Curbing Children's Right of Development

Every parent, every teacher and every school talks about "Holistic Development". I wonder what is this all about holistic development- what is this after all?

All of us want to give the maximum scope for development for our children. It is the dream of every parent/s that their child should be the next Sachin Tendukar or Saina or Sania.....

One should focus on all round development of the child and explore the interest of the child and encourage the child in the that field-be it sports, drawing, craft, creativity or music, skating, swimming and so on.

To all this, firstly, we need to allow the children to come out of inhibition and also extend full trust, faith and support from our side. Then we can see children's development. Again, the development stages  vary from one child to another. One as a parent or teacher or observer need to have patience.

Well, all said and done, most of the time we elders curb the child's development-be at home, in school, when with peer group, in a common get-together. How do you think then development would take place.

A couple of days ago, my son told me that- he and his co-friends are not allowed to  talk on the bus on their way to  school or while returning home. A bus leader keeps watching and who ever talks are given punishment of sitting next to the teacher travelling along with them in the bus and kids would obviously keep their mouth shut. The journey time is roughly about forty minutes.  This is for the reason that some of the teachers who also travel in the bus take a nap and don't want to be disturbed by talking. Don't you think it is curbing the spoken ability development? Curbing communication skill development

My son said that he was discussing about some sports with his co-friend and he is asked not to do it. I have hardly found any child of my son's age discussing about sports, history or archaeological excavations and so on within the peer group interaction. His complaint was that perhaps his friends don't know about these things to discuss and mostly they would only discuss about current films either Telugu or Hindi.

Is there not a difference between speaking, talking, discussing or arguing? -- I don't know

I asked my son to be assertive and tell the bus leader that he was not talking but discussing. Well, my suggestion did not work as it fell on deaf hears. For the bus leader-discussing or arguing all comes under talking.

I was some how disturbed that I take sessions and encourage children to talk to get a hold on vocabulary usage, context and this would help them to speak up spontaneously and also encourage them indirectly to read also.  So all the way for eighty minutes- to and fro children are supposed to be silent. One can imagine the plight of the children; has not only the ability but also the enthusiasm and zeal to go to school is also getting curbed.--

It is not literally policing? ....