How to make my child understand that “Studies” are indeed important

To be honest, is 7 years old was able to express so much ??I am clueless.

The information about your son sounds like he is 6th or 7th grade. If 7 years old could talk and express so well then I have no idea.

 

No idea! God...I thought bottle weaning is super difficult! duh...

 

Wow Swt Charu..if a 7yr old can articulate all this then I think he should be replying to some of the forum posts gigglingsmiley. On a serious note

There is something not right here. Let me see if I can say it as well as ur son . U, ur DS and his teacher are all responsible for how well he performs at this age. Ur insistence that he take ownership can also be mistaken for a desire to be free of guilt . Hence the reply from ur DS which is basically "Hey I can cover my back side too " .
I am actually amazed .

Dont make it ur fault my fault. You both will work together and review what went wrong/right each time regardless of the grades. Time spent/ focus / cheat sheets/..work with him..make it a game. Being a coach is hard.

 

From what you have written two things stand out. You seem to be putting too much pressure on him. And he is way too matured if he could say those things to you. At 7 years they just cannot see the bigger picture and just want to have fun. Give him more freedom to grow in areas other than academic . Monitor him gently without pushing him in any direction.

 

Smt.charu,

I am surprised that you are complaining. you definitely have one smart son there as jag says.

i know many would feel he is talking beyond his age, but having seen a few in recent times, not at all surprising. but a word of caution, is that if he is into watching those cartoons in the local (translated) language stop it. most of the dialogues that pop out of these kids is influenced by the language. that is something i have been observing in few kids. when i ask them about who taught them in a playful manner, they come out and say that they learnt that from sophie(?) or ninja hatori. I so wish that the channels that broadcast or the companies and people who are responsible for translating/dubbing the dialogues for cartoon remember they have a moral duty towards kids and that they are influencing a few many small brains into picking up those words..

you did not prepare me well.. this is something i have been hearing from a 7 year old in my circle and also from a 5 year old. I have been trying to understand where it stems from, but i may or may not be right..but i feel it is the pressure that we as parents put on the kids during exams. the 5year old's mom get so tensed, so worried once the exam/unit test dates start. she will be behind the child, making her write tests, breathing down her neck, scolding her for not studying..and i will start feeling guilty, with a son who has board exams round the corner , maybe i am not doing enough..so you see how strong the handling of 5 year is that it makes the outsider feel so. imagine the pressure on the child.

most of the times kids his age are playful, it is not that they don't understand the importance of studies, they don't realise that education today means that 90% marks for the parents and the employers (most employers mention 1st attempt and 90%..well this thread is not about that)

Let me take what i did for my son..there are days even now at 15 when he feels that a certain subject is really boring mostly because of various issues..(that i don't want to discuss right now..)
My son loves to play cricket, and we discuss a lot about cricket. this is what i did, i picked up the qualification of some of the cricketers around the world, and also about the profession they were in apart from cricket. i told my son, that they are successful because they learnt maths well. they can understand techniques well because they learn science. they are doing well in other countries because they learnt about the weather, the climate and food and have managed to understand how to work it out to their advantage (this worked until he was 9..and then he started reading autobiographies and biographies and watched the discussions carefully and he questioned me why should they struggle so much when the money they earn could get them such good managers. and then i had to go around to tell him that to manage the managers you need to be smart...:hide:

Last week, he told me that probablity, trignometry was too boring and he wished he did not need to learn. and also that biology was embarassing and he wished he can just erase those chapters.

my reasoning with him using his aim to study geology and do some research..
LEt us assume, you are on the look out for some diamonds, and you start digging at x place..and you find there are a few indicators y..and then how do you analsye how much you need to dig or to understand your chances of where or how long..that is where your trignometry or probablity comes into use. that whatever you learn in your lessons today are there for a reason. what you learnt in 1st standard was addition and what you learnt in 2nd standard was multiplication which is repeated addition. that you are a student for life, and learning is a life long process. you add more to the knowledge that you are gaining by studying.

