Support your children

As your child grows, and most children do, you will have to decide what type of extra activities they should do.

Of course, three years olds have little to no opinion on what really interests them, what their future careers or hobbies will be and if three hundred bucks for a term of art is a reasonable price to pay. But if it is fun, they will go, and it really comes down to their ability to make friends and collect sweets.

So it’s art, swimming, abacus, Chinese, piano, ballet, speech and drama, science, violin, kung-fu dancing, taekwondo, flower arrangement, software development and more.

The credit crunch begins when your child turns 8 and two more siblings come along all wanting to be like their elder brother and write enterprise applications while playing the piano. That’s when you have to start looking at killing dreams, ending futures and halting the development of a future Picasso – did he attend art classes when he was five?

The trouble then is, how do you decide what is important, what your child is truly passionate about, and if he or she just wants to make you contribute to the economy.

I believe we have to nurture our kids and support them in whatever endeavours they want take on: be it music, performing or academic … as long as it doesn’t involve the harming of other humans or animals. But cost is definitely a factor, especially if it involves initial investments of musical instruments or advanced aeronautical equipment, at which point you would also be asking yourself if your living room is big enough.

My take is, if you don’t encourage and help them, their passion for exploring life and its many possibilities might grow dim, wither and die. They might even end up working for large MNCs and staring into a screen.