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All Levels
Student's mission changes with different grades
December 28, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I am a
regular reader of your articles online. I am the
mother of a 12-year-old daughter who is in the
seventh grade. She has always been an "A" student
who has not had to work hard for her grades.
However, this year the story is a little
different. So far, her actual grades have not
been bad (As and Bs), but when we average her
test scores, they end up being Cs and Ds. Luckily
for her the classroom participation and
completing homework assignments are figured into
her grades.
My husband and I are helping her study each night but feel that our study methods may not be the most appropriate for her. Unfortunately, she seems rather uninterested in studying and unconcerned about her grades. I feel that since this is the first time she has really had to work hard for good grades, she is at a loss for how to handle the pressure. Gretchen G., Lexington, KY |
The Assessment: When good students suddenly have difficulty in school, parents often assume that it's due to lack of motivation. While this may be true for some students it's certainly not the case with the majority for students I have worked with over the years. The real reason schoolwork becomes more difficult is that the curriculums expected of students as they make the transition from elementary school to middle school are more complex. The shift is one from convergent thinking to divergent thinking.
For this reason, parents and children must be aware that the purpose of education changes at certain grades. When the purpose changes, the method to achieve success must change too. Students cannot continue to use convergent tactics (like rote memorization) for a divergent curriculum and expect the same results that they had before the focus shifted.
In grades one through six, children are taught basic skills and given the opportunity to practice and repeat these skills until they master them. Basic skills is a catchall group that includes reading, writing and arithmetic, but also include decoding words and meanings, understanding the differences between facts and opinions, identifying the main ideas and supporting information, grammar, punctuation, and language formulation with logic and sequences, just to name a few.
Basic skills are learned through repetition. This is why, regardless of grade, most textbooks start with a review of what has been taught before. It takes all of elementary school for most children to practice these skills until they become automatic.
In grades seven and eight, the purpose of school changes. Basic skills are assumed to be in place. Now, students must use those skills to access information and demonstrate ownership of the information by "translating" it in a unique way. This is best thought of as the ability to paraphrase. Here, the premium shifts from the ability to memorize through repetition in a convergent way to a more divergent, abstract understanding of information that will ultimately lead the student to the creation of new knowledge.
Here are a few examples of how elementary and middle school differ:
In elementary school, students are asked to memorize a poem about a topic. In middle school students are asked to read the poem and interpret the message that the author intended for his readers.
In elementary school students are asked to memorize the dates of the American Revolution the major victories and who led the battles. In middle school the above is given, but the students are now also to compare and contrast the motivations for the Confederacy and the Union stances, and use them to explain why we had a Civil War.
In elementary school students are asked to write a book report. In middle school students are asked to identify with a certain character and explain why the character is important to the book.
Many children do well in elementary school because they develop basic skills quickly. Repetition works. However, the erroneous belief that repetition – having a good memory – remains the key to success as they move into middle school is a common downfall that is a major source of frustration.
What To Do: To find the best learning strategies for your child, begin by recognizing that the destination is different. Help your daughter develop the main skill she needs not for studying, but for learning:
- Paraphrasing. Unless your child is able to read, write and do math through explanations of her own, you are ultimately headed for problems.
- Instead of working with her to read and answer questions use the time together to discuss that she is learning. Make sure your daughter understands and can explain the cause-and-effect relationship of important events. Challenge her to ask “why?” and help her develop confidence in her own answers.
- Middle school is a major transition for students and parents. As you adapt to the new requirements, remember one important rule: If you do something and it doesn't give you the desired results, doing more of the same will not yield different results. The mission must change.
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Safe school environment means bullying must end
December 07, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My husband and I recently moved to a new city, and my son is a third grader who is now in his first year at a new school. He has had no problems with school in first and second grades, but this year we noticed that he was sadder, for lack of a better descriptive word. He has been complaining of not feeling well, so much so that I suspected that he was attempting to avoid school. This led to some tension in the house, and has gone on for some time. I was at the school one day to pick up my son, and one of his friends I spoke to mentioned in passing that my son was being bullied! I was horrified, and on the way home I asked my son about it. He literally broke down in the car and admitted that it was true. I am furious about this but I don’t know what I should do about it. What should be done in these situations? Stacy C., Nashville, TN |
Dear Stacy: I am very sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, your case is not a unique one. I chose to respond to your question because it is not the only letter that has come in recently concerning the topic of bullying. This is an epidemic that has shown no signs of fading from schoolrooms, hallways, and lunchrooms; so much so that a campaign called “Take a Stand. Lend a Hand.” was created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB).
The Assessment: The answer to the question of what to do about bullying will vary wildly depending on whom you ask for advice. The one thing that I think everyone can more or less agree on is that it takes a group effort. You, your son, and school administrators will all need to be involved in order to effectively deal with this situation. At the bottom of this article, I have posted links to two sites that have a much more extensive look at this problem and solutions than I can offer in a single article. Please take the time to look through the information on them. Be sure to do this with your son, as there are plenty of useful tips, webisodes, and steps that are meant for him directly.
What To Do: Stacy, if your son is the target of verbal abuse from the bullies, one of the most important things he can do is to alert his teacher or teachers. If he has concern that this is “tattle-telling,” assure him that it is not, and is in fact the first step toward becoming part of the solution to help put an end to the bully’s behavior. Also, it is helpful to have a friend or two around. It is an easy thing for the wolf (the bully) to try and single out the member of the herd that he perceives as weak and or alone, so encourage your son to play or sit with a friend or two in the lunchrooms and on the playground. The other reason this is a good idea, though your son may not recognize this immediately, is that this prepares a witness. A bully is less likely to do what he does best if there is a witness that can add credibility to your son’s story if he goes to an administrator. That alone can be enough to deter a bully.
