Children are a gift, a blessing, and sometimes a curse and one hell of a headache. And once they reach their teens, things can get very, very stressful. So, you must build the right foundation early on, when they are still young, so regrets do not hunt you down the line. After all, who doesn’t dream of raising a child who is academically successful, creative, and emotionally intelligent?
Not everything goes according to plan in life. That is how it goes sometimes! But we can still do our best and hopefully see the fruits of our labor one day. So, here is a guide on how to nurture your offspring’s natural abilities and learning habits, unlock their potential, and hopefully, set them up for life.A Healthy Environment to Build Early Learning Habits
Before the learning even starts, we have to make sure there is an environment that is safe and supportive. This is the foundation of any effective development and learning strategy, where the child will feel comfortable experimenting, exploring, learning, and taking risks. All this matters before the child goes to Montessori day care, starts pre-school, or the like. Right from the get-go, you want this environment, which includes both their emotional atmosphere and their actual physical surroundings. The child’s environment should be filled with age-appropriate toys and materials that encourage creativity and exploration. To foster their emotional safety, you are going to want to be mindful of your communication style and encourage honest and open conversations about their emotions and feelings. So “punishing” them for questions that have no malice is definitely not a good approach.
Regular and Brief Learning Sessions
When a child is learning from home, it is important to make the learning sessions as predictable and regular as possible. Therefore, consistency is key, doing the learning in the same way and time each day. This will help your child know what to expect and you can get the most out of your time. It is recommended that you set a goal for a learning session and then work up to it. So, for example, if your ultimate goal is a 30-minute session, try starting with 10 minutes and then working a bit longer each time.
For small children, 15 minutes a day for 5 days a week is a good bar. And it may not seem like a lot. But teaching them to practice learning skills will actually go a long way. The child is still very young. So there is less emphasis on technical and theoretical learning, obviously, and more on sensations — touch, smell, see, hear — and those senses are stimulated by exploring and interacting with the world around them.
Social and Emotional Development
Emotional intelligence and social skills are at least just as important, if not more so, than academic knowledge when it comes to success and fulfillment in life. So by prioritizing emotional and social development, you will be helping your child become more resilient, empathetic, and adaptable to whatever life throws at them. Make your child practice active listening and express their emotions maturely. Teach them how to resolve conflicts, and model compassion and empathy in your interactions.
Encourage plenty of reading, as there are few better ways to instill empathy than reading a book, where you are seeing the story through someone else’s eyes and walking in the character’s shoes, sharing their suffering and their triumphs. If your child loves reading, you will have already won much more than half the battle, not only where empathy is concerned but also attaining a vast vocabulary, becoming eloquent and able to express themselves, and so much more.
Build Upon What They Enjoy
You should be already doing this. But pay close attention to what your little one is interested in. Moreover, ask your childcare center if they have noticed any activities that your child particularly enjoys doing. This will then give you insight into what they are naturally drawn to. Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to enhance your child’s learning progress by giving them opportunities to interact with what piques their interest. Simple activities or games that involve what they enjoy are fantastic launching points for their development in counting, speech, and science. Letting your child engage with what they enjoy builds their interest and love in learning. So in essence, you’re supporting their development by supporting who they already are, polishing that, and personalizing their learning in a fun way.
Having Fun Together Also Helps with Learning Habits
Make sure you set aside quality time and fun together to interact with your child in a personalized manner, play with them, and so on. A critical factor in enhancing learning early on is to make it relaxing, fun, and enjoyable for both you and your child. One of the best ways children learn is through interacting and playing with their parents.
You are and always will be your child’s first and most important teacher. And this does not just apply to learning to read, write, or count, but literally everything. Everything you say, every small detail of your facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language. Your child will drink it all in, download it all right into their subconscious, and one day bring it all back out. Be the person you want your child to be as well. Self-improvement is a journey that is never over but a long road we must keep moving forward on each day.
No one is perfect, and especially as a parent, no one can ever expect you to be perfect. In this day and age where everything is so unnatural, off-balance, and contradictory to our instincts and natural upbringing, this is doubly true. However, some truths will never change, especially when it comes to our children when they are young. We really need to check who we are and make sure we are the people we want our children to be proud of. Hopefully, this instills the same pride and feelings in them as they grow older.