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Saturday, December 16, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Education and Stimulation - what is right for our children?
Children’s education is a subject that affects all parents, whether your child is newly born or 16 years old. It is often difficult to identify what information is relevant to your child and what is the best approach for their current and future development.
There are a number of excellent educational web sites that offer static and interactive content. The resources provided by these sites are usually themed towards a certain marketable product. The BBC website CBEEBIES is a prime example of this. The content and scope of the site is truly excellent but the medium is designed to encourage product association and familiarity.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as you have free access to a myriad of excellent resources that your children are familiar with but…. you should consider that use of this medium may result in “I want this character/product” mentality. Notwithstanding this, it is almost impossible to isolate children from product promotion. Advertising and marketing companies expend a great deal of energy and funds to appeal to and engage our children interest in their products. The difficult part for the parent, or certainly what I found to be the greatest challenge, is finding the right products and using them to your advantage.
TV product Association
Children learn in different ways with one example defined as re-enacting (to reply/review events that have occurred to improve understanding or allow insight into the reasons/outcomes of an event). By re-enacting actions taken by their favourite character (witnessed on television), children aim to gain understanding of what the character was doing. We often identify ‘oh, he is just playing Spiderman, he does it all the time.’ If you take the time and watch a little closer, you will notice pattern in the play and repetition with different outcomes. Why? Your child is learning to understand what has happened and also thet the outcome can be manipulated. As a parent, this is particularly beneficial when attempting to explain difficult situations or portray complex events. This has been one of my personal favourites for the education of my son. Re-enactment enabled us to discuss what the characters were doing, why and the impact of their actions.
An example of this is provided by one program where a character had stolen an item from a friend (Spud stealing an apple in the series Bob the Builder). This provided the perfect means to discuss the action, why Spud took the apple and how Bob felt after having the apple taken. We discussed the situation and talked through several different outcomes: Bob becomes angry, upset etc, they break friends, Spud apologises and they are friends again and so forth.
The success of this approach was put to the measure after the birth of our second child. Our son was, as is frequently the case, besotted with his new partner in crime - our daughter. As our daughter grew and crawling, walking and general destruction began, our son constantly adapted to her needs, understanding that her actions are about learning and inadvertent events or accidents are simply a by product of her personal development.
This approach may not be the preference for most people and can be long winded and time consuming but, in my opinion, it is well worth the investment. It is very gratifying to watch a 5 year old boy patiently explaining how to use toys to his 14 month old sibling, despite the occasional ‘doink!’ on the head from a plastic hammer.
Have confidence
The key element to child development is to trust your instincts and continually massage your approach to your Childs and your own needs. See how your child reacts to certain events and interactions: build on their strengths – this is great for their confidence, talk through their weaknesses – a Childs understanding that difficult does not mean impossible is key to their approach to learning. A child that is afraid to try new things will inevitably have more difficulties obtaining experience than that of a child who is not afraid to get it wrong. One of the greatest challenges I have experienced so far with my son was manifested in ‘failure perception’. My Son was, for a period, obsessed with the perception that inability to complete a task effectively first time meant failure. We had several discussions and attempted different tacks but nothing seemed to break the perception. Having saturated ideas, I felt a failure myself and this proved to be the key. Completely unintentionally we parents are always right, this is at least the perception of our children. We are role models and provide the framework from which children measure themselves, so when a child believes their parent to be right all the time, they feel they must attain the same standard.
Become a failure!
So, BREAKTHOUGH…. When doing tasks together (drawing, reading, playing football etc), I would start to purposefully fail (use the wrong colour or make a messy picture, say the wrong word for an image when reading, miss kick a football or trip over). I would follow this up with, “Silly Dad, keeps getting it wrong, never mind I’ll keep trying,” and continue playing etc. The impact was almost immediate, after just a few days our son would follow up a mistake with never mind, keep trying. This was quite possibly the biggest obstacle we had to pass and a valuable lesson for my Wife and I – with children, failure has more importance than success. Please do not misinterpret this, I am not encouraging failure, I am simply trying to show that we must accept its existence and importance.
