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What are the best things to teach our own children?
The way in which different communities think of "teaching" when it comes to their own children varies across communities massively from my experience. From those focussed on acadaemic achievment to those focussed on teaching us self-confidence, altruism and the list goes on..
What do you think are the best things parents can teach their children?
david bradley
Ciaron Murphy
Fritzie Reisner 100+
I have not yet heard the talk, so I do not know what "core" is in the talk. People have different ideas of what they consider fundamental.
samantha grey
Dave Keats
- The power of choice. As you can imagine, there are adults who are still in the process of learning this. So, I think it's incredibly important to start teaching this to children at a fairly young age. I could go on and on about this one idea.
- The importance of being themselves. It's OK to be unique or different - despite what others may think.
- Posessions, status, and money may come and go. At the end of the day, all you really have is your values, principles and beliefs.
- The strongest person is the person that stands most alone. Not my own idea, but I agree with it.
- That home will always be their sanctuary. No matter how hard, unfair, tough, or cruel the world can be, children should understand that they will always be accepted and loved at home.
- It's important to dream. Children should start learning, early on, how to identify and follow their passions.
- You teach people how to treat you (from the Oprah show, I think :) )
- You don't GET chances, you TAKE them. With few exceptions, I think that a person who never had a chance, never took a chance. This is not my own idea, I just happen to believe it.
- There is no substitute for perserverance, determination, and a solid work ethic.
- The skills they require to be independent, upstanding, well adjusted, contributors to society. At a certain point, children have to start doing what they are capable of doing for themselves. It may be temping to do everything for your children. We don't want them to feel pain, to fail, to make the same mistakes we did, etc. But, in extreme cases, I think that doing everything for your children is harmful. Eventually, they will enter a world that only rewards meaningful contribution. And they need to be ready & able to make such a contribution on their own.
Robert Galway 30+
2. The importance of diligence, perseverance and hard work .
3. Accountability for ones actions
4. Pride in one's work.
5. Covey's seven habits
6. The importance of being positive and how to generate your own positive energy. For example, if you can learn to take pleasure in doing something nice for someone else.
7. The virtues of deferred gratification in many instances.
8. The importance in taking care of your body.
9. How to love and live a happy life.
10. Adult life survival skills to follow Scout lessons (handling money, cooking, basic maintenance, situational awareness, etc)
11. How to foster curiosity into a desire to learn.
12. The importance of family
Dustin Rodriguez 30+
Without critical thinking and logic, a child (or adult) is doomed to muddling through life trying to trick themselves into being confident in the things they know. It leaves them guessing and following their gut - some of the best ways to guarantee they will be wrong about everything. Winning an argument or figuring things out seems almost frivolous in our culture. After all, you will be protected from crime, vaccinated against disease, and receive most all of the benefits of the intellectual approach to life that those who came before us were wise enough to create. Knowing how to think, however, is nothing short of a matter of life and death. Thanks to intellectuals, dangerous consequences of irrationality are not close at hand in our society, but living still requires effort. And that effort is wasted when it is not expended rationally. Today the dangers are more personal, and they threaten to leave people depressed, anxious, neurotic, and paranoid - dangers as real as polio or malaria. Critical thought is the toolset that enables anyone, even children, to protect themselves from this. The assurance that anyone can check the correctness of their own thinking is nothing short of life-saving.
chen xin
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Priyanka Gupta
Nathania Benita
teach them about gratitude, and enjoy life by sharing.
Andres Aullet 10+
Let me quote from my comments on a similar conversation here on TED last year:
- be proud of being the one who is different. recognize the feeling of "peer pressure", and resist it.
- take care of a pet. understand that an animal's basic needs (food, water, shelter, love) are simple, and are the same as our basic needs
- try to correct a wrong instead of just saying "sorry" and doing nothing
- minimize the use of the words "MY" and "MINE"
- save your energy for the important fights
- ask about the world. ask about yourself. ask about the universe
If you want to take a look at the full conversation here is a link:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/6995/what_are_the_top_5_things_you.html?c=358100
cheers
Mukesh Adenwala 10+
For being happy, one has to come to terms with one's limitations. It is important that this `coming to terms' should be such that there is no regret, guilt, or heartburn about the failures and limitations. In our endless pursuit of ever more success, we forget that it is not possible to be successful all the time in everything. Think of President of USA, most powerful person on earth. He may be president but if he regrets that he is not a good musician or a poet or a mathematician, he cannot be happy. So, it is necessary that child learns to be happy. Happiness is the goal, success one of the ingredients required to achieve that goal but is not the entire story.
Arjuna Nagendran
Are you sure you really need to teach your children to be successful? What is the meaning of success that you will teach them? Is this not entirely subjective?
I would only use "success" in that context as simply learning to understand who you are, and therefore how to make decisions on your life orientated towards your own happiness; happiness being the ultimate goal.
Mukesh Adenwala 10+
Just as happiness, success indeed is subjective, but not fully so. All societies have evolved some useful ways to define success depending on the age of the individual and societal expectations from the individual. At the same time, one can be happy sucking on one's thumb but that happiness is fickle and unsustainable. In a way, the subjectivity of success as well as happiness is controlled when they both are played against each other.
Solidus Sharp
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Children should be taught never to give up on good things.
What is a good thing? One might ask.
It is better for parents to live a life of intergrity and love. Children learn more from their parents life than from hours of lectures on morality and exemplary lifestyle.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Children should be taught never to give up on good things.
What is a good thing? One might ask.
It is better for parents to live a life of intergrity and love. Children learn more from their parents life than from hours of lectures on morality and exemplary lifestyle.
Morgan Barnes
Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
Obey No1kinobe 50+