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Intuition - a child’s inner voice and how to develop it?
- 3m guru
- Oct 8, 2022
- 0 comment(s)
All parents should encourage children to trust their own intuition. It is important to let their children discover what their sixth sense is trying to say before making many life decisions. Making children discover their sixth sense will play a huge role in their development and growth. This skill, called “gut feeling” or “trusting your instincts”, is necessary for students to be successful in today’s highly competitive world. Let’s look at what this skill is all about and how one can develop it.
What is Intuition?
Intuition can be defined as a subtle feeling of knowledge we have about something, even without the help of our five senses. It is our sixth sense. Experts say this might be the result of continuous data processing in our subconscious mind. While our conscious mind is narrowly focused and notices only about 4 to 5 details at a time, our subconscious mind keeps observing and processing all the data our body gets through its senses. These signals are stored in our subconscious mind along with other data we consciously or unconsciously noticed in the past.
When a child learns to ride a bicycle, she falls multiple times before perfecting the method. While learning, she has to adjust her posture, speed, body weight, balance, proximity, and speed of other vehicles, to learn what to change in her next attempt. Does she use her previous experiences to analyse all this? No! she cannot and doesn’t do it consciously, but that’s pretty much what her subconscious mind does.
Where does our intuition stem from?
Our subconscious mind stores not only vast data from our own experiences but also the knowledge or instincts developed through a long period of human evolution. All our senses are continuously exposed to information from the environment, and most of it is received and processed unconsciously.
Our subconscious mind does a wonderful job of receiving various tiny signals and instantly comparing them to all our previous experiences and instincts. And it does this continuously, even when we are sleeping. The raw result of all this processing is presented to us through subtle impressions or urges to think, decide and act in a certain way, which we often call as the gut feeling.
Challenges of developing Intuition in children
The catch with developing intuition for children is that, it’s very subtle and mild, compared to their strong instant emotions. To be able to hear their “inner voice”, they need to go to the roots, be in peace with themselves and detach from many loud, attractive, influential voices and opinions from the outside. As technology makes our attention spans shorter, listening to small things from inside the heart becomes more difficult for young ones who have not had the chance to learn it.
So rather than just letting children develop things on their own, it’s a good idea to get actively engaged in teaching your children this subtle skill. Just like with playing tennis or a guitar, it will be much easier for them if somebody helps them rather than leaving them all alone.
How to teach intuition to your child?
Here are six ways you use to start your journey of imparting intuition to your child,
1. Ask questions: You can start with asking your kid something like, “What does your heart say you about this?” Encourage children to go deeper from their first response. Teach them that the wisdom from their heart is quiet and calm rather than loud and emotional. Keep asking questions such as, “Is there was anything else, you would have done different in this situation?” or “Is there something else you feel about this situation?”
2. Be Patient: Don’t get discouraged or disappointed if their answers are not up to your expectations. This activity needs lot of practice and repetition to develop as a habit. As they grow up, children will probably spontaneously remember and implement your advice. Sometimes they might be bored or irritated with your questions, but it’s a part of the process.
3. Teach awareness and mindfulness: Feelings are the key to develop intuitive skills so, make sure that your kids develop awareness of their thoughts and feelings. Any other activity that encourages emotional and bodily awareness like art, dance and being in nature will also help.
4. Don’t judge: While asking questions about how they feel often, refrain from judgement and criticism. This will help kids develop and grow a sense of connection with you. It will also help children process their emotions with confidence.
5. Encourage them to try and fail: Making mistakes helps children learn what to do or avoid in future. It develops an internal process to judge what led to the mistake and how to distinguish such urges from those that are worth listening to. So, allow children to make mistakes. Ask them directly what could they learn from them. Better if they learn early from small mistakes than later from big ones.
6. Be Creative: Kids learn faster by playing games, so it is a wise decision to craft your own fun games and play it frequently. So, you can play prediction games, for example- “What colour am I thinking in my mind?” or predicting who is on the door when someone knocks it, you can creatively make your own fun games using your kid’s likes and dislikes.
Some best practices to follow that speeds up the process of developing intuition:
Most children are learning to use technology from a young age and as a result we are all disconnecting from reality. In a world of high-tech electronic gadgets and social media influence, how can we teach our children about intuition and to be more in-tune with themselves and their inner nature? Here are three rules we can follow…
1. Let’s practice digital detox for children to keep them away from phones and tablets at least during the weekends. Encourage them to read more books or play outside.
2. Indulge in fun activities that will help them form a bond with mother nature. Examples: Visit parks, grow a plant at home, teach them games we used to play in our times (hide-and-seek, skipping, ball games etc.)
3. Practice breathing exercises like pranayama and yoga. It will prove beneficial in developing an internal connect with the body and mind.
Not everything in life can be analysed and deduced logically. There are several situations where we have to make crucial decisions without complete information about a situation. Choosing a career, judging a person in your life, making a quick step in a life-or-death scenario etc. are all examples of instances where logical or analytical thinking alone might fall short of leading a child in the right path. Here, a sharp sense of intuition will help immensely. It also helps them to be balanced, at peace with themselves and full of inner strength.
In a world of disharmony, lets teach our children this wondeful skill to create oneness within themselves and the world around them.