Today we started our camp and it was all that I could dream of. Fun, laughter, creativity flowing from young minds unrestricted, imagination running in all directions.

What more can you imagine when I am around trying very hard to propagate the idea of creativity come back into our lives.

I love when kids paint their cows in pink or the brinjals in red. We try very hard at Superindiankid to stop the kids from thinking only when they are told to think, or what we adults want them to think. We do not want them to follow us blindly.

Who says we have been doing things the right way all along? I always believe there is scope for improvement for all of us in ALL AREAS of our existence.

I encountered sadly a few parents who are unknowingly killing their kids’ creativity at a very early age! And the worst part is that they are not just unaware and ignorant but are proudly praising the playschool where their kids seem to be smothered every day.

I did not know if I should laugh away or shake the parents at their blunder. But they are there in abundance as they seem to be brain washed into believing that killing creativity is good and following adults blindly is good.

Uh! If I could I would right away close down such schools for producing robots and converting human brains into machines.

But then I will have to sadly let you into a secret that hardly anyone knows which actually the mother of these kinds of playschools is.

Can you try guessing?

No time to play quiz here. It’s we the parents!

Parents who are unreasonable and look at their kids like medals and trophies to boast off!

I am going to take a long while to get over with this parent’s mindset.

A 2.5 yrs old paints a predrawn picture. All kids are happy, except this one. Who is constantly calling the teachers; “I want Help”. The painting is literally done by holding his tiny hands as he refuses to proceed on his own.

We find it strange.

The parent calls up about her expectations. She was hoping we would do painting, clay modeling, art n craft etc etc on the first day itself. One painting was too less. She obviously misses the happiness on his face. I want to know the background to understand why he needs help in coloring. The answer I got is not something I can ever come to terms with from a so called intelligent and educated modern mom.

Her reply was that the playschool he goes to has taught her and also follows this weird method of teaching coloring to kids. They and now the mom too, hold the hand of the kid all the time, SO THAT THE COLOR DOES NOT GO OUT OF THE OUTLINE !!!!!

I grabbed my HTC tightly lest it fell off my hands out of shock.

“So what about his creativity?”

“He will learn to color within the outlines, and that is what we want, right?”

“Well he is just a baby. He will learn on his own, just allow him to be natural.”

“No! The playschool teaches him that way and I think they are the best in Koregaon Park.”

“So you do not want your child to have the freedom to draw and color on his own, what he can imagine, however he may express his creativity. You do not want him to think at all!”

“He is thinking, that is why he is careful to call someone for help to get the perfect picture.”

I stopped banging my head against the wall that very moment.

“ok great, thanks for the feedback.”

My happy moments of the big bang opening was very short lived seeing a child’s creativity crushed by his own mother and ofcourse the school. But I will not let any dumb mind to spoil my day and my happiness. There were the rest 30 parents who we extremely happy.

Now the answer to the question I had asked about the mother of these blunders. The over expecting parents.

Such high expectations out of the school teachers to produce a genius out of their tiny tots is pushing schools to cheat, lie and fake outputs and works done by kids at playschools and schools.

Ask yourself. Are you by any chance demanding too much out of your kid and indirectly pushing the school to fake?

A very prominent school principal’s voice still rings into my ears! “Well Mrs Singh, when we do not give heavily loaded home-works and project works, parents complain to us that the school is not teaching anything to their kids. So we give projects that are meant to keep these noisy parents quite and satisfied and in the process other kids suffer too.”

I am proud that my team at Superindiankid recognizes that each child is different, incomparable and has talents which just need to be discovered. We will always honestly provide the kids our best efforts without compromising to the demands and unreasonable expectations. We want to build happy champs by flourishing creativity in kids.

Now I feel better a lot. Decision made. Superindiankid values wins. J