Do you have a child who can't sit still and be quiet? GOOD! This may be a problem at school, but not in the real world. In today's world you need a little ADHD just to get by. We must NEVER judge a child by his ability to be passive. Passive children often turn into passive adults, and that is a problem. Did you know that classrooms and desks were invented for the convenience of teachers, not for the best interests of the child?
Every child development specialist (and wise parent) knows that children need lots of time to play, imagine and invent. Children NEED to learn about the world around them by asking questions and experimenting.Children are naturally ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE, CREATIVE, and NOISY. They were NEVER meant to sit still for hours on end and be passive. Why train up a generation of couch potatoes? Children were designed to learn through PLAY, DISCOVERY and by IMITATING their parents and the people around them. Do you realize that your child was smart enough to figure out how to walk, sing, turn on the computer, and learn a language by age two and a half? With NO lessons! He wanted to be like you, so he figured it out on his own. How is it that we live in a society where passive children are rewarded, but creative and active children are punished. Real life does not work this way. Not anymore. Contemporary schooling is all about controlling the child and training him to be a good student. A good student is expected to be silent, to stop asking questions, and to stop being active. The highest praise goes to the students who can follow a teacher's instructions... instead of their own hearts. The applaud goes to the child who can fill in the blank and memorize facts, not to the child who would prefer to explore his own interests. Why? Because schools are designed to train people for institutional jobs. Schools were invented during the industrial revolution, at a time when the best job you could get was in a factory. Schools follow a model that require individuals to let go of all of their individuality. The child is trained from a young age to be a good employee who will work for the boss, no questions asked. the goal is to train them to complete assignments and be dependent on an authority figure to control the their time and activities. During the 20th century almost all parents expected children to get a good education and a good job. The good education was expected to be the golden ticket to a good job. All the parent had to do was put the kid on the big yellow bus, no worries. The government would take care of everything, mom and dad could go to work, junior would spend all day in a nice school and get educated for free. The world has changed. People who want to live the "good life" are no longer finding good jobs. Many highly educated people are living on unemployment or living with mom at age 35. Many people who own businesses are no longer looking for employees, taxes are high, risk is high, minimum wage is more than they want to pay, minimum wage is less than an educated person is willing to work for anyway. So where are the jobs? Jobs are going overseas where labor is cheap and immigrants fill many American factories. We live in a changed world. It's Google's Earth. It is now possible to live in Italy, do business in America, and have a virtual assistant in India, without missing a click. The internet has created a worldwide office space and marketplace that has a whole different set of rules. The global marketplace and office space belongs to the ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE; CREATIVE and NOISY people with laptops. They are self made experts who make money by selling products, advertising, entertainment and information online. They "tweet", they "like" they "pin" they "post" they sell. It's a "buy it now" world. You almost have to be hyper active to compete in this market! In the new marketplace the winners are the kids who couldn't sit in class still, but learned to create YouTube videos at home. They now bring in thousands of dollars a month while making you laugh or teaching you everything you need to know. The new rich are the creative kids who wouldn't stop doodling all over their schoolwork. They started building websites, making apps, and designing digital magazines after curfew, in the basement. The talkative kids, who couldn't be quiet, are starting social networks and selling ad space to the rest of us. The fidgety ones are designing the video games that the whole world plays. The kid who would not stop interrupting the teacher is the hacker who creates your viruses and then sell you virus protection, and you buy it! Remember the kids who would never follow instructions? They are the self taught internet marketing gurus, who wouldn't take advice from the professionals. The class clowns are now the entertaining bloggers that we love. The kids who were always late for school or just played hooky are the happy stay at home moms and dads, they are self publishers or music teachers who use the internet to find customers. They work from home or on the beach, they can live anywhere, they can homeschool their kids, they travel the world and earn a decent income at the same time. They don't want to spend 50 hours a week living for the boss. They figured out that even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat, so they opted out. But what about those good students who learned to sit still, be quiet, follow instructions, never ask questions, and never think for themselves? Many of them are working for the boss, clocking in, clocking out, waiting for Friday, dreading Monday... same as they did in school, it's normal, right? The rest are the ones who are stomping their feet and waving their college degrees in the air. They are waiting for a dream job, a dream boss, and a dream paycheck to come find them. They were told that they had the golden ticket. No one told them that their dream job moved to India. The world has changed but school children are still being educated to compete in a vanishing world. The current education system is based on a model that expired 50 years ago, and it can't be fixed. What needs to change? The whole model of education. When will it change? Oh, that part is easy. The world will changefor your child the moment you decide to take responsibility for his education. Why, because you know that your ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE, CREATIVE, and NOISY child is not being prepared for the real world while sitting still and being quiet in a classroom. Here is the main point. The education system may be failing, but you are still the PARENT! The ultimate responsibility for your child belongs to YOU. Not the bus driver, not the homeroom teacher, not the politicians. By the time the government finds out how to give your child a better education, your kids will be 50 years old, and that might be too late. What are you going to do? Maybe you don't feel qualified to homeschool. Maybe there is no Montessori school near you. No excuses. You need to figure out how to solve this problem.
Maybe you need to do something bold. Your child's future depends on you, and if your child is one of those kids who can't sit still and be quiet... SMILE! You don't have to be a child development specialist or have a teaching degree to be a wise parent. You know that children need lots of time to play, imagine, invent, and learn about the world around them by asking questions and experimenting... and in this modern world everything else can be learned on YouTube.