Catching an escalating situation before it has the opportunity to turn physical is the best way to handle it. I have heard from some martial arts people that “the best way to avoid an altercation is not to be there.” In this case, your son will have to settle for preemption. He can go about this in several ways. When dealing with a bully, I used to tell my son that an apple tree couldn’t produce a pear. What I meant by that was that (in the case of bullying) a person who is in pain feels that he must beget pain to make him or herself feel better. With most bullies, we are dealing with people who have a deep sense of guilt that has led to fear; that fear has led to anger, and that anger has led to the desire to expel the negativity via a scapegoat: either him or her self (self-inflicted harm) or another person (bullying, physical or verbal abuse.) When the target is another person, the bully will play the role of an intimidator, looking for someone to fill the role of the “poor me.” If your son has the presence of mind to not give the bully what he wants, it will confuse the cycle of intimidator to victim. He can respond with something as simple as “I see you are having a bad day, bye!” Or, “You are nice, but you are saying some really ugly things right now.” Then he can go tell the teacher if the behavior persists or the bully is intent on escalating the situation.
When faced with the question of physical bullying, most sources will tell your son not to fight back. The thinking behind this suggestion is that it may escalate the level of aggression in the situation, and will make matters worse in the long run. One of the chief problems with an “eye for an eye” type attitude to bullying is simply the typical consequence that comes from fighting. In many cases when children have fought back against their aggressors, both children are many times suspended for the event. This takes me back to the my point that the most effective solution is making others aware of the situation, and preemption by getting vocal to witnesses and or the bullies themselves. That said, there is nothing wrong with your child defending himself. When people hear the words “self-defense,” they typically think of cool moves one does to a bad guy who is assaulting them. However, good self-defense also includes general awareness (Here comes the bully looking for trouble, I can go play with my friend or move closer to the teacher) and the “shoe express,” (namely running.) I give this advice because I cannot advise a course of action in good conscience that may put your child in a more dangerous situation, or one that will jeopardize his standing with the school and with his academics by risking a suspension.
That said, you, or your son may feel better if he enrolls in a program that can teach him some self-defense tactics. However, if you elect to pursue this, do not be fooled. Serious martial artists will tell you that you cannot learn to defend yourself in “five easy lessons” or in an afternoon. You do not want your child to have a false sense of security and comfort in abilities that will not stand up to the test of a real world situation, and can even get the victim hurt even worse because he or she thought that they were prepared. So, if self-defense courses are ever one of the options you are considering, please take the above points into advisement, and be sure that your son understands that he will not become a superhero after one class, nor will it give him permission to use this training without just cause lest he become that which he seeks to protect himself from. Please keep me posted on how this situation evolves with your son, because this is a problem that deserves national attention for the sake of our children’s physical and emotional well-being.
http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adults/default.aspx
http://www.ncpc.org/topics/bullying
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Acceptable home behavior may not fit school rules
November 30, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Last year
my son developed a reputation as a troublemaker.
I think he just got off to a bad start by cutting
up and acting the clown. His first two report
cards of course came back with notes of "Needs
Improvement" and ''Unsatisfactory'' in conduct.
My husband and I really came down hard on him, especially since he is a good child at home. He did his best to turn things around. For the rest of the year, though, his teachers never gave him any slack. The strange thing is that my son made pretty good grades, but his relationship with the teachers never improved. How can I help him get off on the right foot this year? Robin S., Atlanta, GA |
Dear Robin: While you admit that your child's reputation as "class clown" at the beginning of the year was not entirely undeserved, it is important to see why this reputation followed him throughout the academic year, despite good grades and an attempt to improve his conduct.
The Assessment: School is a closed environment where teachers go to teach and students go to learn. This is a community unto itself - with both written and unwritten rules for acceptable behavior.
Teachers must make sure that a suitable learning environment exists so they can educate all of the students entrusted to them. It is natural that, from time to time, discipline problems may distract from the real reasons teachers and students are at school.
And what are the reasons for a child to be labeled a "behavior problem?" There is no one answer.
While some students intentionally disrupt the classroom, other students unintentionally respond in ways that make them appear more disruptive than they are. Quite frankly, some children have the misfortune of always finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. For example, there is a clear difference between the student who kicks another student's chair and the student who reacts in appropriately.
But there is another issue: Many parents equate good behavior at home with good behavior at school and they are surprised when bad conduct grades come home. Home and school are two different communities with different rules and expectations to achieve acceptance, it is important to make clear distinctions between them.
Children can react to school situations just as they would at home, with out ever realizing that their behavior is inappropriate in a school setting.
What To Do: Discuss with your child the many ways that school and home are different and how individual actions and attitudes might be interpreted. It is important to show that certain behaviors you might allow in your own home are not permitted in the classroom. This may help identify behaviors that will draw negative attention to your child at school.
For example, if you ask your child to take out the garbage, you may accept the answer, "I'll do it as soon as my favorite show is over." If your son follows through on his commitment and completes his chore, then that behavior may be acceptable to you. But in school, when a teacher asks a student to perform a task, the proper response is to do it immediately, not to negotiate or do it at the child's convenience.
Think of other examples, such as the difference between shouting out at home and at school. Consider the level of physical activity that is permitted in the two settings. At home, you can get up and go to the bathroom or get a drink of water at any time, but not at school.
If your child can make himself aware of the different behaviors and expectations, it can help him avoid conflicts between home and school.
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Save Pharmaceutical Solutions for Last
November 22, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Hi my name is Angela, I am a 12th grade student. I am currently writing a research paper about ADHD and is Ritalin over prescribed. I just finished reading [your article] “ADD/ADHD Pills Can't Teach Difference in Reading for Content Versus Pleasure”. I just wanted to ask you, do you think Ritalin is over prescribed? Also what are your opinions on Ritalin? Thank You |
Dear Angela: The short answer to your question is yes, I do believe that Ritalin® is over prescribed. This is not to say that Ritalin® itself needs to be labeled as the problem, because I believe that the real problem is that ADD/ADHD is either over diagnosed or misdiagnosed.
