Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation. ― J. Krishnamurti
We all learn about our surroundings or our world by observing others acts and reactions. Imitation is about learning behaviours and social cues, like how to react to a greeting by a fellow child.
How can we guide our kids to Imitate :
- Playtime : stacking blocks / play-dough / role play with dolls / clapping games
- Daily Life and Activities : everyday chores / cooking / cleaning / exercising
- Dance : Start with copying small or basic moves which help in their gross and fine motor movements. Gradually, we can move to facial expressions and combining movement with expressions. Adding singing to it is another advantage. All these activities are incremental.
- Art and Craft
Imitation enhances attention which brings connection. And all this gets better and better through repetition. Through Repetition, we rehearse over time and gradually it becomes easier, and the child gets confident.
Most learnings rely on repetitions, even behaviours of our kids are hard to break as through repetition and repetition they become natural to them and immediately come to their rescue. But with Repetition, we can create memories and handle behaviours too.
With Repetition, we transfer our learnings to our subconscious, and free our working-memory for more learnings. We can say now that we have successfully memorised that learning. It’s easy to retrieve then.
Hope, Imitate —> Repeat —> Memorise makes sense now.
I would you all to read a small story based on Saint Kabir Doha(couplet) to transfer it to your subconscious too.
I would like to enormously thank Morpheus Nag (15yo from Chandigarh) for the above illustration for the writeup. I couldn’t have thought anything better.