New age Parenting: You need to learn with the child

When I was travelling from Bangalore to Bhubaneshwar on a business-cum-pleasure trip, I overheard a woman co-passenger pointing out to the Airport Control Tower and telling her 5 or 6 year old daughter, "Look, there is the lighthouse!" I was quite shocked to hear this, but the little girl was happy and kept repeating the word ‘lighthouse’ while pointing to the Control Tower and asking her mother a few more follow-on questions whose answers were not exactly correct throughout most of the conversation.By this time, I was totally flabbergasted. Why would you do that to your own child? Why would you teach them incorrect or partially correct things? In today’s world, when knowledge is freely available in such abundance, your carelessness as a parent might lead to two kinds of problems:i) Your child can keep storing the inaccurate information in their heads since it came from their all knowing, all powerful dad or mom until mocked by friends for the same – not a great thing to happen to a child who probably idolises you and your knowledge.ii) And even worse, they can find out the correct information from any encyclopaedia, book or the ever growing internet which is when their respect for you, the all knowing mom or dad, goes down. A few such instances and your child will never trust the information that comes from you ever again.In this day and age, you must adapt as a parent along with your child, grow with them, learn with them. Producing a child is easy. All you need is a super agile sperm and a fairly receptive ovum. Becoming a parent is hard. It takes mega sized effort to come in sync with them. After all, they are born and brought up in the digital era, you were not! They have information all around them abundantly available in exa-bytes, you did not have this privilege as a kid. But, that does not mean that you cannot adapt. When you do not know the answer to their queries (and, it can happen so many times with their creativity at its peak), you must make it an exercise to work with them and help them find answers through various sources. It can become that fun kid-mom or kid-dad exercise that they are proud of and always remember even after they grow up, and probably add to their list of life defining moments. At this moment, I remember every time I stumbled across a difficult word in the newspaper as a kid, I would shoot it to dad. He mostly knew the meaning and would help me with it following with I would note it in my notebook of difficult words. But there were times when he did not know and he would ask me to bring the dictionary and we would check it together. On those days,  I would learn a new word and so would dad. 

Priyadeep is Founder & CEO of Gyan Lab