Be flexible
All children are individuals and have their own strengths and weaknesses; in addition they will learn different things at different times in their development. The most important thing is to remain flexible and explain why you do things and what you hope to achieve. Kids love to be involved, my sons thirst for reading was inspired by the potential to understand the text on and within video games (despite the fact he only plays on them once a month or so… I am sure this will change!). Introducing books further developed this with areas, encourage drawing and developing ‘own’ stories. By changing approaches and using different mediums (reading, audio tapes and songs, computers and television) it becomes simple to develop a technique that encourages the child to think about their actions. More importantly, diversity ensures that the child does not become bored with repetition and duplication.
Important point for parents – try not to be overly competitive. Does this sound familiar… Mrs Jones pops around to inform you that her son ‘Bobby’ has started walking at 11 Months, that’s great you exclaim whilst simultaneously thinking ‘our Jane is 13 months and still crawling, sure she talks more than Bobby but….’ You immediate reaction, Jane is, for several days, frog marched up and down the hallway/lounge/dining room until she eventually either screams you into failure or takes the enforced prodigal step. In the mean time She has stopped talking as all her efforts are focused on walking….. There is a lesson there.
Be Realistic
Remember, each child will develop at their own pace. Before deciding to teach your toddle Nuclear fusion and the pros and cons of splitting the atom, it may be worth considering a, how realistic this is, b, how the child will react. A more realistic starting block may be encouraging them to aim into the toilet rather than in its general direction. Only you can decide what is right for your children, as a rule though, if your child becomes disinterested or reluctant to join in activities, you may be doing too much…
The right time and place
So you have your resources, you have considered method and approach for your Childs development and finally decided on a rough plan to get you started but despite your best efforts, your child is simply not interested. Well, welcome to being a parent! Finding the right time is almost as difficult as working out the right level of content. My advice (for what its worth), is to try different times of the day until eventually, you find a time that works.
What worked for me? We eventually worked out that our son had to be physically tired to enable him to relax and let his brain work. Children develop and change physically as well as mentally, try and tailor your approach to this knowledge. The physical/mental development struggle that children face is complex and they will take great pride in the new abilities of their body and mind, to jump that little further, to manipulate and object as desired and so forth. Anyway, after lots of failures, pain and sweat, we found that the best time for educational learning was in the evening. A simple routine of dinner, walk the dog then return home to pyjamas, a glass of milk and a book worked wonders. If my son has excess energy from the day, he runs it off with the dog. When we sit down to read or talk through numbers shapes etc, he is physically tired and will relax and let his brain engage with the topic. If he is too tired I will read him story and simply allow him to listen, a no pressure approach that has, so far, worked extremely well.
Reinforced learning – knowledge by repetition or learning by doing
Most of us are familiar with the learning by doing concept; we should be its how our brains work. Observation enables understanding; doing provides experience even if you get it wrong (“next time I wont do it that way!”). A simple way of providing repetition is through wall charts. I absolutely love wall charts and why? Because they make a parents life that little bit simpler. My son’s room has, at any one time, around 6-8 different wall charts, ranging from ABC to colours and the planets. He loves to look at the bright colours and learn (usually through guessing) what each of the images is or represents, he often ‘consolidates’ what we have talked about by looking at the charts and talking through by himself (we usually discuss one of the charts for 2-3 minutes before he goes to sleep). Charts provide an excellent visual aid and allow the brain to trigger memory by visual association; this is quite a broad and interesting subject. To find out more on visual associated learning, simply type ‘child development visual learning’ into Google.
The downside to charts is that they can be expensive and not always readily available. It is for these reasons that I started a website aimed at providing free resources for parents and children. The aim is to provide charts, resources and a forum for sharing experience.
