Writing is like giving your child a superpower—a way to express themselves, explore their thoughts, and tap into a world of creativity. It's not just about words on paper; it's about unlocking a whole new level of intellectual, physiological, and emotional growth. Dive into these exciting ideas by Gail Smith to cultivate your child's passion for writing, a skill that lies at the core of education!
Read MoreDid you know that the more time children spend in front of screens, the less they hear and practice language? This can impact their speaking, listening, writing, and comprehension skills. Explore these suggestions by Gill Smith to ensure your child gets plenty of exposure to develop good language skills.
Read MoreParenting can get tricky, especially when dealing with difficult behaviour. Check out Gail Smith’s suggestions on handling those challenging moments with your child.
Read MoreChildren will, from time to time, challenge your authority and demand that their needs be met. Gail Smith shares some positive cues that give you a greater capacity to manage the situation and reduce the impact on both the parent and the child.
Read MoreI know it’s hard if there are risks, but, teach your child to have a go and to be a risk-taker. Read on for some advantages of this.
Read MoreEveryone experiences moments like these as a parent. Here are a few tips to keep positive and that making mistakes is all part of parenting.
Read MoreRead on for 9 ways to help your child learn to read.
Read MoreWe are confronted by what recently happened in Texas with the mass killing of young children in a school. It is almost impossible to get our heads around this atrocity and as parents, we shudder with the reminder that a parent’s grief for their lost child would be immeasurable. Here's some pointers for parents to help your children understand tragedies like this.
Read MoreCovid19 and the various levels of lockdown have been extremely stressful for parents, to say the least. How do we explain this situation to our children when we’re feeling immense levels of stress ourselves?
Here’s a recourse list to help explain all things Covid19 to our children.
What to say when tricky questions are asked about Coronavirus
How to stop the worry with issues like coronavirus.
Isolation and being at a distance - what does that mean?
Another lockdown and more home schooling. How important is it?
So, we are back working on line from home.
Let’s take away the fear and replace it with positive thinking.
A few tips on helping with home schooling
8 quick tips to keep the mood positive in these tricky times
“Lockdown again,” I hear you say.
Crazy creative ideas for long stays at home.
Getting back to routine after lockdown
Back to school and living the new norm
Everyone is concerned about their child’s education in lockdown
If I say now I want you to write a story on dogs, how would you go?
Most likely not too well! The idea of writing starting with a blank page and no connection to the story is so hard for most people. Even children who are great readers can find this difficult. Just simply asking a child to be creative on the spot is not generally possible when it comes to writing stories.
Often children find the task to write stories very difficult if in isolation of the classroom. As a parent, it can be difficult to help with homework tasks that require story writing.
Here are some simple tips on helping your child write with enjoyment and with a feeling of success.
Does your child struggle to write a story?
Ask them to tell you a story. Ask them to tell it to you in sections. This story is one they know and love. Then keep checking in with “what happened next?” etc.
Try putting the story in dot points. Then build some sentences around the dot points. Keep it simple and let your child add to the sentences if desired.
Sometimes children can start with a question.
“I wonder why I like dogs?” starting with a question gets them thinking and talking about the concept.
“Why did I go to the beach that day?”
Giving children sentence starters can help.
“Today was a hot day and I enjoyed ……”
Confronting a blank page can be daunting. Ask them to draw the story perhaps in cartoon form and then tell it through words.
If a child is struggling with writing a story, ask them to tell you about a time that made them happy or perhaps a funny situation. Write it down. Always keep in mind that the purpose of writing with a child should be enjoyable.
After reading a story to your child have fun with them by changing some of the plot. This can be a great chance to talk about story plots. Also, have fun changing the title of the story and some of the words.
Audiobooks are a very pleasant way of following stories and some children are very strong audio learners.
If they have a great story in their head invite them to record it and play it back to the family.
Try writing a story together. Start off with some sentences and invite your child to write a few more, building the plot together. Also, it can be a fun activity sitting in the car making up stories together.
Let them see how you enjoy reading what they write. At a family gathering time, read out their work and talk about the story written.
Look at some simple cartoons. Invite your child to write about each scene.
These suggestions are simply to encourage the child to see writing a story as a possibility. Many children, especially those who are not into fantasy or fiction, will write better when the writing has a purpose. For example, the child may write about how we pollute the earth with plastic. Here they are writing to tell you about a situation that is real and has a purpose with facts. As the child ages, school’s expectations in writing are more about writing for a purpose. As a parent of a primary aged child, simply keep their interest in writing by reassuring them that they can write and it can be in many and varied forms. There is no incorrect way of writing a story, nor is there any incorrect way of telling a story. Also, we place no value judgements on the quality of their story. It’s their tale after all.
“You can make anything by writing.”