The Assessment: A quick search of the Internet will reveal that when compared to other countries the majority of diagnosed ADD/ADHD cases appear in North America. Are we to draw from findings such as these that children in North America appear to have a higher rate of ADHD than the rest of the world? Is it because we have the facilities and resources to conduct testing for disorders that go unchecked in other parts of the world? Is it because pharmaceutical solutions are so readily available in the United States that they are over prescribed? Is it a combination of these?
The first thing I want to address about your question is simply the spectrum of what we are talking about when we say “Ritalin®.” I want to be clear that I also include all of the other pharmaceuticals that are used to treat the same problems, like Aderall®, Concerta®, Focalin®, Vyvanse® and the rest, and that when they are used appropriately and in those cases where they are legitimate solutions, they are helpful.
I have worked with children for thirty years. In the last twenty years of that time, I have encountered children who have been diagnosed ADD/ADHD around ninety percent of the time. During sessions, I usually find that testers, educators, occupational therapists and/or parents pushed the diagnosis. In many of these cases, I would argue that this conclusion was settled on in order to avoid the possibility that the problem may be educational in nature, not a medical question. However, the lure of instant gratification sometimes proves to be too strong, and pharmaceutical remedies are pushed at the expense of a child’s ingenuity, creativity, sense of exploration, initiative and other psychological attributes that may not fit the cookie cutter mold where a child sits like a statue in his or her chair in a trancelike “focus.”
What To Do: We are a society that tends to look for the short route, or the immediate resolution. Unfortunately, sometimes the right solution takes time, and cannot be found through a magic pill. Just as the advertisements promising heavy weight loss while doing nothing prey upon those who want to get results without putting in any effort, so too does the idea that pharmaceutical remedies will produce immediate, lasting, and healthy results. Unfortunately, I have found that this is rarely the case, and can be potentially dangerous. Ritalin® and comparable medications are merely variant names for amphetamines, which are often addictive. Some of the alternative medications that seek to avoid amphetamines instead choose to block dopamine function, which can and has led to suicides by the users. Sometimes, when parents give in to the perceived quick solution, it may not prove be what their child wants or needs, and can cause a lot of heartache and family strife along the way.
The question I ask a parent when I find that they have their child on one of these medications is simple: “If your child were not in school, would he/she still be taking the medication?” The answer is the first step toward determining if the problem is indeed a medical issue, or may instead be a circumstance that demands an educational solution.
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Educator's job is to assess strengths, not weaknesses
November 16, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My son has struggled in school since the fourth grade. Before that, he was a good student and his teachers loved him. Slowly, schoolwork became more difficult for him and everything went downhill… He has been called everything - unmotivated, class clown, lazy, careless. For years, I've fought with him and punished him. Now he is in eighth grade and the school wants to have him tested. We have also been told that he would best be served in the vocational track in high school. I don't get it. All these years, teacher after teacher said he could do it if he wanted to, but now they want to make the decision that he isn't college material. Where did it go wrong? Why wasn't he disabled in the early grades? Ashley B., Tulsa, OK |
Dear Michelle: Almost all parents are at one time or another caught up in the illusion of having a “perfectly normal child.” However, no one is perfect. Every adult has both strengths and weaknesses, and your child is no exception. What you have instead discovered is that you have a “perfectly unique child,” which is not quite the same thing! A parent who is determined to hold onto the former idea can only keep the fallacy of this illusion alive until their child begins their scholastic career, when slowly the idea of perfection begins to fade when the child’s unique quirks and interests begin to manifest.
The Assessment: Every child can be insulted and every child has a weakness that can be found. Both underscore the tendency to focus on the negative and "victimize the victim." By victimize, I mean to blame a student for what he doesn't seem to know how to do, hasn't fully learned to do, or doesn't understand why he must do it.
No child goes to school expecting to be chastised, made fun of, insulted, put down, punished or called a failure. However, no child on his way to school already knows everything that is yet to be taught. Too often, we assume these skills are already in place (instead of teaching them), and then we blame the child's attitude, his performance or both when he fails to measure up to our assumptions.
When insults and punishment fail to produce positive results, we go looking for weaknesses and resort to testing to determine, ‘‘what is wrong with this child?”
In some cases that is a legitimate medical question, but the medical question is not the educator's question. It is the educator's job to find out "What is right about this child?” Once this is determined, the next questions should logically be “How do I use the strengths that this child already has to make up for his weaknesses? What sort of strategy can we use to accomplish this?"
Your child's educational life is not over. In fact, it is just beginning. His grades in high school will determine his choices for college or vocational school. Stop the pessimism by reinventing the language that you use: Every child can be praised and every child has a strength that can be found!
What To Do: In working with children who have problems in a transitional setting, I start from the premise that they desire to be respected, cared for, nurtured and taught. I start by throwing out what I call “the curse words.” Some of these are mentioned in your letter as being used to describe your son. Those words reflect attitudes and actions that we'd never condone for our adult peers. Just consider:
A child misses problems on a work sheet and is called "careless." An adult who fails to balance his checkbook makes a “simple human mistake.”
A child makes a low grade on a test and receives this note on his paper: “You weren't paying attention.” An adult has a problem with a new computer program and is able to call the "Help Desk" for further explanation.
After I leave the insults behind me, then I focus on the child’s strengths, not on weaknesses. I must be willing to ask the educator's question: “What is right about you?” I feel that this gives honor to each child's uniqueness.
In your letter, go back and look at the attributes you chose to focus on. You speak of your son's weaknesses, but not his strengths. This is to be avoided, lest this language become a self fulfilling prophecy, as your son will ultimately agree with others’ reviews of him and comes to the conclusion: “Okay, I’ll be unmotivated, lazy, and careless.”
Perhaps he is creative and should never memorize definitions from a book, but instead rewrite them in his own words.
Perhaps he loves music and can turn a history lesson into lyrics for a new ballad, or is an auditory learner and needs to hear it a few times. Perhaps he loves to build things and take things apart, skills that will serve him well when he realizes that building depends on variables, constants, measurements, geometric forms, coefficients and exponents that otherwise seem meaningless in math and in life.
