Nurturing Our Ability to Communicate and Self-Reflect
Have you seen this video below?
If you haven’t, please do spend a few minutes to watch it.
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One’s ability to reflect, and elaborate his/her thoughts verbally and on paper need to be developed, nurtured and encouraged since youngI love how the 8yo in the video speaks and explains his thoughts and opinion so well, at EIGHT years of age.
Too many of us (in Indonesia, especially), when asked a question, we tend to give two or three-word answers.
Btw, could the lack of ability to explain ourselves and our thoughts well be the result of Indonesia’s overall system over the decades?
e.g. Students who are quiet and simply listen to teachers are regarded as better/preferred. Curious students who ask many questions are regarded as disturbing the teacher and the whole class.
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Anyway.
Here’s one common scenario:
“Why is Roger Federer your favourite tennis player?”
*pause 5 seconds”
“He plays well.”
“What is your favourite food, and why?”
“Fried chicken. ”
“Why do you like fried chicken? ”
“Errrr… I just like it. ”
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One of the things we can do is ‘intentional’ dialogues with our childrenI believe one’s ability to reflect, and elaborate his/her thoughts verbally and on paper need to be developed, nurtured and encouraged since young.
Analyse a situation. Reflect. Explain its effect on people, including lessons that we can learn from it.
One of the things we can do is ‘intentional’ dialogues with our children.
e.g. Routines before bedtime, where everyone in the family shares about their day, the mistakes they have done, the things that make them thankful, life lessons they have learned, the details of certain incidents, etc.
This is something that we do with our children.
The journey is still long, though.
Our kids do not automatically become ‘good communicators’ just because we encourage it at home.
(hmm, well, except for Brie, the youngest in the family, I guess. She likes to talk, and talk, and explain. Hehe. She has that skill naturally in her. She needs to learn and discern: which ones to share, when to share them, how to give an overview instead of detailed explanations all the time, etc.)
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Impact our kids from homeBut anyway, we hope to impact our kids from home, and nurture more life skills in them.
i.e. Before they all live their own lives AWAY from home.
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PS: Love how the boy in the video has the heart for others, too. Truly something we all – young and old – need to still learn.