At the moment we see and feel so much fear in the community. It is quite impossible that our children are exempt from feeling the overall anxiety in the air. Also, if your children are in supermarkets, they see the emptiness on shelves and see the anxiety on people’s faces as we all struggle to interpret the great loss and the feeling of deprivation. It is quite a grief for all to see such emptiness.
Let’s take away the fear and replace it with positive thinking.
Children will retain such information and even possibly think about those empty shelves later. It doesn’t take much for their fear to rise when they see the adults in their life, feeling the pain. So, what to do?
Let’s simply be positive around our children. Tell them that all the precautions are for the good of society. How lucky we are to live in a society where we can arrange things to get better. We have many smart people in our world helping with this situation.
Let them know how clever people in our Government have put in restrictions to stop the problem from spreading and that is a positive. This is not a time to be politically commenting on politicians. It is about teaching our children that we are all pulling together.
Let them know that the sooner we stop big gatherings, the sooner we can return to them safely but we must be patient.
Given that you may have more family time together be optimistic and plan doing more activities in the house. Is there some project you can work on together?
Of course, games, puzzles, reading etc. are wonderful entertainers. How about setting up a drawing corner. Suggest they draw happy activities that they like to do.
Sing together. This is a great fun way to work through the situation. How about working out a rap song that is all about washing your hands well. Perhaps you can write songs that are all about finding safe ways to be during the difficult times.
This is a great time to revive the backyard. How often can you go out together and play?
Talk about the wonderful skill of our professionals such as doctors, immunologists, etc. who are working on the major problem of coronavirus. Imagine that in a few months they will have controlled the spread!
Talk about how wonderful it is that every country in the world is acting positively to stop the problem. This is global action at work.
Avoid exposing your children to conversations that highlight the negative and focus on the anxiety. Incidental chats can be quite damaging.
On the other hand, incidental chats about how you noticed people being helpful etc, provides ongoing reassurance.
Talk about the people you know who show clever ways to cope during this time.
Given that there is a prolonged wait where children will not be active through their sports activities etc, ensure that as a family you are actively engaged. Bike rides and scooters in the park, ball games and picnics in grassy spots could be fun to do as a family. The more active, the better mental health for the whole family.
Cook together. This is a great time for children to indulge themselves in baking at home.
Listen to music and dance together. Music is such a positive influence on everyone feeling better.
Watch some feel-good movies as a family. This is always a comforting time for children.
Avoid having television or radio on that is talking about the coronavirus. Young children only pick up on the negativism and do not grasp the whole content of the conversation. They would certainly feel the negative tone of the conversation.
The focus is on being busy and keeping positive. This will reduce the child’s worry that all is doom and gloom. For the child, an important factor is their parent’s feeling of being secure. This is not a time for uptight parents who focus on too much control.
The children will rely on your positivism to reassure them that in the end, all will be well.
What you want them to remember after it is over is not the fear but rather the great initiatives taken to solve the problem both at home and on the global stage. That is what should linger in their minds.
Being positive is not about denying the truth. It is, in fact, teaching your child that every situation can be seen from many angles. It is giving your child skills in managing anxiety for themselves.
Who knows by building more optimism in the family, it lingers longer and becomes a family trait?
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
Parents often ask teachers how can I best help my child learn?
A child’s intellectual development is influenced by many factors, not the least of which is the support given by parents who are actually the first educators of their children. By the time a child is at school, their understanding of the world has grown immensely and most of this is through parental education, family influences etc.
What is most helpful to a child is to learn how to learn and, in this area, a parent can be a powerful influence. This is about setting up situations where you encourage your child to explore optional answers. You encourage them to look for alternative methods to solve problems. Simply giving the child answers, is not encouraging their inquiring attitude to learning.
If a child develops from an early age that finding out information themselves is satisfying, they will continue to rely on their own resources, which will grow into quite a knowledge bank. They will also grow more intellectually independent and feel confident in their own abilities to search for the answers. They will not rely on others. This is independent thinking and is all about learning how to learn. It is about being in control of your own learning.
Here are some thoughts on how to help your child develop independent skills in problem-solving.
When you child asks a question throw it back to them.
“What is important to know here?”
“What do you know so far about that issue?”
“Why is that issue worth knowing?”
This is all about questioning their interest and getting them to reflect on why they want that knowledge. How useful will that knowledge be to their problem?
Ask the child how they would go about getting the necessary information. Here is a time to guide them giving them some direction in where else to look. Once the child has researched the problem, find out what they have learnt to date and suggest other aspects of the problem which could be considered.
“It looks like you have great information there. I was wondering have you also looked up google etc….”
This is all about questioning the value of the information they have gathered and exploring other points of reference in which the child can research.
