By LIBERTY COYLE-PADDACK
Sheridan Student Column
The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
Have you ever had a child? Many people have experienced the joys and sorrows, pride and despair, laughs and tears that come with raising children.
Everyone loves to coo over newborn infants, dote on young children, and fuss over graduating teens. However, in order for kids to progress through these stages of life, their minds must first learn to grow.
According to firstthingsfirst.org, 90 percent of a child’s brain develops within the first five years of life. This is one of the most crucial stages of development, so parents should be well-educated on how to best assist their young kids’ expanding minds.
One of the most effective ways to enhance any child’s brain development is to read to them. Yes, it sounds strange, but studies have shown that routinely reading to children under the age of five helps their skull bones fuse together more healthily.
Obviously, if a child isn’t read to very often, that doesn’t mean they will have unhealthy skull fusions; reading just improves the process. If parents read to their children at least two hours every week, they will help improve their young kids’ head development. Plus, this is a great way for babies to learn pictures and sounds.
Another terrific method of training up the next generation is to look and listen.
Kids, especially teenagers, have a special way of expressing themselves. There is no rhyme or reason to how it’s done; every person is unique in their self-expression. Parents must learn their children’s ways of communication so they can pick up on the subtle clues their kids give.
For example, some of us deal with stressful situations by becoming defensive and irritable, ignoring everything around us and throwing ourselves into what makes us happy: art, reading, gaming, etc. Others can only process something by talking through it. So, they will want to sit down and have a meaningful conversation, slowly working through whatever it is that has them stressed.
However it is that a child handles things, their parents can help them through difficult phases of life by noticing and obeying those hints their kids leave scattered around. By doing so, parents show that they understand their children and care that they are struggling in life, but are willing to let them deal with it in their own way.
A final way to steer kids in the right direction is to show them that there is someone who cares about them individually.
This culture has taught us that we need to all look the same, act the same, be the same. However, this is an unhealthy mindset. Instead of trying to fit in with everyone else and be “normal,” kids should be taught to be themselves and redefine “normal.” To put it in Dr. Seuss’s words, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out!”
Children should not feel afraid to reveal the quirky, unusual, different parts of their personality; rather, we should be encouraging them to embrace themselves and be confident in who they are. Only then can they truly become who they are and be ready to take on the world.
In these three ways the adults in every kid’s life can begin to guide them through the bumpy, imperfect pathway of life and give them the tools they need to succeed in the world.