Aug 02, 2026 Features / Columnists, News

(Kaieteur News) – Children have an extraordinary ability that many adults underestimate. They listen with their eyes. Long before they understand the meaning of responsibility, honesty, kindness, respect, or prejudice, they are watching the people around them to figure out what those words actually look like. They watch how parents speak to each other after an argument. They notice whether promises are kept or broken. They observe whether adults treat the cleaner with the same respect they show the manager, whether they tell the truth when it is inconvenient, and whether they solve problems through calm conversation or angry confrontation.

By the time a child reaches adolescence, thousands of these seemingly insignificant observations have quietly become life lessons. No classroom teaches them. No textbook explains them. Yet they often become more influential than anything a child will ever learn in school. Perhaps that is why children so often grow up sounding like the very people they once promised they would never become.