When A Kid Learns
One night I saw my teenage daughter struggling with solving a math problem quite a long time. I sensed she’s a bit of frustrated.
“Is it very hard?” I asked.
“Yeah. Stupid math! ”came the reply, “calculating how long this tank would be fully filled with the stream of water running from a hose. What’s it for?”
Being driven from the mother’s instinct to rescue, I gave her a prompt, “Why don’t you ask your dad?” As my husband was a high school math teacher, I made this suggestion. But my daughter didn’t say anything. I guessed that she wanted to figure it out by herself. I decided not to press on then.
A few minutes later, she took the question paper and moved to ask her dad.
“Let me see if I can remember,” replied my husband.
My husband drew and explained something to her….My daughter followed with some ”mm” and “uhah”. Suddenly she happily screamed, “Oh, yeah!” She grinned at her dad with her eyes sparkling. Then they talked and talked…on solving the problem. I didn’t understand anything what they were talking at all. But I enjoyed the atmosphere. To me, watching a father and a daughter working and talking together is an enjoyment.
The moment a kid learns is the moment he/she exclaims “Oh, yeah!”
When a kid learns, a sense of achievement and fulfillment will fill up his/her heart. And this sense of achievement will turn into an internal motivation of on-going learning. Learning itself is enjoyment and excitement.
Parenting tips: there are two very important factors to make learning happen:
• Motivation: A problem to be solved is a very common motivation. No wonder parents look for parenting tips to help solve their children’s problems they are facing. Younger children like doing puzzles, spotting the differences between two pictures, word mazes. Older children or teens like solving real life problems. For example, if they want to send a really cool picture to their friends or to make their school projects look attractive, that’s a problem, they will eager to learn how to use Photoshop.
• Timing: When a child comes to you and asks “What is this?” , “How?” and “Why?” these are the moments they are ready to learn. For many times, I always felt that my children liked to come up to ask me many things when I was veeeeery busy. But I, as a parent, have to remind myself that this is the most precious time of helping my child learn.
Related articles:
Is Your Child A Spatial/Visual Learner?
Is Your Child A Tactile/Kinetic Learner?
Is Your Child An Auditory Learner?