An infant imitates expressions of the people she sees around her. That’s how it starts. Then we deliberately teach the child various day to day actions, which the child picks up by copying us. Simultaneously, the child also picks up the not-so-obvious actions and expressions like our tone, the pitch of our voice, our facial expression and does the matching of the tone and the expression.
As the
child grows up, he observes and learns from how we interact not only with him
but also with others around us.
A lot of
values get imbibed in a child only through picking up from the behaviour of
those around him. Empathy, sharing, caring, attitude of gratitude, moral
values, violence, talking mannerisms; basically everything.
Many a
times, we advise our children on various issues. Our favourite mode, right? We
have to remember that we have to walk our talk. You cannot have one rule for
self and one for our child. We have to be the model we want our child to be.
While operating
a library, many parents would ask me how to make a child read. I would always tell
them to have a reading time with their child. Read their book for them when
they are young and as they are able to read by themselves, sit with them and read
a book with them.
The way we
treat our spouse and the other way round, is observed carefully by the child.
The amount of respect involved in the conversation, the tone and pitch of our
voice are all absorbed by the child. These put a foundation for the child to
grow up to treat the opposite gender accordingly. The kind of vocabulary and
the language picks up is largely what the child experiences at home.
We have to
be careful of how we behave in front of our child. The child is like a sponge absorbing
things from around him. Let us provide an environment which helps him develop
into a good human being.
No comments:
Post a Comment