Greatest gifts for kids are roots and wings

A well-rounded education will help us discover, explore and expand our innate talents and unique abilities, while learning how to question answers and think for ourselves in order to become informed and articulate holistic beings. Children are Thailand’s most valuable and precious natural resource. Their untapped open minds and soulful hearts should never become closed or wasted. While we attempt to teach our kids all about life, our free-spirited offspring instinctively teach us what life is truly all about. A German proverb suggests that whoever teaches children learns more than they do. The best way to educate youngsters is to simply find out what they want, need and desire, and then to encouragingly advise them how to just do it themselves. Youngsters should learn to explore what nobody knew yesterday and to discover what nobody knows yet, making them believe they can successfully accomplish any goal or task they choose to pursue.

Natural learning best occurs within a vibrant safe and secure environment in which students feel comfortable and motivated to fully express themselves. Prerequisites involve assuming responsibility, coping with real-life situations, logical savvy problem-solving, asking probing questions, seeking alternative answers, analysing responses which lead to making trial-and-error decisions, keeping on searching, even when a fairly reasonable option is found. This is the key to educating yourself without undue dependence on others. Kids will better understand what you are all about, not by big talk, but by little things you say and do – how you make them feel. The greatest gifts you can give a child are roots and wings, a sense of wondrous curiosity and hope, an improbable dreamy vision of infinite possibilities come true.

Charles Frederickson

Bangkok