My daughter has gymnastics on Saturdays, however, we had a lot going on over the past few months and she ended up missing a significant number of lessons. Her first day back, my wife gets home and tells me she had a really hard time and that she got sad. Why? Well, the usual teacher wasn’t there and the substitute was not as inept at keeping track of a bunch of roaming children and my daughter had got left behind on several occasions. The owner apologized to my wife and explained the situation with the substitute, but was it her fault? I wouldn’t say so…This is a prime example of a teachable moment, and one that couldn’t have occurred in a better place. (An enclosed building with limited exits and a controlled environment with plenty of safety precautions in place…its a gymnasium after all, with loads of soft mats and foam pits). After getting the entire story from my wife, I moved to my daughter. I like to hear things from her so it gives her the opportunity to express he...
It’s been nearly a year since my wife got a full time work from home job and I proudly took the title of “stay at home dad”. That’s not to say I havn't continued working, but I shifted my responsibilities for my job significantly to accommodate my new title. I began with this grandiose idea that my darling children, 1 and 3, would sit quietly and pay attention to a set schedule of reasonable lessons every day, learning to read, write, math, and speak French and they would be on their way to a high school graduation not by the ripe age of twelve. Hah ...not really, but I did want to have them well prepared for when they entered pre-k, so they could commit more of their time and effort to improving themselves and their social relationships as opposed to having to start from scratch…. Laughable to say the least. To think I would be able to have my two toddlers sit and listen to instruction was simply ridiculous. And it is. It is ridiculous. Children are not meant to sit and stare as they’re instructed on things they really have no true interest in doing or learning.
So what do we do? We let them do what they want to do. Apply the lessons that you think are important to the things they think are important. Violet picked 5 flowers, but she wants more? How many more does she want? How many more does she need to pick to get to the number of flowers that she wants? Teddy is throwing rocks? How many rocks has he thrown? What is causing the rocks to fall to the ground?
Simple implementation of lessons through play seem to be the ideal cross between work and play and I would have to say it is by far the most effective way to ensure your child is involved in a learnable atmosphere. Every now and again, I do try to have some dedicated time for our daughter to practice writing. Generally this occurs when our son is napping and she wants to a sweet snack, effectively making her ‘earn’ it by having her go through the phonetic alphabet or practicing sounding out a few words. This works because my attention is committed solely to her and she knows if she gets through a few minutes of bore she will be rewarded. But I do feel that this is not the absolutely best way for her to learn, because I’m sure 80% of her mind is fixated on the treat at the end of the lesson with 20% allocated for completing the task.
To conclude:
- let the kids direct themselves
- incorporate learning in play
- do not think what’s important to you is/should be important to them
- let them discover what they love, and foster it
**No, these are not original ideas, I have read many articles ,blogs, studies, etc, that point in this general direction. **
*disclaimer- these are my opinions, I am not a professional educator, nor psychologist or anything other than a dad. You do you. And thank you for reading this first attempt at publishing a blog, it is thoroughly appreciated.*
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