I found my 5 year old daughter attempting to read a book yesterday.
Naturally I was delighted so I sat down with her.
She kept stumbling across words though.
Not wanting her to give up or ‘fail’ I automatically and instinctively offered her my strategies as a teacher to help her.
Only she would look at me crossly and say,
‘stop, I don’t want your help!’.
Ouch! I sat there confused for a few moments, trying to work out what my role was here. I was a teacher after all, this was what I had most experience in, but I felt helpless.
I watched as she kept repeating the tricky word to herself with slight variants on each attempt.
I could feel the time ticking away and as it did, the possibility of a melt-down should she not eventually ‘get it’, increasing.
I could almost visibly see her brain searching inwardly until she did finally get it; she repeated the sentence and it all fell into place.
The joy on her face was priceless.
And that is when it hit me and not for the first time.
She wanted the learning process to be hers – she wanted ownership and that sense of responsibility gave her great pride, not only in the success but in the momentary cognitive struggle too.
For all the right reasons we want to help our children to bridge the gap between what they know and what they would like to. But quite often this means we take over – we don’t create the space for our children to get there themselves. We assume responsibility for the learning, rather than for creating the conditions in which they can think and learn themselves.
This can have serious implications for children’s self-belief in their ability as Williams (2008; 17) explains;
‘allowing children to be independent requires acknowledgement of children’s potential for responsibility and recognition that varying levels of independence will be realized when children are trusted to respond in relevant but sometimes challenging ways’
In this case, my daughter may not have needed me at all, but at the very least for emotional support and to share in her triumph. She certainly didn’t need me for technical support.
But what happens when they do need us for more than emotional support and how do we, as parents, know the difference?
What happens if a child doesn’t reach the answer by themselves and feels frustrated?
Of course no two children are the same, nor is the context or their previous learning experiences.
What I can offer is some hints, tips and strategies for you to try.
Step back!
Step back from your own natural (and completely normal) drive to answer the questions or direct the learning, otherwise it becomes yours not theirs.
By providing time and space for your children to think for themselves, you are not only developing their independence but also deeper learning connections will be made.
Encourage them to make the decisions.
Ask your child what they want from you and give them options about how you might be able to help them.
For example, ‘I am here to help if you would like’, ‘do you want some clues or shall we work it out together?’ or ‘shall I just be quiet while you work it out for yourself?’
Develop a language for learning.
Develop a language for learning so that your children can begin to process and explain what they plan to do or what they have done to overcome their learning difficulty.
For example ‘I can see that is/was a real challenge for you which is great! I noticed that you looked at the pictures to help/referred back to a previous page/got your phonics books out to help’ (insert whatever strategy they used).
As children become more confident and older, it could be more of an open question ‘How did you work it out in the end? Do you think you could use that strategy again?’
Ultimately, your children are responsible for their own learning and our role as parents and teachers is to lay the foundations for that learning to happen as effectively as possible!
After all, as the great Sir Ken Robinson reminds us…
‘You cannot predict the outcome of human development . All you can do is like a farmer, create the conditions under which it will begin to flourish.’
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