Anna told me that her work seemed easy and she was flying along great until BAM, suddenly it was way too hard and she just wanted to cry. She couldn’t understand how it could be easy and then suddenly so, so hard.
When we learn, we build upon things we already know, our prior knowledge, and this knowledge is within our brains in a complex framework, like a scaffolding structure. The more knowledge we have, the more complex our framework and the more we can build onto it and connect it to other thoughts and ideas. But, when kids are learning new things, especially our little ones, there’s not a lot of framework to draw from. They are still building the basic foundational knowledge. It’s common to have starts and stops and lags and drags. And it’s perfectly normal for concepts and ideas to feel challenging. But here’s the most important part. We don’t want it to feel too challenging and we don’t want it to feel too easy. If it’s too challenging, many kids will shut down and feel great anxiety and pressure. If it’s too easy, kids will get bored, wander off and find more interesting pursuits. One of the most important jobs we have is to help our children find the sweet spot, the challenge/skill balance, where activities are not too hard and not too easy. It’s a bit of trial and error, a lot of communication and the conscious use of Kaizen.
I use this little technique of kaizen… all the time. Our kids want to feel competent and that often happens when they feel like they are making progress in meaningful work. These wins don’t have to be large to be meaningful, in fact authentically celebrating small wins can be highly motivating and breaking down tasks can offer a boost of energy. In fact, testing an idea…and maybe failing fast and failing frequently may get to an answer a lot quicker.
Kaizen is a Japanese word that means change for the better. Kaizen is the continuous improvement across all areas of our lives. Small steps are taken towards better results, paper-thin progressions. Focusing on one or two new things is usually much more effective than attempting to learn or change multiple things at once. You might try helping your child to set some small, high-probability goals and celebrate when those are reached. That foundation of success found with tiny, clear goals can provide the motivation and fuel required for bigger challenges down the line. Taking pride in one’s work and doing things well far outweighs checking the box of completion on endless poorly executed projects.
This goes for us parents, too. We are learning and growing right along with our children. When motivation is running low, small wins help reset our motivational reserves.
Send me a message: What is one small step you can take towards reaching a goal?