Perhaps he can charm anyone and bluff his way through anything. He can therefore read people and strategically determine how to greet new situations, all the while anticipating success. This child could do the same with his studies if someone would show him how to be as strategic with his grade goals as he is with people.
In order to honor your child's uniqueness, first you must be willing to look for it, and then use his strengths to make learning relevant to his life. Until you chart a positive path instead of a negative one, any decisions you make about the route to take in his future are premature. The ultimate goal is not to determine where he will go after high school but to determine what he plans to do to turn his interests into a career.
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What does it mean to be a Strategizer®?
November 09, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: In a recent article, you mentioned the Strategizer®, which as best I can tell is a day planner that you developed. However, you also called it an “anticipation” tool. What does that mean? How is it any different from an organizer I can get from any local office supply store? I have tried getting my daughter to use a planner for years, but after being gung ho for a week or so, she always reverts to the way she was doing things before. Can the Strategizer® help? Michelle S., Houston, TX |
Dear Michelle: This is a very common question I have been asked over the years by parents when I start their children on the Strategizer®. We are so used to seeing common variants on the same sort of planners and organizers that we question what could possibly be in this one that enables “anticipation.”
The Assessment: The Strategizer® is best thought of as a collection of instructions that I have found work to help children of all ages to address all the intangibles that they are expected to apply daily at school, yet were either partially taught, or not taught at all. This unfortunate reality belongs to no one in particular, as many times both parents and the school system assume that it is the other’s responsibility to teach the fundamental life responsibility skills.
The reason I make the claim that the Strategizer® is superior to calendars, planners and organizers is because the Strategizer is constructed in such a way as to actually teach the user. A traditional calendar or planner assumes that you already know how to effectively use it. However, I have found that this is rarely the case. I call traditional calendars and planners “parking lots,” because they are places where assignments and appointments end up without any plan whatsoever for the completion or the meeting of the requirements the student has written down. There is no anticipation of how to prepare for assignments, prioritize work so that a student will manage his daily work list effectively, break long-term work into manageable (and doable) chunks, or provide instruction in a way that forces the students to answer questions about the way they approach their work.
I have different versions of the Strategizer® that I give to students depending on their age and grade that are meant to develop responsibility, self-reliance, entrepreneurship and visioning, preferably in that order. This gave me the liberty to give older students the pre-college skills they need, while leaving the elementary and middle school versions to ensure that the appropriate foundation is laid so that transitions in the levels of classroom work will be manageable for students by developing the habits required to be responsible and self-reliant.
This may seem like a lot, and it can be. However, the five strategies that I consider to be universal – or core strategies – are present in all levels of the Strategizer®. Each student needs to learn to:
• Prioritize assignments by expected outcome
• Anticipate for the long term with flexible planning
• Break long-term assignments into doable chunks
• Organize tests and papers effectively
• Develop a Home Workplan™
What To Do: Michelle, hopefully this answers some of the questions that you and other parents out there sent to me over the last week about the Strategizer® concepts. I feel that it is a truly unique approach to common problems that will ease parent/child conflicts in the home, decrease stress, teach the intangibles, and lay the foundation for success in both school and in life.
Most of the children I have seen during the last thirty years are more than capable of taking on school’s challenges. To do so, however, they need to know how to take these challenges on. Giving them a step-by-step solution to today’s challenge does not prepare them to know how to face and overcome the next one. So many parents feel they have tried to help their children, only to see their great ideas fail. Children need to learn how to take on their own problems. Different solutions will apply for different children; after all, they are all unique. Telling them what to do is no longer adequate for twenty-first century students who will be expected to take on and solve twenty-first century problems.
I am sending you a complimentary Self-reliance Strategizer kit for your daughter. Please feel free to send me both of your comments and observations as she progresses in learning to be a Strategizer! I wish the best of luck to both of you.
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Learning each day eliminates necessity to cram
November 02, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: You continue to refer to a concept that puts my son and me at odds. He said he didn't have to study for his final exams because you said so. I read the article and tried to explain to him that what you meant was that you need to learn the material as you go along, But my son hadn't. I think you had better explain yourself further. Heather M., Brooklyn, NY |
Dear Heather: You are both correct. Your son is referring to my “studying is not allowed” policy. You are referring to the idea that learned material is only in need of a brief review if it has already been learned. You are both correct, but “studying is not allowed” is only effective as a policy if the learning has already taken place each day, and there are no major chunks (like missed learning from previous tests) that have not since been mastered. To clarity the message: There are only two moments to learn something: now or later.
The Assessment: The major reason I say “studying is not allowed,” because I choose to use the term “learn” and not “study.” Mastery of learning is the ultimate destination, and differing methods of studying are simply routes to that destination. Unfortunately, studying the night before the test has become the bitter medicine students must swallow to try and make up for the fact that:
• They have not been learning their daily work
• They have not gone back after tests and quizzes to
ensure that they learned the information that they
missed.
In either case, this leads to cramming – the path for
short-term retention. While it may get them through
tomorrow’s quiz, the information hastily memorized
through rote repetition will not be retained for the
long-term, and will be evident when their final exam
grade is poor.
The question is: When do I begin the journey to
learning? Every student faces that choice.
• NOW is the
independent choice.
The student chooses to anticipate when the test will
be, and learn the material as it is presented, or as
quickly as possible. This student faces that choice.
• LATER is the robot choice.
The student waits for the teacher to say when the
test will be and to suggest what material will be
covered. This student waits until the last minute to
start the journey - and heaven forbid there should be
any obstacles!
Students may be able to get by as a "robot," but that
does not prepare them to make independent choices
later in life or emerge as an independent adult who
is able to succeed in a collaborative workforce.
