How to love learning stuff
Do you push and shove your children? Or just let them get on with growing up? I can’t work it out. I mean, Mozart would be a nobody if it weren’t for his ultra-pushy dad, making him practice from an early age. And would Tiger Woods or Serena Williams have made it into the sporting pantheon without their dads’ discipline? Even if you recognise this, you’ll also know that living a fulfilled, meaningful and happy life has nothing to do with extreme achievement. The monster swots at school rarely distinguish themselves later on. Even those genius children who pop up in the newspapers for getting into Oxford to read Quantum Physics at 12 sometimes grow up to find life difficult down the line. So what’s the goal with your kids? A love of learning, of knowing stuff, of finding out about things – to me, this is what gives a life its richness and texture. And the more learning that’s done outside the classroom, the better. Pen in hand, behind a desk, it can all seem rather B-O-R-I-N-G unless you have an inspirational teacher. But through books, films, kitchen experiments, trips to museums, interesting chats in the car – you get my drift – you can really help develop a curiosity about the world and an enquiring mind. And this stays with you for a lifetime. A nice thing to give your children, I think.
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