 
Grade Expectations: Love And Kindness Yield Academic Sucess
Positive Parenting
|
By Rochelle Maruch Miller
Published on Thursday, December 10, 2009 -
COMMENTS (0)
|
|
Children love to learn. Learning is as natural as breathing to them—they absorb every little thing that happens. They learn through play, they learn from the behavior of the children and adults around them, and they learn from their own experiments. By all rights, going to school—with its new experiences, many children, and opportunities to master powerful skills like reading and math—should be exciting for them.
In order to learn well, children need to feel safe and wanted. They can learn only when they feel welcomed and appreciated. At school, they need to know that their teachers like them and think they’re special. They need to know that they won’t be bullied or made fun of on the playground or in the hallways. They need encouragement, high expectations, and a good deal of fun.
Play, which is the language and work of young children, is still deeply important to children of school age. The more they are allowed to play in their learning activities, the faster they absorb information and new skills. At home, children need kindness, affection, and some measure of one-on-one time with their parents, even if it’s as little as a five-minute snuggle before going to sleep every night.
For schools to foster learning, and for parents to support their children, we grown-ups need to see that the emotional needs of children are met both at home and in school. Here are some specific ways to help children feel loved at home, and understood and respected at school, so their minds are clear enough to learn:
Children need large amounts of physical affection and closeness. Closeness fuels their confidence and frees their minds of worries about whether or not they’re OK. If they’re unsure about whether they’re OK, they can’t concentrate on learning.
Children learn best through play and hands-on activities. The best teacher is experience, experience, experience! We need classrooms in which children are doing things together, experimenting, and teaching each other what they’ve learned. In particular, free play without competition or preset rules is a great builder of children’s intellect, imagination, and confidence. Jumping on the beds at home, chasing around the house, and pillow fights (the children win, of course!) are the kinds of personal, physical play that lift children’s spirits and create enough fun that they can manage to stay hopeful even when days at school aren’t inspiring. If life feels like drudgery, learning won’t take place. Free play is vital. It keeps your child’s spark of hope and interest alive.
Children need the freedom to make mistakes and ask questions without fear of shame or belittlement. Mistakes and “failures” teach as effectively as successes, as long as a child continues to be respected.
Children’s keen sense of justice demands that they and others be treated thoughtfully and fairly. Fairness, to children, means limits but not anger; boundaries but not belittlement; facing problems but not being attacked for having problems.
When learning problems arise, listen. When a child isn’t able to concentrate or learn, there’s usually an emotional issue blocking his progress. It feels bad on the inside when you can’t think. It feels scary on the inside when you can’t do what’s expected of you, and you don’t know why or what to do about it. This is the position children are in when they can’t write a story, can’t memorize their times tables, or can’t sit down to do their homework. They feel upset and often scared. They also feel alone.
Our child’s problems make us, as parents, feel tired and worn. Our thoughts are something like, “By now, he should be able to do schoolwork on his own! Why do I have to get into it?” We badly want our child’s problems to go away so we can get a little peace.
What helps immensely is something we’ve always been taught to avoid at all costs: If you can sit close by while your child has a good cry about school, or a tantrum about not wanting to do homework, your child will do the work of draining some of the bad feelings that have paralyzed him.
Emotional release helps children focus their attention and regain their ability to be hopeful about learning. Your child won’t sound reasonable while he rants or rages. He’ll believe very strongly in the terrible feelings he’s having. But, surprisingly, the crying and the chance to make sure you know how bad it feels inside has a deeply healing effect. So try to keep from arguing and reasoning with him, and stay close while he “cleans the skeletons out of the closet” with his tears or angry thoughts. He’ll finish. The longer he’s able to cry, the more improvement you will see in his ability to concentrate and to believe in himself.
Listen to your child. Listening heals. Listen your way through a big cry or tantrum once, without trying to “fix” your child’s feelings or solve the problem, and you’ll see how well it works to clear your child’s mind and restore his sense of closeness to you and his feeling of self-worth.
Rochelle Maruch Miller, M.Ed, is a journalist, creative media consultant, lecturer, and educator. She may be reached at RochelleMiller04@aol.com. ♦
No Comments
|
| |
|
Click Here To Download
this
week's paper as a PDF
Click Here For Newspaper Archive.
|
SUBSCRIBE
Get 5TJT Delivered to your door
every thursday morning.
|
Poll
5TJT Visitors
255313
|