What
To Do: Heather, NOW
is the best time to become an independent student
focused on long-term goals. You will need planning
tools, such as a month-at-a-glance calendar, or my
Strategizer that is congruent with your son’s grade
level. If you are not familiar with the Strategizer,
it is an all-in-one planning, organizing, and
anticipating tool that I developed to help children
deal with questions such as the one you have, and to
help them develop the responsibility, self-reliance,
entrepreneurship and visioning skills to take full
control of their lives. That said, any planner,
calendar or organizer could be used, provided your
son understands how to use it properly. As he
develops new patterns for learning, here are a few
questions he needs to ask himself:
• “What will I need to learn this semester in each
class?” If you have trouble taking this broad
overview of learning requirements, make an
appointment with your teacher and ask for help.
• “How long
will it take me to complete each section and be
tested?” On a calendar, write the day you believe you
must be prepared, Once you have anticipated your “Due
Dates for Success,” you can work backward to figure
out when to learn sections of material.
• “Did I do
all I could today to be ready for the day the
learning is due?” Each day, assess your progress.
•
“If I had a pop quiz tomorrow, could I make a grade I
could live with?” Never finish an assignment without
asking yourself this question!
For students
who choose to learn now rather than later,
last-minute studying is not only “not-allowed,” it is
not necessary.
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page
Time management must be learned
October 19, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Help! My son is having trouble prioritizing and managing responsibilities. He says he feels overwhelmed, has too much work to do and he doesn’t know where to begin. What do you do with the children you work with to address this sort of problem? Sarah M., Nashville, TN |
Dear Sarah: "I feel overwhelmed. I have so much work to do, I just don't know where to start," is a line I have heard time and time again.
What adult hasn't felt this way when the "To Do" list at work and at home keeps getting longer? Unfortunately, this feeling of being overwhelmed by work is now experienced by schoolchildren at younger and younger ages.
Beginning as early as kindergarten and first grade, children are overwhelmed not only by homework, but by classwork they were unable to finish. These children’s feelings of panic and dread spread to their parents who are forced to spend hours with their child every night to get through the school workload.
How many hours of family calmness, bonding and togetherness have instead turned into hours of family squabbles over schoolwork?
The Assessment: As adults, most of us fight our feelings of being overwhelmed by work as we schedule our tasks with appropriate completion time:
• I'll do it tonight; it won't take more than half an hour.
• I'll have to do this over the weekend when I will be able to work on it all afternoon.
• I have many errands to run, so I’d better make a list so that I use my time efficiently.
Individuals who understand their personal working capacity can make effective time judgment calls. These individuals have developed the prized skill that involves estimating how long a task will take to complete. Children are not born knowing this skill, and even many adults have yet to develop it.
Students must be taught how to develop a sense of personal working capacity and an understanding of what time is all about. Parents must focus on the long-term issue of finishing school work each night.
What To Do: Discuss with your child’s teacher how you plan to shift your focus from simply finishing homework to teaching your child how to develop a sense of working capacity. Ask if your child can be graded only on the homework he or she completes until you have made progress in teaching how to judge and use time wisely.
At home, you will need a digital timer of some sort that counts down without making noise. It should be placed where your child is working to assure that he or she can see it at all times.
Begin each task by having your child estimate to you how much time he or she believes it will take. Write this time estimate in two places - at the top of the page your child is working on, and on a separate tally sheet with four headings:
1.Subject
2.Time I Think it will take
3.Time It Took
4.The Difference
Regardless of what estimate your child gives, write it down without discussion. If your child estimates three hours for a task you know should take 10 minutes, write down three hours. This tells you how overwhelmed your child is by each task.
Next, have your child set the timer and place it right in front of him. Make sure your child is the one to set the timer not you - because as you teach your child to take control of time, it is important for him or her to take physical control as well. Have your child start the timer and begin the task.
Once it is completed, have your child stop the timer and write the number of minutes left on the timer. You may need to help younger children calculate the time it took and the difference between actual time and the estimate. Have your child record these numbers on the tally sheet, and review the results together. Sometimes, your child may see that a task takes longer than anticipated.
Slowly, you will be able to celebrate with your child when the "guess" becomes closer and closer to the time it actually takes to complete the work. If your child masters this skill, it is a skill learned for a lifetime - not just for one night of homework.
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Slow down overstressed student 1-2-3
October 12, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My son is getting in trouble at school for hurrying with his work. He is constantly losing points because he doesn't write his name on the paper, doesn't read the instructions, or is just careless. I've told him to slow down. At home when he works calmly he does well, but in school he keeps saying that he is afraid he won't finish and if he doesn't he will lose recess. I've told him that I am pleased that he wants to do his work but he doesn't understand that even if he does it and gets it wrong, it doesn't help him. He's beginning to say that he gets low grades because he is dumb. Rene C, Buffalo, NY |
Dear Rene: With our stressed out lifestyles, we teach our children to live in a hurry-up world.
How many times do young children hear the call to "Hurry up!" followed by some ominous consequence if the child dawdles:
• Hurry up and brush your teeth! You have to get to bed OR you won't be able to get up tomorrow.
• Hurry up OR you will miss the carpool, and if you do you will have to walk.
• Hurry up OR you can't go to the movies because no one is going to wait for you.
Notice that every OR could just as easily have been an “or else.”
The Assessment: For many children, I think the first time that they hear the instruction "Take your time" is when they get to school. Unfortunately, by then it's too late because the children have already been indoctrinated into the belief that unless they hurry up, they are doomed to some horrible fate.
Adults with hurried lifestyles do a good job in getting children to buy into stress as it relates to all we have to do without having enough time to do it. Parents must also take on the responsibility of teaching our children what we mean by this phrase.
When we rush ourselves, we often produce a quantity of work with poorer quality that then demands extra time to be re-done. Rather than rushing, we need to work efficiently the first time, using our time wisely to complete the task with quality.
