The Bhutanese Leading the way.
By Dhanapati Sharma
In a few days, schools across the country will close for the summer vacation. For many children, it will mean more time at home. For some, it may also mean more time on mobile phones, laptops, online games, and social media. But perhaps this vacation offers us something much more valuable. Perhaps it is an opportunity to give our children back their roots.
Children today know how to use smartphones before they learn many life skills. They can search the internet in seconds. They can watch videos from around the world. Yet many have never spent a week in their ancestral village. Many do not know the stories of their grandparents. Many have never worked in the fields, walked through forests, cared for cattle, or sat around the kitchen fire listening to family stories.
Technology has brought many benefits. We should not reject it. But technology cannot replace human relationships. A mobile phone cannot hug a child. A social media account cannot teach compassion. An online game cannot replace the wisdom of grandparents.
This summer, let us take our children to our villages. Let them meet their grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, and neighbours. Let them help with simple household work. Let them walk along farm paths, plant vegetables, fetch water, or feed animals. These experiences may look ordinary to adults, but they leave lasting lessons in the minds of children.
Modern education teaches children to think. It develops knowledge and skills. This is important. However, education is more than developing the brain. It must also develop the heart.
Psychologist Jean Piaget explained how children develop intellectually. Lev Vygotsky showed that children learn through relationships with parents, grandparents, and other members of society. Lawrence Kohlberg argued that moral values develop through real-life experiences and social interactions. These ideas remind us that good character cannot be learned only from textbooks and digital gadgets.
Schools teach mathematics, science, languages, and technology. Parents teach children kindness, honesty, respect, patience, and responsibility. Both are equally important.
Today, we often hear about bullying in schools, violence among young people, a lack of empathy, and disrespect for others. These problems cannot be solved only through stricter school rules. They begin much earlier, inside our homes. Children learn far more from what parents do than from what parents say. If children see parents respecting elders, they learn respect. If they see parents helping neighbours, they learn compassion. If they see parents speaking truthfully, they learn honesty. Values are not taught through lectures. They are taught through daily examples.
One important lesson children need today is resilience. Many young people grow up in comfort. They receive almost everything they ask for. When difficulties arise, some struggle to cope because they have never learned that challenges are part of life.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who survived one of history’s darkest periods, wrote that suffering can help people discover meaning and inner strength. We do not want our children to suffer unnecessarily. But we should not protect them from every difficulty. Small responsibilities, simple hardships, and learning to solve problems independently help build confidence and resilience.
Children should also learn to control their own minds. A mind that cannot control anger, jealousy, greed, or endless desire can easily become unhappy. Technology has made distractions stronger than ever. Social media constantly competes for children’s attention. If children learn self-control early in life, they will make better decisions throughout their lives.
Perhaps the greatest gift parents can give is a compassionate heart. Teach children to care for those who are weaker. Teach them to respect people regardless of wealth, caste, religion, occupation, or social status. Teach them that every human being deserves dignity. Teach them that success means little if kindness is absent.
Daniel Goleman reminds us that emotional intelligence is as important as academic intelligence. A child who understands the feelings of others often becomes a better friend, a better leader, and a better citizen.
Before we ask what kind of children our schools are producing, we should first ask what kind of parents we are becoming.
Every child begins learning long before entering a classroom. The first school is the home. The first teachers are the parents. Children may not always listen to what we say, but they almost always imitate what we do. If they see kindness at home, they learn kindness. If they see respect, they learn respect. If they see anger, dishonesty, or intolerance, they learn those too.
No school can fully teach compassion if it is absent at home. No teacher can build character in a few hours a day if children do not see it practised by their parents every day. Education begins with the mind, but character begins in the family.
As parents, we often work hard to give our children a better life. We save money for their education. We buy them good clothes, send them to good schools, and provide them with the latest technology. Yet the greatest gift we can give them costs nothing. It is our time. Our example. Our love. Our patience. Our values.
One day, our children will not remember how expensive their phone was. They will not remember how many games they played or how many followers they had on social media. But they will remember whether their parents had time to listen to them. They will remember the stories told by their grandparents. They will remember the values they learned around the family table. Those memories will guide them long after we are gone.
The future of Bhutan will not be decided only by what happens in our schools. It will be decided by what happens in our homes. If we want a generation that is kind, honest, resilient, and compassionate, we must first become parents who live those values themselves.
This summer vacation, let us not simply keep our children busy. Let us help them become better human beings. Because the children we raise today will become the society we live in tomorrow.
GCBS, Chukha
