What children teach you?

We have often heard people say “Never should one stop learning”.

But in the process of growing old, understanding life, trying to be wiser, taking up the responsibilities, there are certain things which we tend to forget. In this mean world, we forget so many basic traits, which define a good human being.

If we have the zeal to learn, we can learn from anyone. Children are great teachers if we observe them carefully.

Below are few things which we can re-learn from a child.

1. Love unconditionally: A child loves without any conditions, wherein we adults are in a habit of putting conditions even for loving our family and children. If our child behaves nicely, we love him, if our partner does as expected, he is loved and so on. But children love their parents, family, teachers and friends without any biasness and without any expectations. They just love. Even if a parent scolds the child, the very next moment the child forgives and forgets. Children never have ego problems, but adults put ego above their relationships, be it friends or family or sometimes even children.

• Be Fearless: A child is fearless and never thinks before trying new things. They are not scared of the fall. They just do things, take risks without knowing or thinking about the consequences. If a child would have been scared of falling, he would have never taken his first step in life. Of course, we should think wisely, but never fear from taking the first step, or else the failure is certain.  

• Imagine and be creative: As we grow in life, we look things and people the way they are. We feel this is how life is going to be for everyone. We stop imagining and being creative, as we are so busy in doing the regular stuff. We stop thinking out of the box. On the other hand, children are always creative. For example: We all know Cinderella’s story, and if we give half story to a child, he will use his creativity and imagination and may be entirely change the story and concept. Therefore, we must learn to imagine and be creative from children.  

• Dream big: Everyone has dreams in childhood. But these dreams start blurring as the time passes by and actual time comes to make them a reality. When a child starts knowing about space, he instantly wants to become an astronaut, without knowing his capabilities and the hard work involved and many other things required to turn this dream into reality. When we grow up, all we think about is the challenges, the effort required etc. turn become what we had once dreamt of. So, learn to be like a child and keep dreaming big, because dreaming is the first step to achievement.  

• Stay happy: A child is happy if he gets a toy, an extra hour to play, or any such things as minute it may seem to us as adults. But isn’t it the way life should be lead? As we grow, so grows our greed to get as much as possible. Instead of being happy and content for what we have, we strive for more. We take things we have, for granted. Always try to stay happy like a child, find happiness in little things you’ve got rather than waiting for a big one, which might never come.

Learn from children how to love, to be fearless, forgive and forget, to imagine and to dream, and the most important lesson of life i.e., to be happy in life and cherish every moment.