Think Outside The Box - Sarrah blog

On-road, with my younger son, we saw a hoarding 'Patels'. And my then 6-year-old now 7, read it as 'Petals'. Being a mother I immediately corrected his mistake by saying "it's Patels and not petals." I thought the conversation would end there, but it didn't. I got an instant question back, "What's the difference?" I answered him back by saying Patel is a surname or a family name and petal is a part of a flower. My son asked "which flower?" I said "any flower." To that my son said, "Okay but what is the difference?" That note made me anxious, for a simple reason that I knew my answer was clear and precise. I repeated my answer. He asked the same question "what's the difference?"

Usually, parents purchase some time from their kids by saying "I will answer you later " either because they are busy or they don't know the answer. In my case, I knew the answer but didn't know how to explain the same. I had no option, but to distract his mind and get talking with another topic.

We reached home and little did the time pass, again I was shot back with the same question, "what's the difference between Patel's and petals?" I abruptly repeated the answer, that's when one of my older sons said, "mummy it's just the placement of an A and E."

That's when I understood that, what we have learned in our lives is correct but what our children are exploring is much more the worth.

We as adults are so much use to the difference of right and wrong that we have limited ourselves to it. We hardly try to think outside the box and analyze what our younger generation requires. Fortunately, the younger generation is much smarter than we think. They can think out of the box and achieve their goals. All that they need is their parent's support. When we fail to do the same, this is probably what I call the generation gap.