Force kills the spirit, dampens passion and destroys the zest and love of learning. Force trains followers, not leaders.
If you feel like you need to force your children to learn, you have not yet realized the amazing leaner your will be once he is set free to learn through his own interest and curiosity.
Parents and teachers choose force because they like the ability to just assign and demand and then to mete out consequences. We have been conditioned to believe that this is what education is and that anything else must be less valuable or less effective. This is the comfort zone. To make things easy, teachers and parents can use a set curriculum to "make sure" that the child is just like all the other students in the state. This is so safe, but is it really the best way for your child to learn?
If you tell your child when, where and what to learn, what you're actually teaching her is to:
Do the bare minimum.
Learn to please the authority figure.
Learning and study are no fun.
Her opinion doesn't matter.
Her skills don't matter, regardless of whether she is ahead or behind.
Sadly, these tactics can actually handicap a learner.
But if you turn things around and help your child find the things that he's good at and is interested in, you will find that he really likes to learn and that he will do it even without being forced to. Here are some things that can that help inspire your child to learn:
Let him learn the way his brain works best.
Provide lots of interesting learning experiences including field trips, projects, and lots of books around the house, both fiction and nonfiction.
Give him choices – a smorgasbord of wonderful learning experiences to choose from.
Set the example by letting him see you learning.
Talk to him about his future and then help him set learning goals.
The results? They include:
Increased confidence and self esteem.
Children who LOVE to learn.
Increased brain power.
Children who are individuals, not just bricks in a wall.
The difference can be astounding. Once you light the fires of learning, you won't want to go back to "common" educational tactics.
We would love to have you share your break-through moments with the OChomeschooling.com community! Here are places to share:
- Heather Martinson
Invitation: Come visit Celebration Education! We have small (less than 10 students) mixed-age classes and a maximum of 20 students per day. Let me know if you would like to come for a free trial class! https://www.celebrationeducation.com/copy-of-yucaipa