Raising children 5/11

結論、難しい。笑

I have a daughter. I love her. She is tiny and adorable. I’m getting happy only to see her. It’s my first time to have a kid. So I’m very excited at raising my child. However, my wife and I have a lot of anxiety, too.

I don’t think the clearly right way to raise children. Parents have to grow up while raising children. I think that raising child is one of the biggest jobs in my life. I know there are many opinions regarding having and raising children. This might be different from my wife. Therefore, this is “my” perspective.

What is the important factor in raising children? I’m reading a book “How will you measure your life?” This book says that the notion of “capability” can be used for raising children. We can fall capabilities into three factors. They are resources, processes and priorities. Fortunately, most of all children can get educations in Japan. They can study many subjects in schools. Some parents give children some other education out of school. They are like swimming, cramming school, English, many kinds of sports lessons. In this book, the author says that the important thing is giving chance to get capabilities.

I’d like to quote a sentence below.
“Resources are what he used to do it, processes are how he does it, and priorities are why he does it.”

This sentence has an implication for me. I thought giving lessons (like practicing sports, learning languages, cramming subjects) were good for children. However, I realize too much giving is not good for children. Children have to think about how to use the things they learned and why they should learn. For example, even if they have chance to study English words and sentences (resources), it would be meaningless without communicating with foreigners (processing). Furthermore they should have reason to talk with foreigners (if not, it is not be prioritized).

What will I say if my child tell me below?
-She wants to study abroad
-She wants to take tennis lesson
-She wants to study about cooking, etc.

On the other hand, if she doesn’t say anything, what will I have to do?

It is easy to give many things without thinking if money allows. However, I think it is important for children to think about how and why by themselves. Passive learning and just cramming knowledge are meaningless. It might be useful only for getting good score. I can use my experiences when I take care of my child, but I can’t force my value on my child. In my case, I always think that I should have practice English more and should have studied languages including Japanese.

Therefore, I guess I will try to give English lesson to my child. I’ll tell my child to study harder, but I don’t know whether it is good.

If my child have curiosity for something, I don’t need to stop it. However I can’t force my child to have curiosity. If they don’t have curiosity without video game and YouTube, what will I do?

Even if they are my children, I can’t change their mind. They have also their own personalities. All I have to do is tell my experience.
I have to think about my life, beforehand.

What was essential factor in my life?
What is the most important thing when human live?...etc.

Though I tried to write down my thought, I don’t have clear idea.
I may not be able to find it forever...

In the end, the most important things are affection, intercommunication, consideration. (not too much LOL)