What is the child REALLY trying to tell you?



Do they hate school?

Do they hate learning?

Is it too hard for them?

Is it boring?

Watching your child as they learn or as they are doing their homework should give you clues to the answers to this problem.

Most children will only give an adult ?hints? about what they really mean, they sure aren't going to come right out and tell you. Not because they don't want to; they don't want you to be disappointed in them. A child wants to ?please? the parent and doesn't want them to feel like their child is different in the respect that the child can not learn fast enough.

For some children there are other reasons?

Because they don't know how,

They don't know how to put it into words,

They are afraid that you may get mad or

They would rather ignore it than to make a big thing about it.

So, where does that leave the parent?

You have to figure it out for yourself; but this isn't as hard as it sounds if you look at these factors.

Kids will always give clues as to what is bothering them in ways that usually only a parent will notice if you look hard enough.

If the child is constantly fidgeting while they should be doing their homework:

1) They don't understand what they are supposed to be doing

2) They are bored and think they are wasting time,

3) They are waiting for you to sit along side of them to help or give the answers

4) They have a problem concentrating.

Now all you have to do is figure out which one of these things it really is, but, you are the parent, and it may take some time, but you will make a major breakthrough when you come up with the answer. It will make all of your teaching techniques from that time on much simpler. You will have broken the code, so to speak, and managed to find that special bond that it will take for your child to learn.

How do you go about this?

1) One of the most important things you can do is to open communication with out pointing a finger and making the child feel ?stupid? as they put it.

Ask them if they understand the question, rephrase it several different ways, use something that they can relate to as an example instead of the wording in the question etc. Then say to the child, ?Do you get it now? Was I any help to you? I know it's hard to understand, I didn't get it right away either!? This way the child knows that they aren't stupid, Mom or Dad (that always knows everything) didn't get it at first either, but they figured it out.

2) Are they bored? Does it seem to the child like they are constantly going over the same thing and they already gave the answer three times?

Some children catch on fast, but give the outward appearance like they don't have a clue what the answer is. They are bored! For this type of child it is easier to rephrase the question a few ways and see if you get the same answer each time; if you do, they have got it, go on to something else.

3) Do you loose patience and after a while just sit down next to them and say something like; ?I am going to sit right here until you get your work done, so just get busy.? OR Eventually you are so frustrated that you ?give? them the answers.

Sorry, both wrong things to do. No one sits next to them in school; no one will stand next to them in the work place either. Help them to learn life as well as subjects and they will benefit double.

4) They can't concentrate!

This is a problem with most kids; they seem to get side tracked by the smallest thing. Like my granddaughter says; Focus, Focus, Focus. She will just stop in the middle of what she is doing and close her eyes and say her ?magic words? and it seems to help. Usually this type of youngster is trying to look at a whole picture instead of taking things in small pieces at a time. They are worried that they won't get finished in time, or they are afraid that they will get to something that they don't understand so they are looking ahead too much. Put a piece of paper under the words as they read them or you do. This way you are only looking at a certain amount of words at one time and you have to ?focus? to know what is coming next.

It isn't easy for a child to organize their learning, so the parent or teacher has to help them learn how. If you look at it in a simple form: learning is organizing thoughts and words that we will use at one point and time in our life and put in our memory banks for fast retrieval. It is their first step in learning to organize their lives and they will learn these basics in a lot of ways through out their lives.

Make learning fun and a child will carry their education with them for a lifetime make it hard and boring and they will forget it tomorrow.