Try telling your child to make their bed every morning. What happens? Huge arguments, negotiations, procrastinations. In short, a rebellion.
What if you change the narrative and do the same action yourself every day, and then ask your child to do it?
The chances are they’ll do it, with lesser opposition of course.
That’s because they’ve seen you do it and understand your explanation. They know better than to argue about this with you.
Children always learn better when they see you doing it. They absorb your teaching better when you support it with action. And it’s not restricted to just making their beds.
Children Learn Through Observation
Being an adult around a child is no joking matter because you’re constantly being watched. And they’re learning from what they watch.
Your actions and behaviour become their reference point for how to behave as an adult.
You can teach them all you want about truth, honesty, hard work, commitment, resilience and the whole platter of values. But they remain in theory unless they see it happening.
More importantly, they’ll imbibe them better if they see you practice it.
If they see you putting in the work, they learn about hard work and commitment. The next time you apologize sincerely about something you’ve done wrong, they learn about humility. If they see you being honest to them, and to yourself, they’ll understand the importance of being honest. They learn about trust when they see you keep your promises.
These are all small things but they’re laying the foundations, one value at a time, for the kind of person they’ll grow up to become.
And believe me, it goes both ways.
If they notice you speaking disrespectfully, then that’s the kind of language they’ll learn to speak. Your slackness or inconsistency get noticed and filed in their minds. Your attitude towards mistakes decides how they want to treat mistakes, hide them or own them.
I’ve seen the same thing happening many times in my classroom.
When I noticed some of the students emulating the way I began the day (by arranging my things on the desk), I honestly got scared. The weight of the responsibility felt heavier.
Their simple actions put the onus on me as a teacher to teach them the right things properly. Not through words but through my actions.
They say imitation is the best form of flattery. But this time, it felt humbling.
The Emotional Atmosphere Matters
And that’s the reason why I believe that both parenting and teaching can get uncomfortable at times. Children reflect back what day see you doing.
The tone of your voice, the way you handle disagreements or stress, how you behave in certain situations. These repeated experiences quietly become “normal” to a child.
And honestly, it’s difficult to admit that their behaviour often reflects the emotional environment they grow up in.
As the adults around them, you’re consciously teaching them the academic subjects, but subconsciously also teaching them vital life lessons.
You Are Always Modelling Something
If there’s something I’ve learnt, it’s this. There are no “teaching moments”. Life is not divided into a timetable like in the school.
Every minute, every action provides you an opportunity to teach something because the children are always watching you.
And since they’re soaking in what they are watching, it’s for you to be careful how you behave when they are around.
Your goal has to move from being perfect to being aware. Children don’t need flawless adults. They know it’s not real.
What they want is to see you falter and then try to hold yourself up.
So, don’t waste your time telling the children what to do. Just show them how it’s done and they’ll learn faster, and better.
Let them learn every day, without a syllabus or lesson outline. That’s because every day behaviour is one of the most powerful forms of teaching there is.
And I learnt that from experience.