Finally, you may ask, “Have you reached a clear understanding of that situation? Tell me about it.”
All these tactics are encouraging your child to question, probe and leave no stone unturned, to come to a conclusion based on good research. Note how you are not solving the problem but assisting the child in discovering a process to follow. You are not making judgements on how they research the problem, but certainly you can encourage them at an appropriate time to think of alternative ways to look at the problem.
In working with children, teachers always start by posing questions and from that question, the real work of problem-solving begins. The joy in this process is that the child is fully engaged and keen to seek out information themselves. For them, it is so rewarding to be in charge of solving the problem. As a parent being a catalyst in encouraging open thinking and an inquiring mind in your child, is, in fact, teaching them how to learn. This is a lifelong process for all of us.
“All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.”
As an adult do you find it natural to ask for help? Do you find asking questions difficult?
Often, we excuse ourselves and treat it as a natural process to ask for help. We are not embarrassed or feel awkward. Of course, you can feel uncomfortable about asking for help. Generally as we get older we show more maturity about asking questions. It seems a normal response.
Children need to acquire the skill of asking for help and questioning. If they acquire this skill from an early age it becomes a natural way of operating and is understood to be the best and the most natural response when you don’t know the answer to any situation. I refer to its acquisition as a skill, so that we understand the very real value in simply asking questions and seeking help.
Some children, especially those that worry about making mistakes, can be reticent to ask for help. After all, does it suggest failure and a recognition to those around you that you do not know the answer?
What will people think of me?
Seeking help, asking questions should become a natural process of learning.
One of the most contemporary methods of teaching is the Inquiry Approach which is based totally around asking questions. In fact, the bigger the question, the better scope to learn. This tells us that asking questions is recognised as an important way of learning and living from day to day.
If you have a child reticent to ask questions and seeking help when needed, the following suggestions may help encourage them to see the value in questioning.
Talk to your child about how you like to ask questions to get more information. Highlight the time that seeking help solved your problem.
“Thank goodness I asked for directions on that trip. We would never have arrived on time without some assistance.”
“I asked your teacher how I could help you with homework and she gave me some excellent ideas. Without her help I would never know what to do.”
Talk about famous people who ask many questions to get their work complete. Scientists, doctors etc. are all professions that rely on gathering more information through questioning to help with their work.
When a child talks about a problem, list some questions that they could ask to get the problem solved.
“You seem unsure about that homework. Let’s think about some questions to get help from the teacher. For example:
1. When do you hand the homework to the teacher?
2. What part of the homework is the most difficult?
3. Is it better to spread the homework over several days?
4. Do you need more time to do this work?
5. Which part of the homework is the easiest?
Bringing questions into play is all about breaking down the anxiety about the problem. Ensuring that it is all manageable. Questioning and seeking help also is seen as a legitimate way of moving from not knowing to being informed.
When working with children who were reticent to ask questions or generally seek help in the classroom, we would turn it into a game. I would ask a question about a set problem and they would respond. Then it was their turn to ask a question about the problem. We would calculate who could ask the most questions about the problem we set down and who gained the most information.
Also affirming the child when they asked questions or seek help spontaneously is always a great tool used in the classroom. Try it at home.
“Well done, that question was a great one.”
“I am so glad you asked me to help you.”
“I like that question. It has got me thinking.”
Seeking help, asking questions should become a natural process of learning in which the child feels comfortable and invites others into their process of thinking. We feel less anxious and personally vulnerable when we seek help and question. Both a natural way of life.
“The art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.”
I certainly do not want to sound like the punitive Principal who stresses the need to be consistent with school attendence. However, there are sound reasons why being consistent in attending school is so important for your child's overall development.
Firstly, the child needs to develop the life long habit of simply getting up and being accountable to something important, in this case attending school. It is about having a purpose for getting up. Children certainly are keen to be punctual for so many sporting events which they love and for which they feel strongly connected to their peers. Whilst school may not have that same buzz each day, the habit of getting up and regularly attending school teaches them that are honouring an important responsibility.
Behavioural changes can happen if a child does have protracted absences from school. They actually feel anxious about returning as they worry about friendship groups moving on from them. Also missing out on school work causes them to feel less successful in learning and this can cause other problems such as disinterest in their work or general lack of motivation.
In order for children to enjoy school they need to feel successful, socially and through their success in school work. Frequent absences diminishes their capacity to be successful on both scales.
It is also apparent that when children return to school after absences of any length, sometimes their behaviour may change as they are feeling unsure of themselves and their place amongst their peers. Teachers will often comment on the noticeable change.
Another important reason for regular attendance is that you are giving them a strong message that learning is an important part of their life and that you value their attendance each day.
