Teaching Your Child Useful Skills

Your child’s first teacher might well be the most important teacher they ever have.

Your child’s first teacher is of course you the parents, grandparents, extended family, care givers.

Your child’s first class room is your home.

The way the child learns is by the wonderful abilities of imagination and curiosity. Humans are born with these abilities and are basic instincts that help us all survive, learn, and succeed in a competitive world.

As a parent, you can switch your child on to the joy of learning by encouraging their imagination and curiosity at an early age. It gives them a great head start and stimulates the all-important desire to learn more.

A sense of security and self-worth

Teaching and learning are not mysteries that only happen in schools. They happen all the time when parents or the caregiver do things together with their children. Even if they are not doing things together the child will be observing you and learning by your example.

It does not matter not how rich or poor or famous we are or how many years of schooling we have had. What counts is what we say and do at home. When children can count on getting positive attention and encouraging kind words at home they will develop a greater sense of security and self-worth. This will help them do better not only in school, but also as they mature and grow to a confident adult.

It is all about communicating in a clear, positive and wholesome manner. Asking questions and really listen for answers is a no-cost high value thing to do.

Share our own experiences past and present. Recounting your childhood explaining how things change and why gives them a time line and a sense of their place in history. Sharing your goals and aspirations is also important as children tend to adopt our ideals this make a positive role model is essential.

Family rules

Establish realistic, consistent family rules, boundaries and stable routines. Children need limits set even though they will try to test these limits time and time again. In fact clearly set boundaries are comforting to your children making them feel secure. But to make such rules work they need to be clear, understood and applied consistently but with some room for negotiation.

Do the right thing

Encourage your children to think about the future and there place in it. Their expectations need to be realistic but remember to encourage them to stretch those expectations and abilities.

They need to gain the experience of satisfaction as some of their expectations are met and some are left unfulfilled. They need to learn to stand by their decisions and sometimes this means sacrificing fun now for benefits later or it is simply just ‘the right thing’ to do whatever the consequences.

They need to find out what happens as a result of decisions they have made. Do not be tempted to bail them out all the time.

Here is list of some no-cost high value things to do:

• Really listen to them and pay attention to their problems, explain solutions, ask them if they are happy with your suggestion and remedies.
• Read to them and allow them to read to you. Make this a regular habit and a treat not a chore. Keep a bookshelf well stocked with different types of reading materials. Discuss the daily news with them.
• Encourage them to use an encyclopedia and dictionary.
• Get them their own library cards.
• Keep a quiet and tidy area for them to study, read and do their homework.
• Tell them family stories who did what where and when.
• Share your favorite music, songs and poems and with them. Explain why you like a particular track or artist.
• Limit the television watching. Watch television with them and discuss the content. You can have great fun making up your own ‘better endings’ for example.
• Limit the time on games modules and computers. Set a time for “computers off”.
• Go to festivals, museums and historical sites. Go out exploring; learn about plants, animals and geography.
• Learn about different parts of your town, city and country. Take a packed lunch or picnic (let them help making it)
• Eat together around a table enquire about their day.
• Tell them “I thought about you today” (and why)