Children Need Routine to Become Adventurous Learners.
Learning often requires taking a variety of risks, whether it’s being willing to try something new or trying after failing. For children, it is the process of learning how to take risks and become comfortable with failure that can help them grow and develop. But convincing them to take that risk, even if it’s scary and uncomfortable, can be a challenging task for parents. Research shows that a child’s willingness to take risks in learning may depend on what their relationship with their parents looks like.
Taking risks while learning
In a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, children who perceived their parents as trustworthy were more likely to take risks while learning. In this study, which involved more than 150 children, participants were asked questions about their home environment, including their relationship with their parents, and were then asked to play a series of games.
Children who perceived their parents as more reliable, which included answering “yes” to questions such as whether they could count on them to pick them up at a certain time, keep their promises, or predict their reactions to different situations, with were more likely to take part in the survey. risks during games.
“Children from more stable families play and experiment in our games. They use it to understand how things work and maybe earn more money or more points,” said Seth Pollack, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead researcher of the study, in a press release.
Parents who are seen as trustworthy can be seen as a buffer for children, giving them the confidence to take risks and explore. “If you believe that your parent is there, you believe in security and stability, it allows you to leave and come back,” says Sarah Greenberg, executive director of behavior change and expertise at Understood.org , a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting people with differences in training. “It’s almost like a visceral sense of a safety net.”
It is this sense of security and predictability that gives children the feeling that it is okay to take risks and fail because they have a parent at home they can count on who will be there to support them.
Look for patterns of behavior
Creating a positive learning environment for your child often involves identifying what they struggle with and what they need. One way to do this is to track specific behaviors over time and look for patterns. “Your child can’t necessarily tell you what he needs, but he will show you often,” Greenberg says.
For example, if your child constantly has meltdowns after school, it may be a sign that he is overwhelmed or overstimulated after the school day and needs extra time to relax before starting homework. Other behaviors may include refusing to do something, such as writing with a pencil or doing math homework, which may be a sign that he is having problems in certain areas.
Small, consistent treatments make a difference
The only way to create consistency and reliability, even when you’re overwhelmed with all the day-to-day responsibilities of raising a family, is to develop small but consistent routines with your child. “One positive daily routine can be a really good starting point,” says Greenberg.
With these procedures, it’s not so much how big and time-consuming they are, but how predictable they are. For example, this could be trying to give them 10 minutes of undivided attention when they get home from school, making it a habit to play LEGO with them every Friday night, or having a predictable bedtime routine. “Ten or 20 minutes of consistent positive attention can make a world of difference,” says Greenberg.
The main thing is to make it consistent and enjoyable, to make the child feel that the parents are there for him. “It’s not about rigidity, it’s about strength, the fact that the child feels the ground underneath him,” says Greenberg.