Conclusion
A key factor in development is to prepare for the learning and plan for targets or goals that are realistic. The first step for me with the education of my son was enjoyment. I feel that if you both enjoy the experience, the rest becomes easy. After this the focus shifted to recognition, colours, shapes, sounds and so forth. I will not travel this route too deeply as there are a myriad of professional child websites that set out different approaches to education and I see no need to duplicate or contradict their efforts here. It is bad enough being a parent without an additional conflicting opinion. The most important lesson that I have learnt in my short 5 years as a parent is You know what is right for your children, follow your instincts and more often that not, you will be right. Just as important, do not be afraid to admit when you are wrong, my son loves me making a mistake and it removes the pressure from learning. “If Dad can make mistakes and not worry, so can I”
There a lot of resources and facilities for educating your child, the importance and relevance are in how you, and your child, bond and use these opportunities. CBEEBIES is a superb medium for child education, but it is not a substitute for human interaction and Parent-child bond and emotional development.
Allow your children to understand that failure is inevitable and should not therefore be dwelled upon. Promote success but explain that it is not mandatory. In a Childs eyes success can be measured as less failure than previous attempts, adults would do well to mirror this feeling sometimes.
Have fun and enjoy your Childs development.
I hope this article has proved of some use. I do not claim to be an authority on children, nor am I an expert in the field of child psychology or development. I am simply a parent who loves his kids and wants to provide them with a good start in life; I am convinced that nearly all parents feel this way.
Am I a good parent?
If being a good parent means ‘getting it wrong more than I get it right’ then I am a good parent! As parents we must understanding that it is not just the children who are learning, in fact I often wonder who is training who.
There are a number of excellent educational web sites that offer static and interactive content. The resources provided by these sites are usually themed towards a certain marketable product. The BBC website CBEEBIES is a prime example of this. The content and scope of the site is truly excellent but the medium is designed to encourage product association and familiarity.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as you have free access to a myriad of excellent resources that your children are familiar with but…. you should consider that use of this medium may result in “I want this character/product” mentality. Notwithstanding this, it is almost impossible to isolate children from product promotion. Advertising and marketing companies expend a great deal of energy and funds to appeal to and engage our children interest in their products. The difficult part for the parent, or certainly what I found to be the greatest challenge, is finding the right products and using them to your advantage.
TV product Association
Children learn in different ways with one example defined as re-enacting (to reply/review events that have occurred to improve understanding or allow insight into the reasons/outcomes of an event). By re-enacting actions taken by their favourite character (witnessed on television), children aim to gain understanding of what the character was doing. We often identify ‘oh, he is just playing Spiderman, he does it all the time.’ If you take the time and watch a little closer, you will notice pattern in the play and repetition with different outcomes. Why? Your child is learning to understand what has happened and also thet the outcome can be manipulated. As a parent, this is particularly beneficial when attempting to explain difficult situations or portray complex events. This has been one of my personal favourites for the education of my son. Re-enactment enabled us to discuss what the characters were doing, why and the impact of their actions.
An example of this is provided by one program where a character had stolen an item from a friend (Spud stealing an apple in the series Bob the Builder). This provided the perfect means to discuss the action, why Spud took the apple and how Bob felt after having the apple taken. We discussed the situation and talked through several different outcomes: Bob becomes angry, upset etc, they break friends, Spud apologises and they are friends again and so forth.
The success of this approach was put to the measure after the birth of our second child. Our son was, as is frequently the case, besotted with his new partner in crime - our daughter. As our daughter grew and crawling, walking and general destruction began, our son constantly adapted to her needs, understanding that her actions are about learning and inadvertent events or accidents are simply a by product of her personal development.
This approach may not be the preference for most people and can be long winded and time consuming but, in my opinion, it is well worth the investment. It is very gratifying to watch a 5 year old boy patiently explaining how to use toys to his 14 month old sibling, despite the occasional ‘doink!’ on the head from a plastic hammer.
