Welcome to Boldschoolers! Today, I want to talk to you about what Just-in-Time feedback might look like and how can we best work with kids that have some basic skills mastered, but still need feedback to move to the next level?
When I was in writing school, I learned to raise the bar by lowering my expectations. I stopped thinking that great writers simply crank out quality writing when they sit down to write and I gave myself permission to write a crappy first draft and second and maybe even third, really however long it took to massage something into decency, was quite fine. What a relief! Excellence doesn’t usually happen on the first go around and it’s so much less stressful to know that we just have to show up and focus. No effort is ever wasted and those efforts add up and before long whatever we’re working on is less bad. When our skills improve or at least get less bad, it’s motivating. My writing school teachers gave me immediate feedback on my work and each little success made me feel hopeful and propelled me to stick with it a little longer. Motivation doesn’t have to be a spark we wait for, but instead it can sneak in there to offer us a boost when we’re just getting the work done and if we had success once, it proves to us that we can do it again and again and again. Improving, however incrementally, helps us feel competent and that competence leads to self-confidence.
It reminds me of when my oldest son was in high school and he realized pretty early on that his writing wasn’t what it needed to be to get the grades he wanted to get and to move as quickly as he needed to move to keep up with the rapid pacing of a public high school. So, what did he do? He asked for feedback. This already put him in a good position to receive it. It’s so much easier to hear feedback on our work when we’ve specifically asked for it.
Let’s unpack this further, though. My son already considered himself a good writer. From the time he was young, I had chosen to highlight strengths about his writing and I chose to call him a good writer. It’s hard to really know how this played out, but my belief was that if he believed it, he would work hard enough to just become it. I know that because that’s what I did as a kid. People told me from the time I was young that I was a good writer and after awhile I just believed it. By aligning behavior with identity, we make choices that match up with who we believe we are. Beliefs that are tied to identity are very sticky. Though I might have had good ideas in my writing, many of my writing skills were a complete mess well into adulthood…even into my thirties. As a child, I didn’t go to schools where they taught the mechanics of good writing, so I never learned any of those things. My son, coming from a small Waldorf Charter school, didn’t have a strong background in any of that either. Yet, the beliefs we have about ourselves play a strong role in our perspective, how hard we choose to work…also called practice…and the feedback we seek out to get to the next level.
When kids are a bit older, we typically won’t sit next to them as parent educators as they plow through massive amounts of content…IF they have the basics down. If they don’t, many parents will outsource an expert and I highly recommend that choice not only because an expert will be able to provide feedback and next steps at a high level of competency, but because sometimes those middle school and high school relationships need a little breathing room shall we say. Your child is unique and your relationship with your child is unique, so you’ll make this fit your family, but I’ve noticed that many parents…me included…don’t have the skillsets to offer the type of coaching feedback our kids need at higher levels of education in all subject areas. Use the resources you have in your family and friends, of course. You might have a brother that’s a mathematician or an aunt who’s a physicist, and by all means how great is that to have a professional working in the field at your fingertips to not only offer feedback on the content, but also to provide an image of what’s possible in a field For the rest of us, I suggest finding the resources to outsource an expert.
So, back to unpacking my son asking for feedback on his writing. If we can develop the desire for our kids to ask for feedback, they are well on their way to actually benefiting from that feedback. I think part of that willingness happens when we create an environment where mistakes are celebrated, growth is highlighted and we become transparent with our own kids so they can see our flaws and stumbling path forward. Here are three ideas:
a. Have weekly greatest fail parties where all family members or friends share their challenges, their missteps and what they learned from the experience.
b. Talk with your kids about your life, age appropriately, of course, but give them a sneak peek into adulting and the many challenges that come along with that, including when things don’t work out, how you handle it and where you think you might have done a better job. I find that my own kids have a really good insight into all of my…for lack of a better word…flaws. I’m not really hiding anything and when I can just say it…put it out there…then we can have conversations and help each other grow into our best self. That’s another point I wanted to bring up…I have a dear friend that taught me that everything is just a conversation. If you’re someone that might be somewhat conflict-adverse, this idea might be helpful. Sometimes we view life’s interactions as scary black holes of conflict and adversity, but maybe we don’t have to see it that way. If we can practice living with simple honesty and authenticity, then maybe we can practice just speaking what’s real for us, sharing our feelings and being okay with our own genuineness, even if the other party doesn’t respond the way we hoped.
c. Ask your kids for their honest feedback on one thing at a time. Listen to them. Place value on their thoughts and opinions. It doesn’t mean you need to use every idea that comes your way, but let them be heard and honored. Sharing feedback back and forth in an open space of acceptance can path the way to kids being able to hear our feedback. One way I’m going to apply this idea is to ask my daughter once a week how I’m doing in the parenting department. I’ll let you know how it goes.
d. And last but not least, we hear feedback more easily when we are bathed in appreciation. I think this is true for most of us. I find if my kids can’t hear my feedback, it’s usually because I haven’t given them enough appreciation lately. It’s so easy for me to become barking orders mama. I’m just trying to get through my day and survive, but barking orders mama doesn’t get a whole lot of willing followers.
