In this article, we consider non-financial aspects of planning for our children’s future. We have already covered the basics of how to be financially ready for college expenses. We shall limit ourselves to “doing well” in school and college although there is ample overlap with all walks of life.
Many people have the incorrect opinion that the students who do well in the IITs, IIMs IISc etc. are “intelligent”. This is incorrect. It is quite hard if not impossible to gauge a person’s intelligence and marks have nothing to do with it.
The goal of academia is not to judge intelligence. It is to only judge how well a student is able to succeed in a given system. Of course, the system is not perfect but it is unbecoming to criticise the system without first overcoming it.
While it is important to have a ballpark estimate of college expenses and systematically invest for it, Lessons from investing for my son’s future for the last 12 years, that is only one side of the coin.
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How can we guide the child to excel in any field that she wants? Without such guidance and training, planning for their future is incomplete.
So what is that successful students do at the top tiers of academia? They manage their time well and follow a schedule. They have fun at specific times and they study at specific times. They hand in their assignments a few days before the deadline and treat exams like any other activity.
So it is crucial that we teach our children to have a rigorous schedule. Play, work, mobile/internet, dinner, sleep, and waking up – all these should happen at specific times whether it is a school day or not. This will result in a strong foundation for efficient time management.
Studying for entrance exams is all about consistency and time management. We cannot suddenly ask someone in their 9th or higher class to allocate a few hours per week to study for the entrance exam. Such preparation must be done as early as possible with aptitude/reasoning tests (eg. Olympiads).
This is a trick most parents miss. They tend to think entrance exam preparation is “different” from school preparation. It is important to take a birds-eye view on this and integration both preparations into a single activity.
Sometimes it may be necessary to prepare less for the school’s internal exams and allocate time for entrance exam preparation. This requires some vision and planning. I could not do this at school or college.
Encouraging independence is crucial for excellence. Be it thinking about their future or filling out a form or doing assignments, the more they figure things out on their own, the higher their confidence and self-esteem. We must instil in them a basic belief that with consistent hard work the toughest of problems can be tackled.
Finally, we must teach them to take responsibility for their actions. To be specific, we must eliminate excuses like, “the exam was tough”, “the teacher did not teach well”, “questions were out of syllabus” etc. and replace them with reasons, “I did not prepare well enough”, ” I did not understand some topics”, “I did not work hard enough”, “I was not consistent in my preparation” etc.
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Dr. M. Pattabiraman(PhD) is the founder, managing editor and primary author of freefincal. He is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has over ten years of experience publishing news analysis, research and financial product development. Connect with him via Twitter, Linkedin, or YouTube. Pattabiraman has co-authored three print books: (1) You can be rich too with goal-based investing (CNBC TV18) for DIY investors. (2) Gamechanger for young earners. (3) Chinchu Gets a Superpower! for kids. He has also written seven other free e-books on various money management topics. He is a patron and co-founder of “Fee-only India,” an organisation promoting unbiased, commission-free investment advice.
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