Thoughts & Reflections
Consider jotting down a few notes, perhaps in a journal or notebook.
Last week, we focused on developing an ability to focus deeply.
Here are some thoughts and questions to consider:
Jorge loved math, but his mom found him avoiding sitting down to work on the very thing he wanted to learn. He would putz around the house, get busy doing other things and procrastinate. When he finally did sit down, he was constantly distracted with his little sister across the room, the wind blowing outside, the temperature in the house, his apparent hunger even after he just had a snack, etc. What was going on?
The struggle stage of learning! That's what's going on.
In last week's video, we talked about persisting through that initial stage of learning, the struggle. We know that's valuable, our kids may even know it's valuable, but that doesn't mean they are jumping for joy to sink in and do it.
1. Practice persisting using a high value activity. Maybe your child loves to build with Lego or loves to draw cartoon characters. Whatever it may be, practice becoming aware of the struggles found in those activities and help your child notice any persisting going on. We are usually more inclined to persist through challenges that are highly meaningful and motivating. Those moments of persistence can be used as reference points for later challenges. We use a reference point to remind a child of past successes. You might later say something like, "Remember when you kept working on the movements of your robot in your stop motion movie even though you couldn't get the legs to move like you wanted them to at first. You kept trying again and again to adjust the leg movements until they looked natural and fluid. You kept at it then and I bet you could keep at it now."
2. Make sure your child has a toolbox of techniques to use when the going gets tough. We learn many such techniques in Boldschoolers Blueprint. We don't want a kid to be ready to try hard, but have no tools to try with.
3. Be ready to partner with your child, offering emotional support or assistance breaking something challenging down into manageable bits, for example.
4. We want a challenge level that is just above your child's competence level. Make sure work isn't too hard or too easy. Make adjustments as needed. Learning should be just hard enough to keep your child engaged, but not so hard as to lead to shut down.
5. Watch your child learn. Pay attention to what happens when frustration starts to build. Observe without jumping in right away. A little frustration is good. Too much is...too much. Stay present and spend more time watching and listening.
Happy Boldschooling!
Feel free to review last week's recording where we looked at finding focus.
https://www.boldschoolers.com/blog/focus
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