"A child who hasn't gone through any form of hardship in life claims to be wise, please tell me who is his or her teacher."
My mom was fond of saying this adage to me as a kid but I didn't understand the real meaning until I was on the brink of becoming a teenager. Mom would always insist that I learned and did house chores, but that's the last thing on my mind.
I preferred playing football or rubber band games whenever I was at home, and being a strong woman, she never forced me. Things were like that for a while, and I didn't learn, nor did my sibling, because he was walking in my footsteps. Honestly, it didn't feel like I was doing anything bad, but mom kept trying to teach us how to do so many things.
A time came when she fell ill, it was serious, and she was admitted into the hospital. I and my sibling had to fend for ourselves, and despite having everything we needed to cope while she was away, we couldn't.
We couldn't do out laundry or even make the simplest meal. It was so bad that we couldn't even clean our small space properly. Mom knew all of these and suggested that we move to a family friend's place pending the time she would be fine, and we loved the idea, but upon arriving there, we regretted never taking mom's lessons seriously.
Image was edited on Canva
We had to do tedious chores, run errands excessively, and eat very little despite providing the raw food because we went there with a lot of food. The hardship was so great that I burst into tears one evening while looking at my mom on the sick bed, and she kept smiling.
Mom survived the illness and was back at home; she was disappointed in me for not being able to take care of my sibling in her absence. I felt terrible and didn't hesitate to start learning how to do a lot of things myself. After a few years of learning, mom interpreted the adage properly to me, and she was right that hardship and challenges is what helps a child gain wisdom about life.
Wisdom comes as a reward for going through hardship and overcoming challenges encountered in life. A lot of parents believe that hardship and challenges for children are suffering, but I do not see it that way. This isn't about depriving them of the things they need to grow; it's about allowing them to discover who they really are, their potential, and learning to cope with or survive the toughest situation they can encounter in life even in my absence.
As a parent, I really do not want my children to go through half of my struggles in life, but regardless of how much I make life easy for them, they will have to face some challenges themselves. I will watch from a distance just in case they need my guidance, but they are to experience those challenges because that's the best way for them to learn about life properly.
This isn't about being brilliant when it comes to schooling; life lessons aren't taught within the four walls of a classroom, and if my kids will learn more about life, they will do that by facing challenges. Whether they fail or pass doesn't matter; lessons are learned from failure and victory, so the experience is what matters.
In the course of making kids learn about life, they will definitely think that you hate them, but that doesn't matter, and like I mentioned earlier, I will always watch them from a distance just to intervene when necessary because a child will always be a child. They have to be treated with love no matter what you are trying to make them learn, and what I won't do is ignore them completely.
Not paying attention to them might make them take an alternate route to get out of those challenges, and it could be disastrous because, in the end, they might get caught up in worse challenges they might be stuck in forever.
Image was designed on Canva
Aside from my personal experience, I have learned from people's stories, and one sure thing about life is how unpredictable it is. You can't tell what would happen the next minute, and for this reason alone, preparing my children for the least expected experience in life wouldn't be a bad idea.
They will always have my support, but sometimes it's good to watch from a distance so they can learn the truth about life. I learned mine, so they must learn theirs. I believe they will thank me in the future, just like I always praise my mom for exposing me to challenges when necessary because everything I went through helped me to become who I am today.
As a matter of fact, I am still learning, and the best of life for me is yet to happen.
What am I driving at? If a child must learn truly about life, experience will be his or her teacher and there won't be any experience when such child doesn't face some hardship or challenges in life.