What is it to attend a child?
It is 100% attention, physically, psychologically, emotionally.
If I ask Eva to do some task expecting to indulge myself in some other household tasks, she would come up to me with genuine questions !
Questions which I have to respond.
It would be a compromise on her part if I stay away 10 feet and answer her questions.
I have tried to give her some ‘interesting’ task and stay away for a while.
It didn’t work.
She wants me there, participating in whatever she is doing.
So, I am left with two options : Indulge with her or indulge her with me.
Togetherness !
(May be , after some time she may not need this much of me.)
And I realized what it means to respond to a child .
She has only genuine questions. All her questions have intensity of life or death. So, I have to attend her question fully and respond accordingly.
And now I understand –why a child asks the same question again and again.
A child sees the world with a collective approach, she sees it through so many perspective, and a new perspective each time. She relates one incident to so many other incidents, people, things and such. So, each of her question is to check out the new association and making adjustment with that.
I experience this as a teacher,too. If a child asks the same question again and again , then it means that she is searching for new associations or the concept has not sattled into her brain or she has not understood it. And if she has not understood it, it means the teacher needs to explore a new technique to address the same topic.
One has to be true and genuine while responding a child.
Now I understand why the great thinkers suggest to spend some time with children ! One do not need to do meditation classes after that.
It is 100% attention, physically, psychologically, emotionally.
If I ask Eva to do some task expecting to indulge myself in some other household tasks, she would come up to me with genuine questions !
Questions which I have to respond.
It would be a compromise on her part if I stay away 10 feet and answer her questions.
I have tried to give her some ‘interesting’ task and stay away for a while.
It didn’t work.
She wants me there, participating in whatever she is doing.
So, I am left with two options : Indulge with her or indulge her with me.
Togetherness !
(May be , after some time she may not need this much of me.)
And I realized what it means to respond to a child .
She has only genuine questions. All her questions have intensity of life or death. So, I have to attend her question fully and respond accordingly.
And now I understand –why a child asks the same question again and again.
A child sees the world with a collective approach, she sees it through so many perspective, and a new perspective each time. She relates one incident to so many other incidents, people, things and such. So, each of her question is to check out the new association and making adjustment with that.
I experience this as a teacher,too. If a child asks the same question again and again , then it means that she is searching for new associations or the concept has not sattled into her brain or she has not understood it. And if she has not understood it, it means the teacher needs to explore a new technique to address the same topic.
One has to be true and genuine while responding a child.
Now I understand why the great thinkers suggest to spend some time with children ! One do not need to do meditation classes after that.
1 comment:
great thoughts from a teacher.
I have always felt that we lose the ability to ask genuine questions without any inhibitions once we pass our childhood. i have always tired it and failed.
"She has only genuine questions. All her questions have intensity of life or death"
love those lines.
thanks for sharing
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