Have confidence
The key element to child development is to trust your instincts and continually massage your approach to your Childs and your own needs. See how your child reacts to certain events and interactions: build on their strengths – this is great for their confidence, talk through their weaknesses – a Childs understanding that difficult does not mean impossible is key to their approach to learning. A child that is afraid to try new things will inevitably have more difficulties obtaining experience than that of a child who is not afraid to get it wrong. One of the greatest challenges I have experienced so far with my son was manifested in ‘failure perception’. My Son was, for a period, obsessed with the perception that inability to complete a task effectively first time meant failure. We had several discussions and attempted different tacks but nothing seemed to break the perception. Having saturated ideas, I felt a failure myself and this proved to be the key. Completely unintentionally we parents are always right, this is at least the perception of our children. We are role models and provide the framework from which children measure themselves, so when a child believes their parent to be right all the time, they feel they must attain the same standard.
Become a failure!
So, BREAKTHOUGH…. When doing tasks together (drawing, reading, playing football etc), I would start to purposefully fail (use the wrong colour or make a messy picture, say the wrong word for an image when reading, miss kick a football or trip over). I would follow this up with, “Silly Dad, keeps getting it wrong, never mind I’ll keep trying,” and continue playing etc. The impact was almost immediate, after just a few days our son would follow up a mistake with never mind, keep trying. This was quite possibly the biggest obstacle we had to pass and a valuable lesson for my Wife and I – with children, failure has more importance than success. Please do not misinterpret this, I am not encouraging failure, I am simply trying to show that we must accept its existence and importance.
Be flexible
All children are individuals and have their own strengths and weaknesses; in addition they will learn different things at different times in their development. The most important thing is to remain flexible and explain why you do things and what you hope to achieve. Kids love to be involved, my sons thirst for reading was inspired by the potential to understand the text on and within video games (despite the fact he only plays on them once a month or so… I am sure this will change!). Introducing books further developed this with areas, encourage drawing and developing ‘own’ stories. By changing approaches and using different mediums (reading, audio tapes and songs, computers and television) it becomes simple to develop a technique that encourages the child to think about their actions. More importantly, diversity ensures that the child does not become bored with repetition and duplication.
Important point for parents – try not to be overly competitive. Does this sound familiar… Mrs Jones pops around to inform you that her son ‘Bobby’ has started walking at 11 Months, that’s great you exclaim whilst simultaneously thinking ‘our Jane is 13 months and still crawling, sure she talks more than Bobby but….’ You immediate reaction, Jane is, for several days, frog marched up and down the hallway/lounge/dining room until she eventually either screams you into failure or takes the enforced prodigal step. In the mean time She has stopped talking as all her efforts are focused on walking….. There is a lesson there.
Be Realistic
Remember, each child will develop at their own pace. Before deciding to teach your toddle Nuclear fusion and the pros and cons of splitting the atom, it may be worth considering a, how realistic this is, b, how the child will react. A more realistic starting block may be encouraging them to aim into the toilet rather than in its general direction. Only you can decide what is right for your children, as a rule though, if your child becomes disinterested or reluctant to join in activities, you may be doing too much…
The right time and place
So you have your resources, you have considered method and approach for your Childs development and finally decided on a rough plan to get you started but despite your best efforts, your child is simply not interested. Well, welcome to being a parent! Finding the right time is almost as difficult as working out the right level of content. My advice (for what its worth), is to try different times of the day until eventually, you find a time that works.
What worked for me? We eventually worked out that our son had to be physically tired to enable him to relax and let his brain work. Children develop and change physically as well as mentally, try and tailor your approach to this knowledge. The physical/mental development struggle that children face is complex and they will take great pride in the new abilities of their body and mind, to jump that little further, to manipulate and object as desired and so forth. Anyway, after lots of failures, pain and sweat, we found that the best time for educational learning was in the evening. A simple routine of dinner, walk the dog then return home to pyjamas, a glass of milk and a book worked wonders. If my son has excess energy from the day, he runs it off with the dog. When we sit down to read or talk through numbers shapes etc, he is physically tired and will relax and let his brain engage with the topic. If he is too tired I will read him story and simply allow him to listen, a no pressure approach that has, so far, worked extremely well.