What To Do: Whenever we feel we must hurry, first we must figure out what kind of situation is involved. Two main possibilities apply to both students at school and adults in the workforce:
Situation A. “I could do this in my sleep.” These are assignments that require only rote repetitions of concepts that you already know how to do almost without thinking. This type of work can be done quickly as long as I don’t miss a step. When I finish, 1 will go back and make sure I did it well and completely. I am not finished with this work until I have gone over it a second time for “proofing.”
Situation B. “Pay me now or pay me later.” These are thinking and learning assignments that require concentration and careful work. “I know how to do this assignment, but it will require thought. If I spend quality time understanding the instructions and working a little slower, I won't have to come back to the work and re-do it later. If there is something I don't know, I'll ask. Then I'll learn how to do it, complete my work, and check it before I turn it in. This may take longer now, but I'll save time later on.”
Help your son learn these two situations. Explain what you are doing to his teacher and ask permission for him to write “1-2-3-Check” at the top of his paper. Then have your child learn that he should always use the "1-2-3-Check" rule to start his work at school:
1. Write my name and heading of the assignment
2. Read the instructions. If I don't understand them, I'll ask the teacher for help.
3. Decide if the assignment is an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ assignment.
(CHECK) Double-check this once I have finished and proofread my work.
Each time your child finishes a step he is to check it off before moving to the next. The paper is not finished until he can complete his “1-2-3-Check.” For each classroom assignment, he can proceed knowing that he will not hurry in the same way all the time.
Help your child understand that “hurry up” in school does not always mean, “Get it done quickly,” but means “Get it done as quickly as you can with quality so you won't have to come back to it later.”
Additional problems may also affect a child who hurries his school assignments and homework, like understanding working capacity and test taking skills, but these are much easier to isolate after the “1-2-3-Check” has become a reflexive action for your child.
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Success and work may not always go together
September 28, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My daughter could make better grades if she wanted to. Learning doesn't come easy to her and she knows it. But when she really puts in the effort, she can do it. She has always been a good student until this year. She tries sometimes and then slacks off. One day she can make a 100 and the next day a 40. That just proves she could do it if she wanted to. How do I get her motivated again? Jennifer A., Cleveland, OH |
Dear Jennifer: Your letter brings up many points for discussion, but I would like to focus on just one statement that I often hear from both parents and teachers: “When she really puts in the effort, she can do it.”
The Assessment: This comment indicates that the terms “effort” and “success” are taken to be synonyms or logical extensions of one another. However, before you jump to that conclusion, take a look at what you are really saying:
• “If you put in the effort, you will be successful.” I have heard many parents say, “We drilled for hours the night before and she knew it all, but then failed the test the next day!” Despite her effort, there were additional factors that contributed to her failure. Did the wording or the type of the test catch her off guard? Did she spend too much time on one part of the test and then just run out of time? In instances such as these, her effort did not result in success.
• “If you are successful, you must have put in the effort.” There are many reasons for success, and they do not all stem from effort. I've often heard the statement, “She’s never had to study for her grades,” or “I don't know what will happen the day she really has to study.”
In school, grades measure immediate success on a given test, but not necessarily the knowledge your child has attained. Grades do not measure the effort made to get there.
Though effort and success are not synonymous, they can be complementary, By helping your child define the effort she needs to succeed, you can help her learn a very important life-lesson: The effort needed depends on the task at hand.
What To Do: Jennifer, if you are concerned with your child's effort, then realize that you are concerned with your child’s need to develop the means through which she will reach the desired goal: success in school. Make sure that you separate the way from the destination.
Help your child view each day's tasks in two parts,
1. What is my ultimate destination?
What will be considered success?
For each assignment, the characteristics of success are the same for each child but the effort required will vary. If the assignment is to read chapter three for discussion tomorrow, every child must read to understand the main points, be able to discuss them in class, and determine if there is anything unclear that remains to be learned in class discussion.
2. How will I get there? What effort will it take?
Any two children may reach this destination in different ways. Child A may preview the chapter subheadings to get a clear "big picture" of the topics. The child may divide the reading by section, pausing at the end of each section to put the main idea in his or her own words and writing any question that arises about that material.
Child B may look at the chapter subheadings and ask. ''What do I already know about this topic?" Rather than reading each word in the chapter, he or she may simply scan to see if the existing knowledge is correct and sufficient At the end of the study session. this child may just go over the new information rather than trying to relearn material that has been covered before.
Do not fall for the trap in assuming that a low grade reflects a lack of effort. A low grade can be the result of many things. If we continually attack our children's effort, they will start to believe us when we call them "unmotivated," "uncaring" and "lazy" - and then we can only watch as they live up to our words and fulfill the prophesy we have laid out.
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Praise promotes learning and helps counter cycles of negativity
September 21, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: What advice would you give to a parent who is sending their child off to school for the first time? I have been fortunate. I was able to quit work when my daughter was born and have stayed home with her. She has never been to a daycare or preschool, but she loves to learn. I had my daughter late, so I have friends who talk about their kid's experiences in school. So many have children who are so turned off. I am constantly hearing about the struggles with homework, the kids in tutoring and parents angry at their children for not doing their work. My husband and I speak about this a lot. We do not want this to be our experience. Tessa M., St. Louis, MO |
Dear Tessa: Many times over the years I have heard similar descriptions from parents about their children’s attitude towards school. They send children to school who can’t wait to go because they love to learn, and in just a few years they have a child who hates anything that even sounds like school or learning because they “can't do it."
The Assessment: The underlying question is clear:
What happens during the educational process that turns a child away from school? In my work with children over the years, I have witnessed a cycle of disappointment and grief that leads to the lack of what I call an “I can do” attitude. Here's how the typical cycle develops:
DISAPPOINTMENT: Just as young children haven't mastered the concepts of time and money, it is equally hard to understand the concept of a grading scale. If interpreted correctly, a number or letter grade is simply intended to show how much more a child needs to learn. Instead, a young child learns the cause and effect of grades: If I bring home a low grade, then my parents are unhappy. Over time, as they perceive their school efforts to be a source of disappointment, it should be no surprise that they view themselves as a disappointment.
