What do your child and Virat Kohli have in common?

What do you think would happen if Virat Kohli was to walk out to bat in a crucial match being played in foreign conditions with no net practice?

Even for the champion that he is, he is likely to feel nervous and under-prepared. And to think that we let our kids into the real world with little or no practice in skills they’ll need – sounds kind of unfair, isn’t it?

In cricket, nets simulate a real-game environment to help build skills in a low-stake manner and provide real time feedback to improve your game. What would happen if you never get to practice in nets but only learn by playing actual games? For one, the play experience would be quite stressful. Learning would happen at high mental costs and you probably would be too scared to try anything new, lest it go wrong and backfire! Your skills would improve at a slow pace and stress levels would be quite high. Learning happens best in spaces where learners feel safe and supported, where they find opportunities to exercise agency, receive quick feedback, and have multiple shots at the problem without being judged. There are many skills that we get zero practice in as kids and have to learn them the hard way through expensive mistakes in the real world. Making informed financial decisions, managing emotions, confidently expressing ourselves and working in groups being some examples.

Everyone - Virat Kohli or not - needs some practice before actually stepping out into the real world and facing the life situations. And a great of providing this practice is by simulating the real world situations in safe space and learning by making mistakes. All of us would do well with net practice for life before stepping into it.