In terms of modeling: My son and I would start sitting down after he had a good second or third draft of a writing assignment. By middle school and high school, most kids can eek out a good draft of some piece of writing. If the basics are still developing, then by all means get an expert sitting with your child to develop those skills, but once those basics are there, we can back off a bit, as is much more comfortable to our older kids, and let them have a go at it.
My son would then bring his draft to me and we would sit down together to go through it. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line, even word by word, depending on his fortitude of the moment. Often, we would start with broad strokes in our first sit-down together and then narrow in later in subsequent writing sessions. I’ve found writing is very happy when it gets a chance to percolate. Many kids want to Do and be Done, but writing doesn’t usually work that way. We can apply some focus mode to it, but good writing often comes together during those Brain Breaks in diffuse mode. Focus in and let it go. Other subjects you’re working on with your child might be the same way. If you notice your child wearing down…even after just a few minutes working on it…take a break, let it sit, and come back to it. Feel free to let your conversations wander a bit during a modeling session, to release the intense focus as needed. Some of my writing conversations have turned into great deep dives, sharing perspectives back and forth. There are some things that are right and wrong in writing, but there are many things that are simply choices. Being open to each other’s ideas as you bounce thoughts back and forth makes the process go smoothly and joyfully.
Celebrate the commitment to that process, even if it’s only for a few minutes so your child leaves the session with a good feeling. We remember best what comes first and what comes last, so you want to begin and end that focus time with good feelings. Do whatever you can think of to make it a fun and special place. Maybe a yummy, healthy snack or a warm cup of tea or a lit candle, etc. You want your child to want to come back to the activity, so you might enhance the learning container to increase the odds.
Working on a challenging piece of work may not be like going to an amusement park, but a kid can still get a thrill when it all starts coming together. Passion is built from sticking with an activity, working hard and continuing on with it because you keep getting more skilled and then before you know it, you find yourself feeling that passion. Focus on the step-by-step process, not the larger outcome. Incremental success leads to motivation. Do that over and over and our kids become whatever goal they are actively pursuing. And once that happens, they don’t need the motivation anymore because it’s part of their identity. This kind of earned success is the best motivation of all.
In writing school, I modeled my work after writers that I liked and admired. Emulating another writer allowed me to try on the writer’s voice to refine my own, write in their rhythm, or borrow their way of writing dialogue or showing setting…whatever it might be, I tried it on, for a time, and those models supported me and transformed my writing for the better. I was able to focus on the kind of writer I wanted to become, rather than sitting disheartened in the writer I was at the moment. That shift in focus kept me looking forward to the next small challenge, rather than looking backwards into the stories and excuses of why I couldn’t do it. Looking ahead to what’s possible, helps our kids reset their benchmark for greater growth, rather than being stuck in a past behavior or limiting belief system.
Whether it’s writing or some other topic (maybe writing is not your jam at all), kids can benefit from the modeling strategy. When working with older kids, we might offer suggestions in the form of modeling and coaching feedback in what we might do in a given situation, working with a similar challenge. Your child might take your idea or not and that’s okay either way. Feedback that’s given doesn’t have to be taken.
When possible, we can offer several models or examples for kids to learn from. Your child can watch how it’s done, try it out for themselves and then get additional feedback, gaining competency with each iteration. Your child can still benefit from the idea of the pomodoro. You don’t have to finish a project in one sitting. Just focus together for the amount of time chosen and then take a break.
It takes some work to create a container to have the luxury of a string of pomodoros to get a tricky assignment done. That’s another huge tip…start early! Many kids (and let’s face it…adults) squeak out projects at the last possible moment, fueled by the energy of the impending deadline. For some kids, that pattern creates anxiety, so sometimes encouraging your child to start early can lead to a less stressful experience and a higher quality result. At least a half a dozen times a week I ask my teenage daughter…what can you do now, that would make your life easier later? I’m sure she’s sick of hearing it, but my intention is for her to hear that little phrase in her head all on her own at some point. We have lots of downtime moments throughout our day and week and instead of picking up the phone to jump on social media, perhaps our kids can hear that phrase and take one more small step forward towards their goals.
Goals! Oh my gosh, let’s take a brief detour into goals because daily clear goals are so important for our kids. So, your child might have an inkling to pursue some big goal, like writing a novel or building a treehouse in the backyard, for example. Those kinds of goals aren’t immediate, but instead they are out there a little ways…something our kids want to work towards, an interest or a passion.
Clear goals, on the other hand, are those outcome-based goals that step-by-step get us closer to the bigger goal that’s out there in the future. Clear goals are specific and tangible and chunked down into bite-sized bits. Your child knows what to do first, what to do next and what to do after that. When working with your older kids, talk about goals frequently and help them learn how to develop…and then write down and follow…clear goals that help them walk towards bigger future goals.
