Schools can be complex environments, but staying connected can make navigating them much easier. Gail Smith offers valuable tips to help parents gain a deeper understanding and more rewarding experience of school life.
Read MoreLearning is a crucial part of life and the development of a child. Here are nine simple parenting tips which may encourage learning for your child.
Read MoreSo much of this modern technologically driven world is all about fast moving, immediate satisfaction and moving on quickly. Sometimes this flows on into other aspects of a child’s life - finding grit and sustaining the effort. Perseverance is a key word here and it is all about a child keeping on trying, having a go and showing determination to achieve a task. It is easy to say that this doesn’t suit me and so I will just move on to something else less arduous.
As a parent, it is valuable to talk about how rewarding it is to persevere and the process of doing something, carrying it through its stages, is really the success criteria. How often do our children see the value of just having go and being consistent in their efforts to achieve a tricky goal. The more we encourage them to stay motivated over difficult tasks, the better they grow in valuing their own capabilities.
Here are several strategies you can use to encourage staying power in your children.
I appreciate that this is not an easy task but there are several strategies you can teach them to keep up the staying power.
Talk about the staying power you need sometimes to complete a task. For example, have you started gym and find it difficult but you are determined to keep going top reap the benefits?
Perhaps you are studying at work. Talk about the rigour and effort you need to put into simply getting better. Put simply, no pain, no gain.
Talk about the success you feel personally when you go through the trials and difficulties of working at something.
If your child is involved in sporting activities such a swimming club etc., the effort to get better, increase fitness and performance can be quite demanding. Talk about how the child feels after they succeed.
Set simple goals with your child.
“I know you are keen to get better at Maths. Let’s put an extra twenty minutes into learning maths at the end of every day.”
Once goals are set and achieved, talk about the process and how putting effort into the process had such successful outcomes.
In working with children who were reluctant to push themselves, we would start by talking about people they knew that were successful, especially their heroes. We talked about how they got to be so successful and focussed on the great efforts and sacrifice they made to achieve their goals. We then talked about simple tasks that the child achieved with some effort. It was about building on small strengths.
Teachers are very skilled at building on small achievements with children. They affirm regularly and celebrate when the child takes that extra leap with effort. For a parent, it is about being alert to any staying power that the child demonstrates and affirming the effort. Keep in mind here that we are not always affirming the result, but the progressive effort and endurance shown by the child.
As humans, we are very in tune with avoiding the hard yards and sometimes choosing the easier route. Demonstrate to the child that sometimes going that extra distance gives tenfold results. Act as a coach and give guidance not direction or instructions.
“Great effort. So, you think that in a week you will be able to speed up on your spelling test. What will you do to achieve this goal?”
Here you are listening to their desire to improve and supporting them with some guidelines for small improvements.
Helping the child increase their staying power is about strengthening their self-resolve.
“It always seems impossible until it is done.”
Call it what you like but this is all about teaching your child that you can look at life in various ways. The best and most positive way to go forward is to develop a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset. This is all about looking at situations and seeing how it can be understood from a position that will lead to growth, new understandings etc.
This is all about understanding that the growth of your capabilities is all about how you manage it. As a parent we encourage our child to see situations as positive opportunities rather than having a fixed outlook. For example, if a child comes home from school and talks about how he didn’t play well at lunchtime with his friends and so he will not play with them again. After all he feels better to not go where he has failed. This is definitely a fixed mindset. Rather we would be teaching our child to consider talking to his friends about the game or perhaps playing a different game with them. Whatever the discussion, it is about not seeing the incident as failure but an opportunity for growth.
We can help develop enlightening in the child, the idea that we learn from anything we do.
“Sounds like you need to talk to your friends about games that work for everyone.”
Frequently talking this way about incidences that have not gone well is teaching the child that there are many ways at looking at situations and the best way forward can be to use a failed situation to improve yourself.
“You seem upset that the test didn’t go well. How about talking to the teacher about what went wrong so that you can get better at that problem.”
Here you are reflecting on the fixed outcome and turning it into an opportunity.
“Oh, dear the sandcastle fell down. Let’s look in the bucket to see how we can make a better one.”
By having the mindset that you will encourage your child to see the problem from a growth aspect teaches them how to approach situations that are not successful. Also, in your own life modelling how, you reflect on failed situations, turning them into a learnt process is important for the child to observe how you manage situations.
In working with children that felt unsuccessful and would give up easily, teachers would often invite them to set small goals or simply lay out in front of them different ways to see the problem. This was all about looking at re-framing the issue.
