The Learning Well

A question of identity – Can you as a parent be a teacher and help your children learn?

Many a parent thinks that the role of helping their children learn should be left to the teacher, after all they will say “I’m not a teacher”. This need not be the case and as a parent with all your years of experience you are in fact an expert, you know far, far, more than your children.

Anthony Robbins says that “what we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.”

How can you be a teacher to your children?

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Better questions, better answers, better life – Questions are the answer!

Children are great at asking questions and you as a parent can be the expert at giving them the bigger view by putting questions that are relevant to the subject or cicumstances . Putting questions to your children is a chance for you to guide them to create the amazing habit of continuously asking better questions.

The habit of better questions leads to better answers, better feelings and better motivation for when they are learning.

Are questions the answer to better learning?

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Repetition is the mother of all skills

Luckily repetition is the mother of all skills so if you can steer children to do something that that they like doing, and that is at the same time good for them, such as learning, then they will repeat it and repeat it and increase their skill at doing it.

Kids have a natural tendency to repeat the things they like, for example my kids will watch the same film a hundred times and they just love it whereas me, if I watch a film once it would have to be three years before I could watch it again.

So, when kids like something, they want to do it over and over and over again. So how can you encourage your children to repeat things that help them improve their abilities at school?

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Stand up for yourself and your children – activities for putting your own learning resources into action

Have you noticed that children find it difficult to sit still? When sitting still for too long their concentration can wonder.

What learning activities can you encourage your children to do to help them stay focused on their learning?

Put simply what do you do when you are at home and want to help your children with their learning and maintain their concentration, focus and energy?

The answer is simple and believe it or not, you do have the necessary learning resource at your fingertips to help your children maintain their concentration. What is this resource?

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Start, stop, start, stop, start ….. “learning little and often” is one of the best learning strategies for your children

What is one of the very best learning strategies you can use in helping your children with their learning?

Were you ever in a lesson at school or a lecture at college in which the teacher or lecturer spoke and spoke and spoke and went on and on and on for hours on end? Did you learn anything?

I have been in just such a situation several times and I have to say trying to keep my attention was like torture. Did I do any learning? Did I retain anything? Not a bean! Such lessons to me where as useful as an asthmatic ant carrying heavy shopping to my house, no use at all! (Thank you for that line Blackadder).

Why are long continuous lessons such ineffective learning strategies? Well, because as researchers and writers such as Eric Jensen have concluded “the brain learns best in the pattern of a pulse. Learning is best when focused, diffused, focused, diffused…..”.

So what are the best learning strategies?

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