the next time he is able to read the newspaper tell him that this was possible because of studies. give him a dirham and ask him to pick a bottle of juice and pay the shopkeeper. then ask him how much did it cost and how much did he pay and the balance..tell him this was possible because of his being smart to learn maths so well. integrate your appreciation into all the things he does on his own. tell him how you love the way he is able to take care of himself.

slowly wean off from being behind him. make him feel responsible for his studies. I have never sat with my kids for studies (school lessons) unless it is something they request. i sit with them and do my work. they know i am there if they have some doubt or difficulty. they also know that if i don't know the answer, i will accept and find the answer for them.


let him enjoy learning and you take it slow on the studies. make learning fun. sometimes what is taught in school is not enough. explore and expand a little more on that. if he is learning growing plants, grow a few plants from seeds, make him responsible for them. learning about addition, make him add bills at groceries and restaurants.. learning spellings, make him spell words that he uses during talking. my kids always love talking while i cook and we used to learn spelling, and things that way when they were small kids. today we discuss what news, classmates, class issues..and lots more..

They are individuals in their own right, and we just have a duty of being there with them, help them, grow into strong independent trees like rather than being a creeper which is always in the search of something to lean on.

your son is smart enough, and i am sure the right prod/reasoning will be more than enough to guide him..

never tell them they need to study to be a good engineering/doctor or whatever or to earn some great money. tell them that they need to focus on what they really want to do. something they will be happy to do, reasoning and trying to discuss and make them understand is a better way than bossing or scolding is my opinion.

Sorry for the long post..but your son really brought a smile on my face..that i postponed my morning walk to post this..

 

imagine getting a lecture on ethics, for no reason just a slip about people being forced to pay bribe..or about people telling white lies. my son gives me those gyan that he gets from excessive reading of spiritual and philosophical books. he also asks me questions for which i do not have an answer. he asks me why do we glorify gandhi who did lie and commit many more mistakes before turning a new page, while there is sardar patel who was more truthful more strong.. it is a growing phase. they know the answers, they know things could be different if they follow, yet it is all about lecture.more like a boomerang, what ever you taught them comes back to you with more force at the right time..:shock:

sometimes i wonder if that old residual gene that skipped a generation has caught him. anyways, our kids sometimes take their cues from us charu. you need to observe how you and your dh are behaving or talking. kids absorb by osmosis. does your dh need 100's of reminders for a small job??..or do ou?? if you learn to unlearn this maybe he will learn..asking him to help you unlearn the habit of needing reminders??/

since he is not shirking from work, or responsiblity when he is given one, then it is just a laid back attitude he will sure change when he feels that bite. some kids take a turnaround when they feel the heat..and the heat is from the outside like school rather than parents.

do not talk about responsiblities, or say he forgets to prepare for the test, and looks up to you for being reminded, keep note of it, but just overlook, slowly he will learn that you are not going to be reminding him 100 times and he needs to be a little more responsible.

do you every feel you are not smart, you are not good enough, you are not doing enough..everyday, i think so and then tell myself this is my first shot at parenting and i am learning along with them, and as long as i don't bring the residue of toxicity into my kids i am doing fine.

 

SC, I'll give you my mother's email address so you and she can compare notes (and she had three of us, each one "worse" than the other, in birth order)

I think this happens more times than we hear about. The most important thing in this situation is to be totally honest with your child, and don't get into a competition (that is, it should never become about who is outsmarting whom).

You and your child are partners, in learning, and everything else, so it is important that you let your child know this. It's okay to tell him, "I don't know, but let's find out" (teaching him it's more important to learn and research than pretend to be a know-it-all).

Obviously, you won't be able to trick or threaten him into doing the things you want. Like you say, he'll turn it around and use it on you. This is not how we're supposed to be parenting, anyway, although it is how many of us were parented.

Most importantly, you have to let him know you know how he feels. Respect his feelings and wishes. If he is frustrated or tired or unmotivated, let him have that. Let him have a break, or maybe consider re-hauling your routine/expectations.

I know things are different in India when it comes to education, so I can't apply my own standards, but honestly, it is realistic to expect any 7-year-old to operate at the level you are describing? Make sure your expectations are age-appropriate. If learning is not voluntary and fun, it may have serious repercussions for his academic future. The world is changing, and old-school methods don't apply anymore.