-by Ketika Kasetwar, Feb 2024

(This post was inspired by the Barn Owl we rescued late last night.)

We are hungry for opportunities that add to our other keyword, ‘exposure’. I learned early on that until I increase my knowledge/expertise in identifying the opportunities available for my daughter, I cannot bring those opportunities to her. Whether they will help in any way, though I am not expecting anything beyond just going through the experience of facing that opportunity, is another aspect. We do discuss our takeaways from the experience, but most of the time, we simply add it to our bag of experiences and move on.

When most parents reach out to me, asking how we connect with these opportunities, I recommend OWL: Observe, Weave, Locate! OBSERVE your child every day – to learn where there could be a chance to facilitate the ongoing journey. Or sometimes, just for the sheer pleasure of observing their individual explorations. WEAVE our observations into conversations, experiences, and interactions. And LOCATE where we may have an opportunity to learn more.

What one can do in this world is endless, but what one can do by tapping into locally available resources is limitless. Every parent and family have some restrictions that control which resources they can tap into. But more important is what we do with these resources and how we help our children experience different opportunities.

This became evident when we visited the Indian Science Festival 2024 at IISER in Pune. There was so much to learn and observe that it was truly overwhelming for an ‘exposure’-seeking family like ours. So, we wandered around for some time before settling for whatever felt most interesting. One session we attended was about the use of Music Therapy to handle Pain. As a parent, it never crossed my mind that my daughter would be interested in such a topic. But when we attended, the presentation captivated her. And then her question – “Why do some people use pain to handle pain?” More than thinking about the depth of the question, I was witnessing how she seized an opportunity to interact with a renowned scientist directly, that too in front of more than 100 strangers and intellectual peers. For her, she got her answer. But as a facilitator for her learning journey, I was happy to be able to present her with such an opportunity. While most children were content visiting and interacting at the stalls, my daughter wanted to interact with scientists and researchers.

When we attended an equestrian show, I did not know that it would present a beautiful opportunity for us to connect with another animal at a deeper level. The opportunity had been there for some time, but we did not look at it until an event made us pay attention to it. Will I call it luck or the way the universe works?

Maybe! But I think it is about accepting that there are opportunities available every day, in every space, and while meeting anyone. We parents need to open our minds and hearts to feel these opportunities, to be able to bring them to our children. And for this, I know that OWL works best!