Can we stop the time?
After reading @kafkanarchy84's post today I was wondering about how fast do we want our kids to grow up. And while writing this article my mind shifted and I started thinking for how long kids can be just kids and discover everything with their own eyes at their time.
Sure we cheer every little step and move, the first turn-over excites us like crazy and watching our little ones walking their first steps all by themselves is a feeling I would love to treasure for the rest of my life. It makes us proud seeing them doing things little by little, more and more refusing to get our help.
But on the other hand all that is telling us that time will never stand still and there won't be any way back, they little ones will become bigger and more independent day by day. Of course that is great, that is one of the miracles of mother nature. We as human beings are able to learn from our environment in more ways we can imagine, it starts from simple try-and-error moves via copying everything we see to actually applying what we have sucked up before. We will be taught many things by all the people around us and at some point they will put us into institutionalized learning factories which are called “schools”.
But the biggest and most genuine school is life itself, nothing can take away that feeling when you learn something just by getting your hands dirty or into some unknown water. Seeing my daughter trying to touch and grab everything what I'm taking out of my bag tells me what learning is about.
First it needs curiosity and an unforced mind to freely welcome all the lessons each day provides. Nothing is more discouraging than having to sit down to listen while you actually want to explore new territory all on your own.
Let us free our wild side!!
While there should be only that many limits and boundaries as really necessary and as less as possible, we do need to learn that our own freedom will stop as soon as we interfere with the freedom of someone else, that is a lesson most of us learn the hard way. It is an important lesson so alright, fair enough. Life is not all guns and roses, or as we would say in German “Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof” (you could translate is to “Life ain't be a pony farm”).
And when you are little and young, without knowing, you rely on the help of countless other people. Our parents tried to do the best to protect us of mishaps and accidents, telling us to stop grabbing that pot of boiling hot water, not because the like abusing their natural given power as parents but to safeguard us wherever they could.
I do believe most teachers in institutional schools have the best intentions, it is often the system itself which restrains them and forces them too to think within narrow boundaries. There are certainly some basic subjects everybody should study but otherwise wouldn't it be great if children could determine by themselves at what time and what pace they want to do or learn things?
How long will kids be allowed to be just kids? Forcing our adorable bundles of energy to stop going their own way and follow their own thoughts just for the means of having a lesson or class sounds so contradictory, aren't they already taking part in the greatest lesson ever? LIFE !
I don't have the answer for those questions and I'm glad I don't have to come up with anything right now. For the moment I can still enjoy the state I'm in right now, and moreover I have found a new teacher myself. Being with my daughter is like having some lessons in life appreciation, so often it is the little things which makes us smile and burst into laughter, pure genuine laughter derived out of the joy of being alive.
So far I have only been a parent for less than a year and a half but I'm already starting to get into that mood where I miss certain things my little daughter used to do before. Therefore I can't help to be selfish and hope she would just take her time to grow up and stay that little and innocent as possible.
Seeing her right now, nibbling on her teether is telling me that life is good and everything is alright. If this is all what matters for her at the moment I'm having no objections.
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