GRIEF: When children have experienced enough grades that say to them:
"I disappoint those I want to please," then grief enters the picture. They grieve the loss of the belief that they can please their parents. They grieve the loss of the right to be rewarded with grades that reflect their effort. And ultimately, they grieve the loss of the belief that they can be successful learners.
LACK OF “I CAN DO”: I believe our children's grief is what destroys in them the desire to continue approaching learning from a position of hope and aspiration. This grief eventually destroys ambition and the desire to strive. These children are further wounded by well-intentioned comments from teachers and parents such as, “I know you can do better,” or “You need to try harder.” Child's interpretation: “They think I didn't try, but I did. Now, I know I’m stupid.”
The result of this cycle is pain, hurt and frustration For parents whose children are just starting school, it's a cycle to avoid. For parents whose children have already experienced disappointment, its a cycle to break.
What To Do: Tessa, start by accepting and truly understanding that if your child knew everything, you would not send her to school.
When your child starts to bring home her papers, use her grades simply as a signal to show what learning she has mastered and what she has left to learn. Grades are a symbol that your child is learning and accepts the effort and striving that is required to be a continuous learner. A response might be, “Let's see all the things you have shown on these papers that you have learned. This is great!” For the points that were missed, this too is a reason to celebrate. Now, you know what still needs to be learned by your child.
Our children will continue to embrace learning if they perceive that the learning does not jeopardize relationships at home. Commendable reactions do not require that you overlook missed learning; it requires joy in recognizing what has been learned and what still needs to be learned. Commendable reactions say to our children, “I love the way you continue to strive for success.”
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Prepare your child for grade-level transition
September 07, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My child has just finished kindergarten. He did satisfactory across the board, but with lots of work, tears and struggle. That includes me. My child got homework every night. And if that's not enough, he also had to bring home what he did not get done at school. I know there were children in my child 's class who seemed to be able to sit and do the work, but there were a lot who couldn't. Still, each time one of us met with the teacher, she kept telling us that it was just our child Why has kindergarten turned into so much work, and what can I expect as my child enters first grade? |
For parents, the start of a new school year can signal only more work and tears, due to a mentality of desire in this country for bigger, better, sooner and more when it comes to education. This has led to upper level curriculums being pushed down and forced onto children who are not developmentally ready to cope with what they are being asked to do.
The Assessment: Today's schools have made common the practice of teaching "older children skills" to younger children and our kids are the ones to pay the price. They are no longer allowed to develop the skills of attention, planning and task completion because they are developmentally ready to understand their own work capacity. They are expected to have these skills in place due to the fact that teachers must increase the amount of time spent on content. For example, take these characteristics from an actual report card:
• Can work independently
• Can work with a group
• Completes work carefully and neatly
• Completes work in a reasonable time
• Seeks help when needed
• Assumes responsibility
• Is able to express ideas
These are but a few of the behaviors expected of a child in a four-year kindergarten, and yet these are characteristics that many adults have yet to develop. Imagine giving a 4-year-old a "Needs Improvement" rating on attention span. What needs "fixing" here: the child or the expectations?
Unfortunately, parents and students face ever-increasing expectations as the child moves from one grade to the next. Even for children who have the developmental readiness to cope with curriculum challenges, some school transitions are harder than others because of increased expectations.
What To Do: Your child will be making one of the toughest transitions this year: from kindergarten to first grade. However, there are other equally tough moves ahead, particularly as children reach the middle school years and transition from sixth to seventh grade, or from eighth to ninth.
Here is a checklist of just a few of the expectations you may encounter:
Kindergarten to first grade: kindergarten is already teaching content we knew in the first and second grades, but there is also teaching of "school skills," such as how to stay seated and how to stay on task. As the kindergarten student moves into first grade, those behaviors are expected to be in place.
Sixth to seventh grade: Middle school is the transition from learning basic skills to learning how to interpret information. Students entering the seventh grade have a major transition as they move into third-level abstractions. For example, sixth-graders study fractions, which they can visualize as "pieces of pie," but in seventh grade they move on to more abstract decimals and percentages.
Eighth to ninth grade: High school students now transition from interpreting to creating, analyzing and synthesizing information. Moving into the ninth grade usually means entering a huge high school building and reporting to six different "bosses." Work is totally departmentalized, and students must manage a multiplicity of criteria.
Each of these transitions signals a new situation in which a student's performance is not based solely on his or her track record. Simply being a year older doesn't mean the student knows how to do the work or meet the increased expectation.
If you have reason to believe your child will have difficulty with any grade-level transition, go to the teacher - before school begins, if possible – and discuss your child's individual strengths and weaknesses. Work to find ways to use your child's strengths in creative ways to deflate some is the inflated expectation.
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New school year means lots to get used to
August 31, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My daughter just began her third grade year. In both first and second grade, she did very well, but this year her grades have already slipped. The teacher marked that she needs to pay better attention and that she is having trouble working independently. I thought everything was all right. Some people may think I am crazy to get upset, but I don’t want this to turn into the beginning of something worse. Am I overreacting? Martha M., Huntsville, Ala. |
Dear Martha: Your daughter is making a transition to a new work environment, which can be a scary situation even for adults beginning a new job.
The Assessment: Let’s take the analogy a step further, Mark. When Jane Doe starts a new job, she has to:
• Get used to a new boss with new expectations and new surroundings.
• Learn the names of twenty-five new people, and get over missing the people she used to work with last year.
• Learn new materials.
• Read the rules everyone has to go by, remember them and figure out how to follow them – plus all the “unwritten rules” – so she doesn’t get reprimanded. It would be terrible if she made mistakes and was labeled as lazy, unmotivated, or was failing to live up to her potential.
Jane Doe does receive some help, however. At her new place of work, she can go to courses on listening, time-management, organization and collaboration with peers as an orientation.
As parents and teachers, we need to give our children the same “breaking in” time some adults get in the workplace.
