Human Psychology: Part2 -- Childhood

Childhood is the phase at which baby start to apply his acquired knowledge and explore more from his surroundings. At this age, he will try to mingle more with others and other situations, he can think of doing some things of his own interests. Earlier he was playing with a ball just because you gave him that ball. But now, he has his own internal motivation to play. He came to know about it since you taught him how to play with a ball. Just like this, he will try to discover more upon any teaching that you made. So if you had laid some building stones for good works, he will start “research” of his own. So we are succeeded depending on how you introduced him to various things during those early stages. Normally all these changes can be observed after two years itself.

Let’s talk about children of age from two years to ten years. I observe that during this time child will be considered as a baby, parents and others will grant them some mercy for their bad actions even if at first we may scold them and we will watch them surprisingly. Sure there can be difference in the age span [2 to 10] where we watch this kind of opinion, depending on various factors (presence of brothers or sisters, status of family, relationship between father and mother etc).

At this stage, there are many things that a family member has to keep in mind while mingling with a child.

1. If you are a parent, listen, listen and listen to your child. Your child has many things to share with you, his knowledge is expanding day by day and he is over flowing with new ideas. Surely, support and guidance is needed to align, some times correct and many times to add more to that.

2. Let your child fight with your elder children (if any), unless it is not crossing the limits. That will help to understand the beauty and hardships of love and care. Through fight you can teach many things, in some cases, child may be short tempered that he can’t control situations. Teach manners in those cases. You can teach forgiveness among relations. The main focus should be to depict alliance with truth.

3. Help and guide them in studies. You are the first teacher and you can become a better teacher than their school teacher. This is true for all topics that she learns including behavior and science! Develop a good relationship with your child in study room. Here you can teach many things: don’t threaten her by talking about exams.

4. Remember, most of the children at this age undergo lot of mental stresses just because of their studies. They are scared about their parents, how will they face their friends in case of being behind in rank list etc. A desire to learn has to be developed in them and the motivation should be natural, they have to study naturally. They shouldn’t study through compulsion. If you had been guiding them from their early ages, this won’t be a difficult task.

5. So how much busy you are, find some time to spend with her, on her studies and general activities. If you are that much busy, you may do it on weekly basis.

6. Involve in simple discussions that will increase his confidence in the family relationships. For example, ask him when shall we go out for a one day tour? This won’t influence our timing much, but it will be a great thing for him, as you have considered his opinion. Updating things and decisions is another portion of it. Do this in all possible situations. Even your smallest kid has the right to involve in your decisions. If you do this, he will automatically discuss his joys and sorrows with you and that a great bond that any parent dreams. Ask with any human being who keep this kind of relationship with his/her parents, surely he/she would have felt similar kind of approach from his/her parents in his childhood days. So there is nothing miraculous in relationships, it is a give and take mechanism!

7. If you expect some manners in her dressing, introduce it in early stages, later it will be difficult to initiate and change, once she gets too used to it.

8. Don’t compare your child with other child. Each human being is unique in nature and interests. If you want to motivate your child citing some others example do it tactically without hurting.

9. Never say “I don’t love you” or “I don’t love you”, even if you correct it later, that will be a shock to them. Once you do it, they will expect it from you in future too and it is a feeling of being insecure.

10. Take your own initiative and interest to discuss things that he likes most. This is a form of support and care that you are offering to him.

11. Elder brother(s) and sister(s) can discuss family matters and even analyze their parents behavior and teach them why their parent behaved that way in that particular instant, this is a starting for teaching psychology.

12. Discuss general issues as much as possible with your child. This will help to understand how he is fortunate to have the current surroundings and he will be empathic to others.

13. In most of the above cases, those can be kicked off by other family members too other than parents.