If there are significant reasons for absences including sickness, family holidays etc, discuss with your child why it is important to be absent and plan with the school how you will manage the situation as a family. By doing this you are informing the child that at no point are you not respecting the role of school in their life. It is not incidental, it is a powerful influence in their life, This is all about showing the child that learning is a life long process and should never be seen in an incidental way.
Finally, I appreciate that for some children a week at school can be a long time. It is approximately, five hours a day and the child is being set expectations across that time. Now consider school across ten weeks of a term and forty weeks across the year. This can be a high demand for some children who feel the pressure to succeed or who struggle with peer relations. By allowing them to stay at home only heightens their anxiety.
If school refusal creeps in, parents should act quickly and talk to the school about the matter. Also home should give the child much reassurance that they are proud of their efforts and I would itemise all the positives you notice about school. However, should the child start rejecting school, the sooner it is understood and the child is supported, the quicker the child can move on from being anxious.
Schools are well supported when it comes to helping children settle into school. Of course should a family situation change, sometimes school refusal creeps in as the child may get anxious about home. Whatever the reason, keep the school well in the loop as they take their responsibility very seriously with regard to the child's well being.
By allowing children to stay at home from school only heightens their anxiety.
Growing up is such a learning curve on so many levels!
As an adult we understand through our developed emotional intelligence that failure happens to all of us. We also understand that sometimes it takes time and effort to turn failure into success.
We also learn that failure is another way of learning and growing stronger.
A child who has less experience and is not emotionally mature enough to understand failure can see it as quite a blocker to their learning. They can shut down quite easily, being more comfortable in not doing anything rather than “having a go”. The more frequently this happens, the longer it takes to change the patterns.
It is quite common to hear parents comment on how their child has stopped trying as they are scared of failure. After all, in their mind, the best defence is just not doing the work, if it gives you feelings of being unsuccessful. As a parent, this can be quite daunting, especially if you feel that you are always affirming them for their efforts.
I have seen this pattern in many children and no surprises, it is often the first child that struggles in this area. There is no simple answer, as it does require the child developing a set of skills to overcome this fear and this takes time and perseverance on the part of the supporting family. Below are some suggestions for supporting your child's developing emotional awareness.
With a child who is finding their work never adequate or good enough, affirm different aspects of their work not just offering an overall affirmation.
“I really like the way you drew the line on the page. It's very straight”
“I am so impressed that you started that sentence well.”
Here you are building positive comments in that are real and the child can see that it is genuine. But take care not to constantly affirm as the child disengages from excessive, general affirmation.
Talk openly about failures that you have had to deal with and discuss the ways you solved the problem or at least handled the situation. Here you are reinforcing the concept that failure is part of everyday life. This is effective coaching without forcing solutions on a child.
There are wonderful books on building self worth and coping with failure. Book stores that cover emotion and feelings are excellent for this purpose. As you read the stories of how failure was a process that a child had to work through, discuss similar times in your own life.
Keep a success journal. This means that every time your child has felt that they overcome a feeling of failure, write about it as a family. Remember, we are affirming the efforts or tools that the child used to overcome the fear.
Also a success jar is fun where you add a marble every time a child works through a fear of failure.
Talk to your child's teacher about the areas that they notice cause anxiety in your child. This gives you some ideas on what areas to affirm at home. Remember to be specific when affirming.
Use the scale approach.
“You are anxious about that test? On a scale of one to ten how do you feel? Now what can we do to drop that number and slow the anxiety down?”
Here you acknowledge that sometimes you will still have anxiety about the problem but by finding ways to lower the fear, you can cope so much better.
Keep in mind that it is important to recognise their fears and not downplay their importance. This way they know you are really listening to them.
“It sounds to me like you are really worried about talking in front of the class. Tell me more about that feeling.” By listening honestly, the child will be comfortable in talking about their fears.
Discuss with the whole family how important it is to acknowledge the child's fear and encourage other less stressed siblings to not underplay their fear.
Learning to cope with fear is a gradual process and once a child develops some tools to cope better and feels success from this, they begin to strengthen their emotional maturity and identify in themselves the cues that lead to fear of failure.
Affirmation for your child's good work and success is important. How much is too much and when is it needed?
Schools are busy places. Some of the best people for you to get to know are the office team.
I speak now as a Principal who relies heavily on my office team.
They have such an excellent understanding of people's needs and are always the first to let the Principal know if someone needs some extra support.
They keep well briefed with the Principal and are much easier to access sometimes than the Principal. They are very reliable to pass messages onto others.
Once office staff are familiar with you and the family, they are very conscious to support you when you need to learn more about the school or simply to get some facts straight.
Office staff know to be extremely confidential and will point you in the right direction when you have specific inquiries.
I often think that the engine of a school is the office team. Keep them in mind as your support team when your child is at school. They play a critical role in the day to day life of the Principal.