How many of us felt that the door to success seemed locked and far away? How many of us toiled night and day only to figure out that we came up short when it came to opening up the doors of our dreams? It is true that the doors to the land of success are generally locked tight and far removed. But, the good news is the capability to building the road to success and the keys to opening the door are within our reach. 

In the olden days, the skill demands from students used to change over millenniums, slowly it started changing over centuries and then decades. We are in a situation where people need to upgrade and educate themselves once every few years. Careers are no longer given for granted, they have to be earned and you have to run on the treadmill to stay on the same place. In such an environment, how many times do you wonder how the world will be when your child grows up? How many times do you ponder about the skills being imparted to your child and whether you are equipping them enough?

We strongly believe that the acquisition of the keys to success starts with a firm belief that 'I'm capable and I can win". Where does this belief stem from? It stems from three basic things:
1. Capability to think out of the box - problems cease to be issues, instead become challenges that one goes through every time sharpening one's creative brain
2. Self-Motivation - most of the breakthroughs in life come at a point when you are about to give up, yet you keep moving
3. Flexibility in Learning Style - Life's lessons come in many forms, one needs to be willing to take in, learn and improvise, it happens only when the child is has the flexibility to step out of the confines that the by rote way of learning places on her and move into the realm of leveraging their own intelligence as strength to learn and succeed

A child who is able to work on the above three traits will experience success and it will form a positive reinforcement cycle for the belief that "I'm capable and I can win" and success fuels more success. You have the keys of success in front of you, how would you like to present it to your child? We have chosen, an activity-based, project-based, game-based methodology, is your child on board, yet?

Most of us don't mind sending our children to art, music, dance and theater classes for years. Some of us do and some of us don't even check the progress made by the children. Somehow, we believe that these streams will take their natural course or that some of these 'creative' outlets are useful for children. We are right in believing this and each of these streams has a lot of depth and a lot of character can be developed in the child. But, how does one measure this? Just some food for thought...

Now, to the point I was pondering over. When it comes to Thinking Skills to, if it has to be deeply ingrained in the child given all the contradictory messages they get from media and sometimes, even the society and school, we need to look at it with a long term horizon. A short term stimulation of a few days or weeks can expose them to new tools and probably lay a seed for an idea to grow if the conditions are right but it cannot help ingrain it as a deeper habit that the child falls back on in times of a challenge. 

This is the main reason that we run each of our modules for a long duration and together all the modules forms a year long program for the 5-7 year olds and a year plus program for the 8-13 year olds. We also have advanced modules based on Project Based Learning that keep the tools constantly refreshed for the children. As they grow, the tools should grow with them, get applied into their needs and support them at crucial situations, that's when they will learn to trust them and apply them when needed. The intention is to provide them with the tools and also help them apply it when it matters. It is a matter of habit, it is a matter of courage, it is a matter of practice as much as it of knowing what to do. Great attitudes were never built in a day!

Knowing is not enough, lets commit to making Thinking Skills work for children. We need you to understand that this is a long term commitment and the changes you will takeaway in the attitude of the child will correspond to your commitment to the program!

A parent came to us worried that the child did not like to read/write and was struggling at school. By the end of just one of our modules, the child started writing very creative stories and as the next module rolled over the child was already making an effort to practice reading, what was going to be presented and more!!!

Another parent recently told us that she had to give a speech at school on the child's graduation day and she didn't know what to say because she had seen such tremendous improvement in the few hours/week of sessions that we had done with the child compared to what had happened at school. The child had opened up a lot, started presenting in front of an audience with full confidence and even won prizes everywhere for creative work as well as presentations!

A single parent mentioned to us recently that her child who would not take responsibility for anything had becomes extremely self-motivated, started taking responsibility for his work, taking initiative at school and even, understanding a situation in which she was upset. None of which he would do by himself, otherwise!

These and more below...are all changes in attitude that are reflected through the thinking skills program. It is essential that it is viewed as a long term solution and something that is an investment for the child's future. A positive, creative attitude that lasts a lifetime could be one of the best gifts you could be giving your child.

In a few recent conversations I came across a few parents who were worried about what kind of tangible results they will take away from a 'creative thinking' workshop? What will a 5 day summer camp do, anyway? Lets try and shine some light on these concerns:

1. Takeaways from 'creative thinking' workshop - Creativity is an means to an end - to solve a problem, express yourself, get out of a rut, live life more resourcefully, happily - whatever you choose. During the summer camp we set the foundation towards adopting this way of life. 

2. Why 5 days? - It is a program that helps build creative thinking foundation and is a high stimulation program. The child needs to have free time of their own to start applying the tools learnt and looking at the world around them with a creative lens. We would love for the child to have that kind of free time to self develop and hence, 5 days...

We run long term program on Thinking Skills as an after school program, which includes Creative Thinking as a longer module and any child who has done our summer camp can come into our long term module to learn & apply creative thinking tools. We also do sessions with parents to inform and educate about the creative thinking process, tools/techniques imparted to the child and the progress made by the child. 

Like the very famous Albert Einstein once said,   Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts" 

Today, when content is available at the flick of a button, what is the edge that you are giving your child? Buying them a laptop/iPad or the latest gizmo is not enough, are they equipped to leverage the tool or are they using it to play games? 

It is how you process the content and the resources that are available to them, what you do with it, how you analyze it, how you connect it with your experiences and make it your own differentiates you from the crowd. So, how do you do it? You THINK CREATIVELY!

The ability to be creative in a given situation is not a 'dress' that you can put on at whim. It is as much a science and an art mastered over time that becomes a skin that you can live and breathe in, the lens that you look at your world with, the world in your head that motivates you to create solutions to problems BIG & SMALL in simple, elegant ways that change the world around, for the better, for everyone around you. I want to live in a better world, designed by a generation of children who can Think!

Hence, creativity matters.