The new year has begun, and apart from the children enjoying school and developing as people, parents also want our children to learn.
But learning should not only be related to subjects such as mathematics, English or language, nor should it be limited exclusively to the school environment.
Parents can also do a lot to reinforce what our children learn, as well as help them acquire other necessary skills not only in their academic stage, but throughout their lives.
Do you want to know how to do it? These are our tips.
Don’t be his secretary
Year after year, the whatsapp groups of school parents are filled with messages asking about the homework that children have to do at home.
What if “my son has not put them on the agenda “, what if ” mine has not found out well” , what if “he has left the books in class and needs a photo of the pages he has to study” .. . Whatever the reason, there’s the mother or father to pull the chestnuts out of the fire.
However, becoming our children’s helpers is tremendously detrimental to their development and emotional health. To begin with, we are not giving them the opportunity to correct their mistakes and learn from them for the next time, but also, the child will end up believing that he is not capable of doing things by himself.
There is no doubt that it hurts deeply to know that our son will be reprimanded by the teacher the next day for not having done his homework , but at the end of the day it is a situation that we have all gone through at some point, and the that we have ended up learning.
Give him responsibilities
Very much in line with the above is this other recommendation focused on giving our children responsibilities according to their age, and avoiding going after them by making their lives easier.
Because, how many times have we run after our son when we realize that he has forgotten his school lunch at home? How many times have we packed the backpack for him to make sure nothing important is left behind? And how many of us will have chosen for him / her the clothes to wear the next day?
Doing things for our children is not helping them when they need us , but rather depriving them of the opportunity to learn, develop new skills, and activate their creativity and ability to resolve conflicts.
Let them express their opinion
Too often children are repressed and self-conscious when it comes to expressing their opinions , as adults are not always interested in their opinion or listen carefully to what they have to tell us.
But when we encourage children to express their opinion regarding an issue, and even that opinion is considered and taken into account in the family, we are not only strengthening their self-esteem, but also promoting the development of important life skills , such as taking decision-making, initiative, critical spirit or assertiveness, among others.
Don’t do homework for him / her
Another common mistake that parents usually make is doing homework for our children. And by this we do not mean to take paper and pencil and make us go through them, but to sit with them while they study, memorize with them the lesson they must learn, correct their mistakes instead of encouraging them to be the ones who discover where they have been. failed …
In short, we prefer to intervene so that their homework is perfect and thus anticipate a bad grade, instead of promoting their sense of responsibility, effort and study habit.
Let him experiment in freedom
“Do not do that”, “do not touch there”, “ do not play with the mud, you get dirty “, “do not jump in the puddle” … the daily life of children is full of prohibitions and “noes” that they prevent them from experimenting and learning from other perspectives.
And it is that mathematics, physics, biology or chemistry are not only learned in school, but also through free play, involvement in housework or experimentation.
Do not cut the wings of your creativity
Children are geniuses of creativity, but that innate gift with which they are born is lost or repressed over time influenced by the environment, family and school.
Although there are subjects in schools that enhance children’s creativity, the truth is that it is never enough. For this reason, when our children come home we must allow them to continue creating and learning as they wish, with ideas and advice that do not numb their overflowing imagination and their innate ability to find solutions to all problems.
Let them dream, be original, divergent, give their opinion and skip the rules of the expected. Let’s not kill the creative genius in all children!
Photos | iStock, Pexels
