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These days a lot of attention is paid to early childhood education. More and more young mothers are researching ‘good child-rearing practices’ on Pinterest and are in a frenzy to follow the hippest mommy blogging about the cool and quirky things she tried at home with her toddler.

While all of the above are good things, it is also true that more and more mommies today have become trend followers. With the Twitter and Facebook boom, mums spend most afternoons posting selfies online as compared to reading stories or playing pretend tea parties with their young ones.

Tonnes of research shows that adult behaviour stems from childhood experiences. What we go through as young children shape us into who we grow up to be. Early childhood experiences affect the social, emotional, physical and even cognitive growth of a child. According to researchers the key to questions such as why does someone grow up to be obese? Or how does one develop trust issues? Or why does one lack good communication skills lie in what a person goes through as a child?

Don’t believe it? Give the following article a breezy reading:

There is a fine line between wanting your child to spend his/her time productively and being overly involved. The three stages of character development as per Early Childhood Educator Helen Lawrence are Being, Belonging and Becoming. The first most crucial stage is ‘being’. Allow the child to just be: – Let him/her explore the environment on his/her own terms. Let them make their own mistakes and judgements and most importantly let them decide what they like and what they don’t like on their own terms. These early decisions that a child makes on his/her own, gives them a sense of belonging and enable them to become who they truly are meant to be.

“As parents, we have a tendency to overprotect; it’s okay to try and show them all positives but we cannot forget that the real world has teeth”

Is there such a thing as raising the right kid? Is there really a six sigma approach to raising children? (Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process – from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service). Children are meant to be children.

What is the rush to enter these bundles of pure joy into the rat race? It’s time that parents stop this race of generating the next big CEO or Software Developer. Look beyond the obvious. Your child might be a dreamer and let them dream and be happy while he/she is still young.

Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.

…happiness is a tremendous advantage in a world that emphasises performance. On average, happy people are more successful than unhappy people at both work and love. They get better performance reviews, have more prestigious jobs, and earn higher salaries. They are more likely to get married, and once married, they are more satisfied with their marriage.

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