What is growing up without making mistakes? 

Cleaning up the table, I landed on small round plastic pieces. I looked keenly and discovered they were the tops or covers of colour highlighters I had kept on the table.

The only difference was that someone got those covers and chewed them into shapelessness. Sure to form, on another part of the table, I saw the colour markers dried up without covers.

I was almost sure I knew who had done it and I could not understand the motivation behind his actions. As I pondered my discovery, my frustration and disappointment waned when I remembered that as a child, I did a number of weird things that must have bothered my mother.

We cut our shoes, we chewed pens and pencils, we wrote and drew pictures on walls and destroyed many items at home. I have to rebuke myself often not to get too bothered by children and how they do and interpret things.

I often have to look away and let some things pass. The mind of a child is inquisitive and explorative; seeking to understand and test the limits of many things. Of course, it can be costly, but what is growing up without making mistakes?

We call it paying the school fees of life. If a child plays with a hot iron and it burns them, it is a given they will not go near the iron again. Sometimes I watch the children in my neighbourhood playing dangerous games.

Occasionally, I have got myself involved and spoken up but sometimes, I let it pass. Until someone has fallen off their bike, they may not want to be told to stop riding with reckless abandon.

 Until a child has fallen down, they will not listen when asked to get down from the tree. Whereas wisdom teaches that if it has the ability to be fatal, you should intervene, there are instances when experiencing pain teaches the best lesson.

And that is how real life is. There are mistakes we make as adults and have to deal with the consequences. It could be careless words spoken that come back to haunt us or an expensive venture in which our savings got eroded and we have to figure out the way forward.

Creativity is a valuable attribute. And this is why we should nudge children to remain innovate rather than to be docile recipients of everything they have known and seen.

Allow children to make mistakes but this must be followed with supervision, monitoring and correction. May God help us to be dynamic and responsive in ever changing times. Ways by which we played yesterday will soon become obsolete.