armrest to the other. These were times when the wingtips, the azimuth and the dad were the only reference standards. Then when I looked on one side of the chair, the jet’s wing would trace the sky, the Earth would tilt and slide away from the window, and the Earth would fill up on the other side. That was a sure sign that we were taking a turn at Hypersonic speeds. It would call for split-second decisions. These were moments when you flew between the Sky Above and the Mud Below. But then, together, we could touch the sky. With gratitude, I can say, “Dad, Mum, you were my greatest human teachers. You were the ‘Wind beneath my Wings”. And in the same breath, I say, “Thank you, God, for placing me in their care and stewardship.”

Of course, Rose is the motivation to learn my way through life and write a book. It brought home that being a wife is the most challenging job. Regarding the three of us, there is no sequence for her – each child (and the husband) thinks she is there only for them. Even when she is away, the husband can ring up – on a long-distance call! To enquire where his belt is, the one he has not worn for two years. Of course, the timing of these calls is always superb. When essential things need her full attention, the call will urgently come. And talking about “belts”, she recalls, just last night, her discussion with the son who happens to think he is “He-Man and Masters of the Universe” and why the sword must be tucked, through the shirt, and behind the back, with the handle sticking out, even at mealtimes. He promptly told his Mother that the sword could be there if pants had belt loops and belts were available. There would be another way around the “State of Readiness.” Life for her is always on the fast track. And she wonders whether the husband needed to use the satellite instead of looking around the house first. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very easy to imagine how wonderful and meaningful she is because there are not too many ways for husbands (like me) to say it. So, in a “Flintstone” manner, tools of the “New Stone Age” are used to carve books out. These may be artless structures, but they somehow show signs of (great) affection. – Without her, there would be no book.

On a more serious note, she took on some challenging tasks and decisions when life had brought some very tough and time-bound requirements across our path. These were often under situations where money was scarce. Her ability to face up to these challenges was very commendable. So, before our Silver Jubilee, I decided that this book would be ready. And it was so.

God Bless You.