Perhaps your child has a big goal to get really good at something in particular, perhaps even a goal to be the best. Experts can be really helpful in enabling our kids to see what that might look like. Your child might have already developed a skill to a greater extent than peers or better than what anyone imagined. To keep that momentum going, experts can offer a unique perspective into what’s next and what’s possible. If desired, free up time for your child to devote to getting even better. To free up time, kids might start to practice when to say, Yes and when to say No. Saying yes to one thing means saying no to everything else. Teaching busy kids to evaluate how they spend their time can be a useful skill. Kids can learn to evaluate whether an activity will benefit them in some way. If not, perhaps they get to practice saying no. Remember, everything is just a conversation.
Ideally, goals are from our kids’ point of view. They aren’t our goals for them. They are theirs based on what they want…and probably ever changing. That’s okay. Celebrate and encourage the idea of a goal, no matter how small, squirrely or even unrealistic in our eyes. Walking towards goals that are important… is motivation. We want that wherever we can get it.
If I ask my oldest son what made the most difference in his life up until this point…as a highly successful 23-year-old, he will tell you his mentors and his books. He won’t say it was the college classes he took or the friends he made, the sports he enjoyed or the hard work he put in, though all of that was valuable. He will say the biggest catalyst in his life, the one that put him perhaps even a decade beyond his peers in soft and hard skills was the expertise that he gained from his mentors and his books, the experts in his life.
That may sound like a large statement, but the role of the expert in a child’s growth and speed of skill acquisition can’t be denied. Your child might work 1:1 with an expert or perhaps combine reading from experts with working in-person with experts. And for those of your saying that your child doesn’t like to read, let me clarify… my son rarely reads anything. He has quite a few challenges reading, but he’s learned to play to his strength…listening. He prefers to learn by listening…one of those people that remembers pretty much everything he hears…and so is an avid listener of books, often business, historic, industry-specific or self-development books.
Whether your child is a reader or not so much of a reader, based on my son’s experience and the experience of others I’ve worked with, I would highly encourage reading or listening to as many books as possible…across genres, but ideally… within nonfiction…biography, science, business or self-help. If you think about it, authors typically take years and years of learning, sometimes a lifetime of personal experience and coalesce that learning into a book. With a relatively short time investment, we can gain that lifetime of knowledge. Just like that…it’s ours for the taking. Do that again and again and it makes a kid wise beyond his years.
Mentors are a similar experience. Your child can leverage the years of expertise of a mentor by simply listening and following some advice. My son has had a handful of meaningful mentors since high school, the most significant during his college years. What made these mentoring experiences so valuable is that he actually listened to what the mentors had to say and did it. You may or may not be surprised at how often that doesn’t happen. My son read the books, had the discussions or went to the recommended speakers and then spent time debriefing it all with the mentor, being willing to open his perspective and see beyond his limited life view, even when those views were very different from his own or from his upbringing.
Experts provide just-in-time feedback to our children in ways that group classes or solo learning cannot possibly deliver. Experts can see what’s needed two-steps down the path and two miles down the road and create individualized methods for getting there based on real-time needs.
Wrapping this up, we talked about giving feedback to our kids that are a bit older…middle school, high school, college. We discussed modeling using pomodoros and experts. We talked about how we might make it easier to hear feedback and how we might normalize the practice of wanting, asking and listening to feedback. And, lastly we talked about the value of books and mentors to help give our kids not only knowledge, but alternative perspectives.
I’d love to hear from you…shoot me a message…what’s your experience of giving and receiving feedback from your child?
A special note:
Occasionally, I might choose to highlight my life experiences, even if they go against some of what we currently believe as best practices, in regard to learning. I think there’s still value, even if I may or may not make the same choice again. I believe putting it all out there helps us keep a flexibility of thinking, because things aren’t always cut and dry. I will, however, let you know about those moments and there’s one of them in this video. While telling my son he was a good writer seemed to be a fine idea and played into an identity formation that I wanted for him, the idea of that goes against current thinking.
We want our kids to steer away from ideas about genetic talent and instead we want to steer them towards the idea that effort and practice are what determine skills, because that’s in fact most likely accurate. By telling our child they are good at something or not good at something, smart or not smart at something, we actually reinforce the idea that some people have talent and others don’t. A better idea is to highlight and reinforce the effort kids make towards their goals and to focus on the process of getting to a goal, instead of the goal itself.
Some of you might be asking…would I do it again. Maybe. And, no doubt, there’s more to it than I can clearly identify. Certainly, I don’t think we can just fill our children with grandiose ideas that they have no inclination or interest to pursue and make them true, but perhaps it was clear that my son had a passion and interest in writing and that’s what I picked up on and paid attention to. And, no, I didn’t do that with my other two children.
My son will say today that he owes much of his skill in writing to all the fiction he listened to as a young child…but that story is for another time.
To learn how to use things like a pomodoro, modeling, and clear goals successfully with your child, head on over to boldschoolers.com and join us in Boldschoolers Blueprint. We have an amazing group of homeschoolers committed to doing school differently.
*If you are unclear as to what a pomodoro is, you might want to check out the previous blog...Putting on the Cape.