When I worked with children who seemed to have a fixed mindset about situations, we would discuss all the positive things that could be derived from the situation. We would often list them and discuss what we learnt from them.
“You seem to be unhappy that you cannot do spelling very well. Let’s look at the words you got correct that shows that you can spell”.
This article is about enlightening in the child the idea that we learn from anything we do. This especially includes when things go wrong. These occasions give us a chance to continue to get better. It is all about finding that hope is in every situation if you look hard enough.
“Anyone who has not made a mistake has never tried anything. ”
Are you the sort of person that is overwhelmed when strong personalities talk over you? This can be so frustrating. As we grow and develop on emotional, social, intellectual and physical levels we find our place in groups and especially in conversation with each other.
Some people become shy and timid, others develop more confidence in expressing themselves etc. The point here is that whatever the developing personality of your child, they need to find a space for their voice. The best place to start is the comfort of the family.
By this, I mean they need ongoing and regular opportunities to be heard and have the time to express themselves. Some families have special listening times at dinner. Of course bed time is another occasion.
A child needs to know that they have a voice which is valued and that people want to hear what they have to say. This is a right and if they develop feelings that they have opinions that are valued, they grow in self confidence.
This is about strengthening their emotional maturity. They hear conversations but recognise that in that conversation they can have opinions and offer comments.
They will always see models from their parents in terms of how they communicate with different groups.
When working with children, after listening carefully to their concerns it was quite common to include:
“So what do you think of that matter?”
“Do you think there is value in that idea?”
Giving a child the right to a voice gives them the understanding that they are valued. It also teaches them the art of conversation and develops their listening skills and improves literacy skills.
Here are some suggestions to give them a voice.
At dinnertime, bring up a topic and ask each child to talk about their thoughts and opinions on the subject. Some parents use simple news items of the day.
Ask your child to write down opinions on a topic. Put them into a box and at dinner read out everyone’s opinions and discuss.
Use the newspaper to discuss some issues asking your child to comment on the matter.
When the family talks about an issue, write opinions on a post-it-note and put on the fridge. This is an interesting way to discuss later as a family.
When watching a film together, stop along the way to ask opinions about some issue that has occurred in the film. This sparks conversation.
We are helping our child grow in confidence to use their voice effectively and to feel reassured that their opinion is important. It may not be the overarching opinion of everyone, but it has a legitimate place in conversation.
“Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise.
Only then can we play along in their world.”
Five suggestions on how to give your child a voice.
The world today is a cautious place and there are very sound reasons why we need to consider how best to keep our children safe and away from harm’s door. Having said that, it is also vital that the child learns to be independent and starts from an early age to resolve matters for themselves.
In my work as a Principal, I was very aware that children these days lack resilience and this reflects how society in its determination to keep children safe, over nurture and choose to make decisions for children to secure the right outcome.
My observation and work with children also led me to recognise that independent children, actually learnt fast, took risks and thought about matters in a more open ended way. They were children who felt comfortable in their own skin, happier in themselves generally and showed an inner confidence and emotional maturity that paid off for them in many ways.
How do we feel satisfied as a parent that we are keeping them safe, but actually letting them come out from their cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly.
I recommend providing slow and progressive opportunities to show independence. This can start as early as the sandpit where they need to clean it up to make it safe and clean to use.
There are many occasions in the home environment where a child can show and develop independence. The kitchen is a prime example. Are they responsible for taking out rubbish out? Do they choose the décor for their room?
Giving our children a range of domestic responsibilities is a great start. We can overtime move into more areas where independence can grow.
Homework is a classic example. If they choose not to complete it, the teacher will deal with providing consequences. Are they able to be dropped off at the corner with friends and walk to school? There are many examples and in most cases children feel so successful when they take a leap of independence.
Of course the independence they especially enjoy is when they are given personal freedom. By negotiating with your child, this is all possible. As the child gets a little older, with gradual support in being independent, you also begin to have more confidence in their ability to cope. This feeds into their overall awareness that you trust them.
It is best to remember that in order to make our children safe, they need to be aware and in tune with what is around them. This only comes from personal experience on their own part. When we over nurture, a child switches off their accountability button and learns little about how to understand the world. Such delayed maturity is a dangerous thing as children get older.
Keeping them safe is to set them free gradually. If a child is aware that you value and trust that next independent step which they aim to take, you build strong bonds which are lasting.
“I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
If a child is aware that you value and trust that next independent step which they aim to take, you build strong bonds which are lasting.