April 1, 2020
Family Life and Study Skills: Creating the Right Atmosphere
THE FAMILY ENVIRONMENT IS A TEACHING/LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
- Social insight, self respect, decision-making abilities, the capacity to face challenge, are all character virtues which serve as influential underpinnings for a child’s academic life and are largely developed in the home.
- Children need time and a context to develop such traits, including the ability to ask questions, analyze information, reflect on experiences, and experiment with ideas and attitudes. These skills feed into valued classroom behaviors, essay writing, problem solving and much more. They do not represent a set of skills simply taught in school.
- Parents, and other adults in the home, are mentors and models, all the time, whether they are aware of it or not.
- Create a “monastic” atmosphere at home. Adults must make themselves available on a consistent basis for respectful, flexible communication regarding a child’s organizational life while maintaining realism about the often varied pace of growth.
- Parents and guardians should take great pains to avoid non-useful anxiety and early judging of children and to develop awareness of their “practice” as academic models and mentors for a changing, growing child.
- Consider the complex purposes that homework serves: It represents a time to reflect, practice at working independently and, ostensibly, an extension of ideas and insights derived from the class-room. It is not an opportunity for a nightly micro-evaluation of a child’s progress.
- A child who trusts his/her interactions with adults about sensitive issues will be far more willing to hear criticism and respond to limits and directives when necessary than one who does not feel such confidence.
- Lay the groundwork early by looking at children as young apprentices not “little computers.” Emphasize learning from mistakes and moving on, not “correctness” and outcome above all other concerns.
- Consider appropriate roles for technology in the household: What purposes do the computer/TV/cell phone/iPod serve? Does your child also have time to read, sit quietly, and develop an active imagination without such stimuli? Create consistent rules, boundaries and expectations around these issues.
TEACHING CHILDREN TO STRUGGLE AND FACE CHALLENGE
- How much support and how much accountability does a child require? How does a parent evaluate competency in a useful manner?
- Children require flexible reins from their adult guides. Allow children to learn how to make choices in a staged manner so that they learn to be good decision makers, in and out of the academic world.
- Praise and encouragement should reflect the task, level and ability of a child. Inappropriate praise, like inappropriate criticism and judgment, ultimately confuses and alarms children.
- Children do not need to be “scheduled” every hour of the day in order to be successful and competent. A “hurried child” will become anxious and will not necessarily become more “successful.”
- Consider the role of music, sports and other involvements in a “balanced” life for your child. What are your goals in providing these experiences?
SOME FACTS
- A regular family dinner hour over time is a primary predictor of adult success in children.
- Over-involvement with computers for children below age nine, to the detriment of other conventional activities such as reading, can lead to academic difficulties.
- Children learn best when they are involved in a discussion, feel respected, and are given a directed or “scaffolded” route to understanding.
- While high SAT scores predict high grades early in college, character virtues and habits of mind such as courage, patience, empathy, goal-orientation and self-confidence, predict success in life.