How to train your soul?

Seems like you've come across this headline somewhere else? What was it...? How to train a....dragon? Oh yes, that was it! Kids loved that movie, didn’t they?

A movie on how a Viking teenager of average-built gains the trust of a dragon and becomes his best friend. If a teenager can gain control of a dragon, how hard can it be to gain control over our minds? This is where spiritual discipline comes into the picture. A man, by birth, is wired to struggle against weakness, erroneous facts, and immoral impulses to rise with a higher virtue

Soul training is very crucial when it comes to young minds, as this is the age when we gain new experiences and knowledge—and because with it comes the pesky distractions that are hard to get rid of.

What is a soul or spiritual training as a discipline?

Since time immemorial philosophers and theologians have debated on the nature of the soul. Spiritual training includes physical exercise and mindful breathing for the better performance of actions and activities. These actions are mainly conducted for inducing spiritual experiences and cultivating spiritual development with the tangible psyche. Like the body, the soul needs daily exercise and training for better performance.

For younger people, this discipline helps to achieve a cleaner soul, getting rid of all pessimism that surrounds them in the times of social media and distractions. So says the founder of Treehouse, Rajesh Bhatia, “using social media judiciously is important to keep away from unnecessary stress.”

What are the benefits?

There are a number of benefits involved in spiritual training. A few are mentioned below:

1. It widens your freedom and field of action.

2. It develops the health and strength of the soul.

3. It enhances the soul's ability to delay gratification.

4. It allows you to make weighty decisions with dextrous wisdom.

How to adopt this for gaining a better academic experience

Soulful exercises do more than empowering minds; it allows the practitioner to improve their health and happiness. Following is the list of exercises that you can do to maximize your capacity for peace, kindness, and joy in the world.

Meditate: What do you visualize when you hear this term? If I am not wrong—a man sitting on a rock, reciting a mantra. Well, meditation isn't necessarily reciting a mantra or emptying your brain of all thoughts. It means sitting with your closed eyes and visualizing something calm.

Write: Isn't giving words to your thoughts beautiful? Writing is a mindful practice that gives you an insight into your inner being, by connecting you with your soul. Teenagers and young children should write and maintain a journal to keep track of their daily activities and conduct. 

Spending time with family: This isn’t necessarily an exercise but involving more with people you can trust can give you the freedom to express your true self. This offers you a second suggestion for your actions that can broaden your perspective.

In conclusion, spiritual exercising can help teens and young people to develop a strong core to build a robust personality.

Play, Learn, Grow in Playschool

Preschool a.k.a playschool is a child's first step outside the home. This is a reason why people consider this place to be comfortable and playful. However, a playschool is much more than a bright, colorful, musical place filled with smiling children. One has to look closer to find the intricacies of a playschool curriculum—a place that is responsible to lay the foundational stone of cognitive development in a child’s life. In other words, a good playschool is designed to set up young scholars up for future academic, emotional, and social success. Therefore, young children are encouraged to identify letters, read, write, and do finger mathematics lessons, and much more.

Here are a few benefits of sending your toddler to playschool:

1. Gives opportunities for growth

2. Prepares children for kindergarten

3. Promotes social and emotional development

4. Provides a structured preschool environment

5. Encourages children to be independent

6. Children grow sensitive and amicable towards others

7. Promotes language and cognitive skills

8. Nurtures curiosity in children

9. Boosts pre-math and literacy skills

10. Develops motor skills

Now that we know what benefits playschool impacts on children. Here is the absolute list of things that you should expect children to learn in preschools.

1. Fine motor skills

Motor skills include actions like running, crawling, writing carefully, and more that allows children to make smaller movements in the wrists, hands, fingers, feet, and toes. At playschools, children are encouraged to do small craft activities such as using child-sized and age-appropriate scissors to cut papers. Many children fail to even use scissors as instructed, but with practice, they can learn to successfully conduct the activity. Beading, coloring, spooning can help little ones to develop fine motor skills. This powers them to write aptly when the time comes!

2. Listening skills

Children don't listen, this is what parents and teachers complain about a lot. And why would they unless you’ve something interesting to tell them about? We all know children are active talkers, and to make them listen to us we need to listen to them first. And by listening, one has to really participate in the conversation. Playschools provide a toddler with the same age group that helps him to open up with those around. Playschool teachers encourage children to listen to their engaging and animated stories thus embedding them with the habit of active listening.

3. Basic needs

Children are dependent on their parents and the people around them for a lot of things. But to prepare them for a world beyond home, they are instilled with a sense of independence at playschools. Playschool trains children to do basic activities such as—opening their lunch box, tying their shoelaces, putting their own jackets, and much more. These activities foster a feeling of independence in toddlers.

4. Social skills and conflict resolution

Children learn to adjust to preschools, where they spend time with other children. They learn to listen to their playmates and empathize with them. This is an ideal way to develop their social and emotional selves. Teachers guide toddlers’ natural instincts to be used as a way for conflict resolution. With proper guidance and care, they can be taught to be morally strong with good values. 

According to the founder of Tree House, Rajesh Bhatia “Parents should be cautious while selecting a playschool/preschool for their toddler. This shouldn’t be something to take for granted as it the early teaching will stay with the little ones throughout their lives.”

What makes learning a better experience?

It is easier to identify a quality learning experience. However, it's not the same when it comes to deconstructing the factors that lead to a greater learning experience! The process of deconstruction is what makes the process more yearning. It allows a learner to push further his comfort zone and develop his own standard and methodology for self-learning.

One of the fundamental rights in any country—the right of education is an important right for all. It ensures all individuals get equal opportunities to sustain in their lives. Education, no matter, improve the quality of living and adds essence to livelihood. This is not all. Quality education is the need of the hour—quality education promotes an individual to do better in life. Deconstructing patterns requires deep dedication, time, and analytical skills. However, once you have deconstructed the pattern once, you can use the same to understand new information, every single time. 

Below are the primary points that highlight the importance of quality learning:

1. Adds value to the learner

Learning something new adds up to the knowledge bank of the learner. This means the individual is competent in doing something they couldn’t before. The entire process of learning is purposeful and puts the needs of the learner before everything else.

2. Focuses on being effective first

The learning experience isn’t great if he fails to bring in the effectiveness of the learner. It is important for individuals to be interactive and visually rich, but these all aspects should be used to enrich the individual’s learning.

3. Promotes further learning

Learning shouldn’t be done just for the sake of passing an examination. This approach will fail to take individuals to better places in their lives. A quality learning experience has the potential to inspire individuals’ to become lifelong learners, encouraging them to pursue education beyond their syllabus and curriculum. 

According to the Founder at Treehouse, Rajesh Bhatia, “learning can be made a better experience by providing learners with quality education and helping them to decode their pattern of learning to make the process seamless every time they have to learn something new.”