3 supportive ways to help our children build a genuine love for learning rather than 'just preparing for an assessment.'
/I’m currently creating a ‘Love for Learning’ series. This will be a series of 4 videos that I will provide on our Website for free that will support parents to help their children to build a genuine love for learning rather than ‘just prepare for an entrance assessment.’
I’m creating these videos with the hope that it will help thousands of parents all over the world to know and understand how to support their own children to genuinely love their learning and not just feel that they are preparing for an assessment.
Obviously that is what we are doing - that is a fact.
But none of us want our children to feel like they have to study.
What I want is for my students to want to study. To want to learn more. To look forward to their lessons with us every single week. To want to do their home learning. What I don’t want is for them to not want to do it. If that does happen, it is up to me to intervene immediately and find strategies to support them.
Are all of my students delighted to see me every single week at their lesson? I’d say 95% of them are which is an incredible achievement. For the 5% who aren’t delighted to see me, that’s up to myself and my clients to find strategies to help our students to be more excited about their learning.
Here are 3 supportive ways to help our children build a genuine love for learning rather than 'just preparing for an assessment.'
Let your child take ownership of their learning.
If your child is in charge or their own learning, they will be more likely to want to do it. No body likes to be told what to do - especially not children! This applies to all ages by the way. I find that my son is far more receptive to learning when he chooses when he wants to do it (he is nearly 3). Most often, if I ‘tell’ him to sit and do learning, he will just tell me ‘no’. A very simple way to do this is to just ask your child when they would like to do their learning. Give them some options if you need to - morning/after school/before bed?
Set clear boundaries for when the learning will take place.
Find out exactly for how long your child would like to study for. Some children study better in small chunks. Others are fine to go for an hour at a time. There is no one size fits all. I have some students who like to do 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes when they get home from school and before dinner and 10 minutes before brushing their teeth for bed. Clear boundaries will keep yourself and you child laser focused and get rid of any chances of time wasting and procrastination.
Give praise for when your child gets things right as well as when they get things wrong.
This one is so important. Many of you will just want to give praise when your child gets things right. This creates a fear for getting things wrong. I praise my son in equal measures - when he gets something right and when he gets something wrong. Both deserve equal amounts of praise.
