Why is it that at times children from not so well off financial backgrounds are able to achieve great heights in their lifetime, while many children with access to all the resources struggle?

Often parents tend to think that it’s their role to ensure that the child gets sufficient resources in the form of a good school, books, tutors and then the child would be successful. Having provided the resources these parents get into review mode on marks, grades and a sequence of individuals to blame in case of non-achievement. 

Unfortunately the cause and effect relationship is not so simple in the case of bringing up a child. 

The interplay between child and parents is a very crucial one for behavioural development. The role of a parent is to help the child find out the areas of interest and then guide or let others guide the child. The challenge comes when the parent is unable to find out the interest of the child and is incapable to guide the child, but thinks that he or she is great at both. 

Such a parent tends to adopt the resources and results way. Good results would mean more nice things while bad results would therefore mean reprimand. These parents do not understand that developing a child is not about input or output. It’s about giving sincere appreciation to the efforts of the child and being there to talk and understand the child. Both these things do not require resources. It needs only genuine intent and interest. 

At Yancha, we work closely with parents to help them identify the uniqueness in their child and hone the capability accordingly. We help them identify the real differentiators and not get carried away with the resources mindset. Also these parents learn to be supportive and provide the right environment for the child to develop. 

Consider the case of Raghu (name changed for confidentiality). A farmers son, he would work with his father in the fields and then go to school. He developed a keen interest in the concepts of drip irrigation and used it in a small patch of land to test it out. Then he expanded it to the whole field. 

His next experiment was a small green house and he could grow vegetables even in summer by controlling the water and temperature. The whole summer of dry months there was sufficient water for seven such green housesthat provided sufficient vegetables for the family. 

Other villagers also keenly observed what Raghu was doing and started replicating. And soon the entire village was a lot more prosperous as they could grow crops and vegetables across the year through a combination of drip irrigation and green houses. 

The science teacher met Raghu’s father and implored him to send the child for further education to the city where he would get much better education and stay free of charge. After discussing about it at length within the family over several months, the father decided to hold Raghu back in the village as the belief was that children who go to the city never come back or help their parents. So if Raghu went to the city, the father would have no one to take care of him or the field when he grows old. 

A few more months and then the father asked Raghu to concentrate on the field full time and stopped meeting any teachers. 

If the child gets constrained their creativity drops and they become ‘normalised’. And over time It is the same routine the keeps going on across generations. However if the child gets an encouraging environment, he or she will try to take on the stretch and thus go higher on the capability quotient. Then it induces a positive spiral which then breaks all the barriers and constraints imposed in a lifetime. 

At Yancha, expert guides provide the much needed inputs to parents to carry out the behavioural development of the children. While schools focus on the academic development based on prescribed curriculum, behavioural development and building on the areas of interest of the child is best carried out by the parents. 

The fundamental reason for children to achieve far beyond expectations is the behavioural development carried out by the parents in the formative years of their development. 

Parents must realize that the access to resources is not the defining element anymore. Therefore it all boils down to behavioural development and the ability of the child to focus and persevere.