6 May, 2026
Communications, Engagements and Alumni Relations Team
(On young children, parenting and learning, and the kind of trust they truly need for holistic child development)
Reflections from a conversation with Mr. Tushar Tamhane – an educational mentor with over 35 years in school education and holistic learning innovator, based in Kolkata.
There is something deeply reassuring about listening to an experienced educator speak about children without jargon, performance pressure, or grand claims. Just simple, observant truth.
Children are learning – all the time. The real roadblock is whether the adults around them are allowing that learning to unfold naturally or interrupting it too quickly.
For parents of young children, this can be both comforting and challenging. Because it emphasizes us to pause, to watch more carefully, to interfere less & to trust more. It is, in many ways, about raising children without pressure.
Children are not projects to be managed
A child has his/her own journey. Their life will not look like ours, and it is not meant to.
That shift alone changes so much.
Often, parenting tends to get clouded with anxiety, comparison, and invisible ambition. We want to help, protect, guide, and prepare. But somewhere in all that effort, it becomes easy to over-direct a child’s path or begin fulfilling our own unfinished wishes through them.
These are often early signs you are over-directing your child, and they also point to the subtle over-parenting effects that can quietly shape childhood.
Mr. Tushar’s view is quite clear: TRUST YOUR CHILD. Trusting your child is not vague optimism. It is visible in everyday choices. It is in allowing a child to try, stumble, cry, recover, and try again. It is in resisting the impulse to step in too fast. A child who is always prevented from falling may also be prevented from best learning opportunities.
Growth does not happen in perfect conditions. It happens in real life situations.
Young children learn with their whole body
We often think learning begins when formal teaching begins. But for young children, learning starts much earlier, and in far more physical, sensory ways.
A child does not first meet the world through worksheets. A child meets it through touch, sound, texture, movement, curiosity, and repeated exploration. This is also how children learn through sensory play.
Ordinary things, therefore, matter so much. A spoon in the kitchen. Bowls near a cooking parent. Water. Clothes. Mud. Leaves. Safe household objects. Spaces where children can observe, handle, test, and experience.
Mr. Tushar’s point is an important one for parents today: Not everything meaningful in childhood must be bought, arranged, or overdesigned. Children do not need to be overloaded with toys or overprotected from all discomfort. They need opportunities to explore the natural world around them. This reminds us why children need to explore freely.
Sometimes, in trying to keep everything neat and controlled, adults inadvertently delay learning. A child naturally and gradually learns with his/ her own experience. A child picks up objects and learns texture, weight, and function. A child watches closely and slowly understands patterns of life. This is not a random activity. This is education in its earliest and most alive form, and it is often the beginning of child-led learning.
Children are always reading us
Another striking idea from the conversation was this: Children are looking at us and observing all the time. Not just listening to what we say. Watching what we do. They observe our tone, our reactions, our relationships, our fears, our habits, and our contradictions. They often know what we believe, even when we have not said it directly.
This should humble every adult. Because it means values cannot really be taught only through advice. They are absorbed through the atmosphere. Through example. Through repeated behaviour. We cannot ask children to be calm if they only see panic. We cannot ask them to be respectful if they hear contempt. We cannot ask them to embrace diversity if we ourselves do not engage openly with different people and perspectives. Children learn from who we are truly.
Education is bigger than syllabus
One of the most energising parts of the discussion was its dismissal of a narrow view of education. Learning is not the same as finishing chapters. A classroom may complete the desired content and still miss depth. A child may score well and yet slowly lose curiosity. A school may appear efficient but not necessarily help children become thoughtful, self-aware, or inquisitive about various aspects of life.
Mr. Tushar spoke about how much adults can learn from children when they genuinely enter their world. When a teacher becomes part of the child’s inner circle, so to speak, the exchange becomes richer, freer, and more honest. Real learning grows in relationship. This is why the teacher-child bond matters so much. If children are enjoying the process, they learn naturally. If they spend years associating learning with pressure, speed, fear, or comparison, the damage can be long-lasting.
Education is not only about what your child is covering. It is also about what your child is becoming.
Are they curious? Are they expressive? Are they confident to ask questions? Do they feel seen? Are they developing judgment in a world full of information overload? Are they learning how to think, not just what to remember?
That is education too. Perhaps the more important kind. It also answers, gently and practically, what is child-led learning at home.
Comparison quietly wounds children
Few things seem as common and as harmful in parenting as comparison.
Comparison enters casually: look at what the other child can do, how quickly someone else learns, how confidently another speaks, how neatly another performs. But children do not experience comparison casually. They experience it personally.
It can weaken self-belief, distort relationships, and shift attention away from growth toward approval. It teaches children to measure themselves from the outside instead of developing an inner sense of progress. For any parent wondering how to stop comparing your child to others, this is where the shift must begin.
A healthier lens, as discussed in our conversation, is much simpler: compare the child to themselves, their younger selves. Are they a little more confident than before? A little more patient? A little more expressive? A little more responsible? Growth viewed this way becomes more human, more encouraging, and not damaging.
Parents and schools must not work against each other
Do not outsource everything to school, and do not rush to find fault with teachers. No school, however good, can replace what a child receives at home through warmth, presence, conversation, and emotional security. A child needs human connection, not just structured opportunity. Screens, schedules, and institutions cannot do the full work of parenting.
At the same time, children thrive when parents and teachers see each other as collaborators, not opponents. This is the heart of a school and parenting partnership, and it shows how parents and teachers can work together. When adults around a child are aligned in trust, the child feels safer. When the adults are constantly critical of one another, the child absorbs confusion and tension.
The goal is not perfection. It is a partnership.
Perhaps the real task is to slow down
If one thread ties all these ideas together, it is this:
Children do not always need us to do more. Often, they need us to do less but do it better.
For parents of young children, that may be the harder path. Because children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled correctly. They are already active meaning-makers who can actually pour into us. Already watching, feeling, testing, absorbing, becoming.
Our role is not to script every step. It is to stay close enough to guide, wise enough not to crowd, and humble enough to keep learning from them too.
You may be putting too much pressure when parenting becomes clouded with anxiety, comparison, and invisible ambition. In the effort to help, protect, guide, and prepare, it can become easy to over-direct a child’s path or begin fulfilling our own unfinished wishes through them. A child who is always prevented from falling may also be prevented from the best learning opportunities. Growth does not happen in perfect conditions. It happens in real-life situations.
Child-led learning means allowing children to learn naturally through touch, sound, texture, movement, curiosity, and repeated exploration. A child picks up objects and learns texture, weight, and function. A child watches closely and slowly understands patterns of life. This is not random activity. This is education in its earliest and most alive form.
Yes, comparison can quietly wound children. It may enter casually, but children experience it personally. It can weaken self-belief, distort relationships, and shift attention away from growth toward approval. A healthier lens is to compare the child to themselves, their younger selves. Are they a little more confident, patient, expressive, or responsible than before.
Children thrive when parents and teachers see each other as collaborators, not opponents. No school, however good, can replace what a child receives at home through warmth, presence, conversation, and emotional security. When adults around a child are aligned in trust, the child feels safer. The goal is not perfection. It is a partnership.
Children are looking at us and observing all the time. They are not just listening to what we say; they are watching what we do. They observe our tone, reactions, relationships, fears, habits, and contradictions. Values are absorbed through atmosphere, example, and repeated behaviour. Children learn from who we truly are.