Exploring the role of effort in a child’s developing brain. 

Think back to your school days, perhaps sometime during the 1980s or 1990s. You have just come back home after a long day at school. You were longing to get home and go play with your friends as soon as possible. Your parents, however, have set a few conditions for you.

“You need to first finish your homework, and then you can play throughout the evening.”

Daunting to hear because, since the time you left school, your brain was anticipating playing, but now you are given a task to finish first. The playtime with your friends is the reward that your brain achieves after fulfilling the task of doing your homework. We are sure you also remember the absolute joy once that was over.

Now, a lot of you may know the scientific reasoning behind this joy — dopamine. We know of it as just a pleasure hormone, which is a huge misconception. Dopamine is involved in feelings of pleasure and satisfaction when you achieve a goal. It also drives your motivation in anticipation of a reward, which in this case is playing with your friends.

This is just one example. You can see dopamine driving your motivation and giving you pleasure in simple daily tasks as well — finishing a difficult book, learning a new skill, squeezing in that one exercise routine given your busy schedule, etc.

On the flip side, in today’s age and time, social media is accessible to almost everyone. Everyone you know is on Instagram, even teens! You post your photograph on Instagram and are rewarded with comments and likes within minutes. You scroll through your feed and find something funny, interesting or exciting almost immediately. One piece of content ends, and another is waiting for you before you have even had time to think about the first one.

This is called instant gratification and, as Cambridge Dictionary explains, “it is the pleasure or satisfaction you achieve from something immediately without having to work hard for it.”

This instant gratification can create a cycle of constantly seeking and anticipating rewards, with dopamine playing an important role in this process, just as you keep checking the notification centre on your phone. The more we get used to these quick rewards, the more we may begin to expect them. Tasks that require patience, effort or delayed gratification can then feel harder to engage with.

For children, this could be concerning. These years are shaping the very foundation of who they’re growing into. The world they’re growing into is preparing them for quick fixes and easy access to information. In this world, we want children to question, think analytically, troubleshoot and then come to the answer. We want them to explore the world away from screens as well. We want them to experience the reward that comes from effort, persistence and discovery — not just the rewards that are always within reach.

At The Navriti School, effort is part of the experience.

Right from the time your child enters the school at the age of 3, they are made aware that being a part of the community comes with responsibilities. Through specific class jobs, one day they are a power saver, one day a line leader and one day a meal in-charge. For a child, being entrusted with a responsibility creates a sense of purpose and anticipation — they have a task to complete, and the recognition they receive from their peers and educators becomes their meaningful reward.

Similarly, the curriculum at Navriti is designed to foster critical and analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, not just memorising information and preparing for the next exam. With all the knowledge being a click away, our learners are encouraged to think and explore all the possibilities that exist. Instead of finding shortcuts, we aim to help them experience the process of working towards a solution — through a few trials, maybe even failures, and then finally, the satisfaction of getting it right.

At The Navriti School, we believe that effort is not a hurdle to learning — it is a part of learning.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Written by Kangna Verma, Communications Specialist, The Navriti School