Curiously Smart, Kiddo!

My maiden collaboration with Women's Web and they along with Kid Social Shell find my post deserving of the Third Prize.

Thank You for giving me an opportunity to pen this post. :)

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"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."

I will never be able to know what went around Socrates' mind when he was prompted to make such a categorical statement which is devoid of any relation to the coordinates of time and space.

Well, it holds true universally and is as prevalent as the concept of 'Generation Gap'.

I guess the human psyche is wired to behave in a jaunty manner that it does.

It is blatant and in-your-face, more often than not, as this.

We are our own masters and enslaved by none. Free-spirited dreams govern our horizons, discovering the nuances of life as our own! 

I would be kidding my own self if I were to say that my own daughter was a prim and proper, well-behaved kid at all times. 

No, not at all. She was a brat at times, lady-like at times. The kid in her amazed us all. 

My daughter, is a case in point, to reinforce the fact that kids were, are and would continue to be curiously smart. 

You would believe that I have outgrown the phase of toddler parenting, as it has been two decades since the apple of our eye stepped into our house. I would beg to differ. 

Parenting is a tricky business. Jovial pride, uncanny reasoning, adamant disagreement, clever negotiations, baffling discoveries, all are part and parcel of life as a parent. 

You never cease to be a kid with your kids, they say.

Nor being a parent, I add. :)

I always believe that kids are able to present a never-seen-before perspective to us adults, who tend to the world around us on face-value, for granted, in any situation. 

Kids commit the most outrageous crimes while belittling them with a straight-faced - 'Did I do that? Are you blaming ME for the ruckus?!' :D

It is this innocent outlook which wins hearts. They are an angel to call our own. 

Well, let me warn you, by adding that they are more devious than you can even think of, too. 

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It's a small world, they say. More so now, owing to the eternally connected world. 

I believe that communication is a tool which zeroes in on the distance factor. 

With such vastly spread means of communication, it comes as no surprise that toddlers who are barely learning to walk have acquainted themselves well, with the quintessential 'smartphone' and every detail of its functioning, with toothless smiles! 

I remember distinctly when I spent a good fifteen minutes chatting with my colleague. 

Five minutes later, I received a call from her princess! 

Turns out, she had sneaked in the phone from her mother's reach and accidentally swiped her finger on my name in her last called log. 

This is how the children of today are exploring flashy gadgets and bright screens on their own. :) 

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Back to when I was acquainting myself with the nuances of parenting, we were also welcoming the Internet in the 90s.

The retro telephone with that round dial, which used to go clunk-clunk on dialing the digits, those televisions which used to go 'five colored lines' if the signal went wary, and those cassettes with reels which had to be rolled using that pencil were still the norm. 

The computer with its Windows '95 OS and the blue screen which signified a terrorizing system failure was a new addition to the house that time as well. 

With that massive desktop machine, the words Compact Disk and Floppy Disk too made way into our vocabulary. 

Unlike today's ultra-slim, wafer-thin gadgets, the technology of that time was arduous to the tee and cumbersome to a certain extent too. 

From that blue screen which symbolized terror on the Win '95 command prompt to a violet colored template on the GUI of Windows 8.1 which means perfectly normal, the technology in our house has come a great way!

  

The stereo from BPL Sanyo with an accompanied cassette chamber, ranging from 1-2-3 A-B-C to Indie Pop songs from Leslie Lewis and Hariharan has been replaced by the sleek iPod. 

Those VHS cassettes with which we as kids used to discover joy, on having documented numerous birthday parties over the years has made way for a single DVD player and multiple CDs. 

The concept of the reel driven Kodak camera, which used to surprise us with the development of every 'negative' is now obsolete. 

From those video game parlors to game applications 'apps' on the smartphone, technology has taken gadgets in its stride and evolved too. 

The BPL Sanyo, The Kodak Reel,
The Nursery Rhymes, The Past's Feel!

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Kids today are so receptive to technology that it makes me wonder - 'Where will we go from here now? What next?' 

The next step might be to make the child realize that the page of a book does not zoom in on its contents and that the television screen does not respond to touch! :)

It is the hyperactivity of today's kids which has led them on to be Einsteins and Newtons of their own little world!

There is a little anecdote of curiosity concerning one of my colleague's two-and-a-half-year-old. 

The other day, she was recollecting how her husband had gone to the girl's school to complete the formalities concerning the tiny tot's admission. 

She was joyously proclaiming to him that she would also be able to go to school, like her mother.

The fact being that my colleague and I are teachers, the little one was surprised on not finding her mother in her school, the next day.

When she returned from her first day in school, she ended up complaining to her mother.

'Mumma, I went to school today. Where were you? You were not in school. You don't go to school! Where do you go?' :)

She does not realize yet that there is no one school in this world. It will, of course, dawn upon her in due time. 

As goes for self-discovery, today's kids have mastered that art. As parents, we must flow with the tide and learn with our little ones.

These children of today's generation are growing up in the world where it is imperative to explore oneself and the happenings around oneself to ensure a witty survival. 

The realization of this fact and the ideology of the survival of the fittest, ensure for them a well-rounded personality, as they embrace their future with open arms. 

Being 'Curiously Smart' is what lends an edge to the GenX persona, Kiddo! :)

~~~ 

There is something to the kids of this time,

#AajKalKeBacche

Ousting the parents they call their own,

Who exclaim "Kids Today!"

Queries which put up disagreement,

Adamant eyes which desire a reason

To put their curiosity to rest,

Pair what you know, with the art of persuasion

#AajKalKeBacche, whose adventures find no end,

A love-hate relation with interactive discoveries

Stressed out parents, mischievous kids,

Hand in hand, the explorer never takes a moment to sit

Ripping devices apart, assembling them together,

Discovering the unseen, unheard, are #AajKalKeBacche

Being tech savvy, gadget-friendly,

Comes with its concerns about safety

Parenting is an art, to continuously evolve,

Ensuring the ring of security in the cyber world too

Explore the world together with your child

True bliss, would then be known  :) 

~~~ 

I am participating in a Blogging Contest, organized by Women's Web. 

This blogger contest is supported by Kid Social Shell, a unique digital parenting platform with 11 gaming-learning apps. Use it to play 3D nursery rhymes, counting number games, shapes games, fun math worksheets, coloring games and more! 

It is a unique digital parenting platform that bridges the gap between parents and their children as it offers kids-oriented learning content and rich productive parenting tools.

Some of the benefits offered by the Kid Social Shell platform are:

• Learning with gamification
• Monitoring your child’s performance.
• Interacting with like-minded parents
• A secure hub for kids

The app consists of 11 gaming-learning applications such as 3D Nursery Rhymes, Counting Number Games, Math Worksheet, Shapes games, Coloring games and 6 others.