Reinforced learning – knowledge by repetition or learning by doing
Most of us are familiar with the learning by doing concept; we should be its how our brains work. Observation enables understanding; doing provides experience even if you get it wrong (“next time I wont do it that way!”). A simple way of providing repetition is through wall charts. I absolutely love wall charts and why? Because they make a parents life that little bit simpler. My son’s room has, at any one time, around 6-8 different wall charts, ranging from ABC to colours and the planets. He loves to look at the bright colours and learn (usually through guessing) what each of the images is or represents, he often ‘consolidates’ what we have talked about by looking at the charts and talking through by himself (we usually discuss one of the charts for 2-3 minutes before he goes to sleep). Charts provide an excellent visual aid and allow the brain to trigger memory by visual association; this is quite a broad and interesting subject. To find out more on visual associated learning, simply type ‘child development visual learning’ into Google.
The downside to charts is that they can be expensive and not always readily available. It is for these reasons that I started a website aimed at providing free resources for parents and children. The aim is to provide charts, resources and a forum for sharing experience.
Conclusion
A key factor in development is to prepare for the learning and plan for targets or goals that are realistic. The first step for me with the education of my son was enjoyment. I feel that if you both enjoy the experience, the rest becomes easy. After this the focus shifted to recognition, colours, shapes, sounds and so forth. I will not travel this route too deeply as there are a myriad of professional child websites that set out different approaches to education and I see no need to duplicate or contradict their efforts here. It is bad enough being a parent without an additional conflicting opinion. The most important lesson that I have learnt in my short 5 years as a parent is You know what is right for your children, follow your instincts and more often that not, you will be right. Just as important, do not be afraid to admit when you are wrong, my son loves me making a mistake and it removes the pressure from learning. “If Dad can make mistakes and not worry, so can I”
There a lot of resources and facilities for educating your child, the importance and relevance are in how you, and your child, bond and use these opportunities. CBEEBIES is a superb medium for child education, but it is not a substitute for human interaction and Parent-child bond and emotional development.
Allow your children to understand that failure is inevitable and should not therefore be dwelled upon. Promote success but explain that it is not mandatory. In a Childs eyes success can be measured as less failure than previous attempts, adults would do well to mirror this feeling sometimes.
Have fun and enjoy your Childs development.
I hope this article has proved of some use. I do not claim to be an authority on children, nor am I an expert in the field of child psychology or development. I am simply a parent who loves his kids and wants to provide them with a good start in life; I am convinced that nearly all parents feel this way.
Am I a good parent?
If being a good parent means ‘getting it wrong more than I get it right’ then I am a good parent! As parents we must understanding that it is not just the children who are learning, in fact I often wonder who is training who.
Parent Power! A beginning
In the vacuum of child knowledge that we adults dwell in prior to parent hood, we are blissfully ignorant of the real challenges, traumas and absolute joy that a child can bring. As a stumbling parent, I often wonder how unique I am, the reality is I am just a single unit in a legion of parents who try to do their best for their children but often wonder if there is an easier way. Well I have decided to make a stand for parents! Surely our life time of experience must give us some advantage…please!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have decided that we parents must pool our resources. With my limited HTML knowledge, I have started a website that provides parents/children with free educational material. My Son loves to have charts and posters that show him how things work and what things are. More importantly, they keep him stimulated and help us to educate him in a fun and relaxed way. The downside of educational charts is that they are expensive. Fortunately, with 12 years design skills, I was presented with a cheaper solution. Not all adults are this fortunate so… I thought lets share. There must be other parents doing similar things, so lets pool our resources. Well, here we are and this is where it all begins. Good look to us!
This is the link to the website! http://www1.webng.com/kidsstuff/home.htm
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have decided that we parents must pool our resources. With my limited HTML knowledge, I have started a website that provides parents/children with free educational material. My Son loves to have charts and posters that show him how things work and what things are. More importantly, they keep him stimulated and help us to educate him in a fun and relaxed way. The downside of educational charts is that they are expensive. Fortunately, with 12 years design skills, I was presented with a cheaper solution. Not all adults are this fortunate so… I thought lets share. There must be other parents doing similar things, so lets pool our resources. Well, here we are and this is where it all begins. Good look to us!
This is the link to the website! http://www1.webng.com/kidsstuff/home.htm
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