Creating Intellectually Curious Children

Making the world a better place is one thing — ensuring it maintains the growth is another. You can’t count on having control forever — and you can never know what or who comes next. You cannot ensure that the world will be a better place for your children when they grow up. But ensure they make it better? You sure can.

See — you are where you are today, solving problems someone else left behind. You are now a leader who lives to shape the world according to contemporary needs and desires. You were once that child who was supposed to be left with the better world to live in. So why do you have the need to change it again?

Because everything can always be better: your product, yourself, your business, this world, that guacamole you ate for lunch yesterday… There’s always another shade of better. And there will always be those who will want to add another shade.

Therefore, it’s crucial you understand: it’s not about leaving the world a better place for children. It is about leaving the children better for the world.

Turning back to your childhood years, do you think you could have been better prepared to bring your own values and participate in world development? If so, it is time you prevent children you know feeling the same way about it one day.

Recently, a cousin told me her five-year-old daughter couldn’t reach for a glass in the counter to pour her chocolate milk in, so she took a jar she found under the kitchen sink because she still wanted to have a fancy serving. Many find it childishly funny, but if you ask me — this is called innovation. What? She certainly couldn’t have learned at that age that hipsters find drinking from the jars attractive.

This little kid had the ultimate goal — to serve herself some chocolate milk in a fancy container, and she didn’t give up until she found a solution. Instead of whining about not having her fancy glass, she took a creative approach and researched the kitchen to see what else fits the description. She was extremely content with her solution, and enjoyed the different milk drinking experience. I don’t see anything wrong with this kiddo becoming a world-changing entrepreneur one day. Oh, she will be ready!

It is vital that we entice intellectual curiosity in children, and that we help them meet and overcome thought challenges, teaching them how to take the lead and head forward. Instead of buying them an idealistic Barbie doll or a fancy plastic car — buy them a puzzle. Challenge them with a mind training game. Teach them that perfection cannot be bought in a toy store, that the ideals are not self made, but created. Prepare them for the world in which nothing goes as planned, but success arises in spite of it for those who hustle and think outside the box.

By simply choosing the toy more carefully, you can open the world of problem solving for children. By spending more time playing with them, you can entice intellectual creativity during the problem solving process. By demonstrating your own creativity, you will push them out of their comfort zone, teaching them to always do so themselves — preparing them to become the leaders who will shape the future world.

Is your startup feeling a bit down lately? Moving on: Startup Indigestion Disease: The Symptoms, The Causes, and The Cure.