What To Do: For many children, a successful transition does not happen overnight. When the first six weeks have passed – and report cards have come home – it’s not too late to teach your child how to cope with changing expectations of one or many teachers.
Have your child think of last year. On a sheet of paper, write the topics: Teacher, Students, Classroom (Surroundings), Rules and Anything Else. Talk with your child about the things she misses from last year, and write each item under the appropriate category. For example, this thinking assignment could lead to the following list.
TEACHER:
My teacher used to let us get something to do if we finished ahead of the other students.
She liked pink, just like me.
She read us stories every day after recess.
STUDENTS:
My best friend was in my class. We used to play fun games at recess, and now we don’t have enough time.
CLASSROOM:
There was a bulletin board where the teacher let us take turns putting something up that we liked. It was fun.
ANYTHING ELSE:
We didn’t have to copy much from the board. Everybody read together, and now we have groups and we have to be quiet and work when it’s not our turn.
Slowly, you will begin to see the transitions your child is making all by herself without knowing how to cope with them. Unfortunately, many children cope by becoming sad, withdrawn, or by daydreaming about what they lost and how it used to be.
Now have your child do the same “thinking” exercise about her new environment. Don’t be surprised if this takes at least a week. Your child has been busy missing the past rather than seeing the present.
Once both lists are ready, ask her which items from last year she is ready to let go of because she can see what she has this year. For the items that are left, do one of two things: First, figure out something your daughter can do, like ask the teacher about her favorite colors; or, second, for the things she cannot change put the list in her baby album as memories to share with others.
The first six weeks of school are all too often viewed as the easy six weeks, but they can be a time when children grieve over what they had the year before and cannot get back. Help your child learn how to make a transition into the future without giving up the treasures of the past.
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Explore possibilities before ADD/ADHD label
August 24, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I have read a number of your articles, and I think the idea you have presented in the past that children who have ADD or ADHD are somehow misdiagnosed or can be dealt with without medication is against everything I have read elsewhere. My son has ADD and the medication he takes helps his symptoms. Amanda, Harrisburg, PA |
Dear Amanda: My mail often includes chastising letters from those who place great–almost sole– confidence on the label ADD/ADHD and on medication for Attention Deficit Disorder.
The Assessment: Amanda, your letter contained a clipping of one of my previous articles in which I addressed a child’s problem with listening in her school classroom. The column did not mention ADD, so you included a photocopy of a page in your letter from a book entitled What is ADD/ADHD? Among the “Behavioral Characteristics of Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder Without Hyperactivity (ADD/ADHD),” are:
• Easily Distracted.
• Difficulty listening, focusing or concentrating and following directions.
• Inconsistent school performance.
• Disorganized.
• Poor study skills.
• Cannot work independently
Frankly, I could make a case that one or more items on this list applies to all of the people some of the time just as much as it characterizes some of the people all of the time.
That does not mean that all suffer from ADD. It does mean that all of us have different ways of coping with the day-to-day demands of our environment.
But at school, within the confines of a rather rigid environment, children are expected to gather knowledge at a certain pace and in a certain way. Beat out your own path–march to a different drummer– and you are in trouble.
The definitions of ADD and ADHD are smack at the interface of medicine and education. Although the above list addresses learning behavior, the “solution” is solely a medical prescription. I believe medication without an educational prescription is inadequate.
What To Do: When a child has a medical problem, you take him or her to the doctor and discuss the symptoms: fever, indigestion, and a rash. Yet even having all three symptoms does not allow the diagnosis of a particular disease. The physician must consider numerous diagnoses before settling on one. What could look like an allergy could turn out to be a viral or bacterial infection, or a metabolic disturbance.
When a child has a learning problem, too many adults jump to a medical diagnosis that lumps a group of behaviors together under one particular medicinal heading. A medical diagnosis implies that a disease has been identified, which places the child at the center of the problem as though he or she were entirely to blame. Yet, ADD/ADHD are not diseases, but clusters of behaviors whose root causes do not necessarily lie within the individual exhibiting them. Symptoms point to possible diagnoses, yet with ADD/ADHD the symptoms too often are perceived to point to only one possible diagnosis. If you review the list above, the child could have a receptive language disorder, or even a sound discrimination disorder. Until all other possibilities are eliminated, a parent should not accept the medicating of their children with a potentially addictive drug.
All too often, when a child is identified as “spaced out,” or “inattentive,” and this judgment may cascade into a description of how the child lacks focus, cannot follow directions, and is seldom on task, which is the result from the one-size-fits-all conclusion of ADD. If a child is inattentive, the characteristics of inattentiveness are not additional symptoms. An instructor cannot expect someone who is not paying attention to follow instructions. One goes hand in hand with the other.
Certainly, ADD/ADHD occurs in some of the people, some of the time. But ADD/ADHD is not the answer to all children’s learning problems all of the time. As such, I will continue to give parents and teachers non-chemical prescriptions in the form of learning strategies to help children learn to cope with the changing demands of their learning environment long before I recommend medication of any sort.
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Don’t judge new toys in yesterday’s context
July 27, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My son wants a video game system: a Wii, PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360. Until now, I’ve refused, but he has never given up. I don’t want to buy a toy that has him playing mindlessly for hours to make me have to take it away from him. Anyway, I want my child to use his time better. Please give me ways I can explain to my child why this is not good for him. Carla, TX |
The Assessment: An old Gary Larson Far Side cartoon showed a child playing a Nintendo with “hopeful parents” in the background imagining help wanted ads in the year 2005: ‘‘Nintendo Expert Needed. $50,000 salary + bonus” or ‘‘Can You Save The Princess? We need skilled men and women, $75,000 + Retirement.”
The cartoonist’s message is obvious: Nintendo prepares our children to go nowhere in the real world.
As a parent whose child loved his video games, I wrestled with this thought, and the guilt trip it tended to induce. Initially, I thought, “Well, my son could be reading, building or doing other creative things.” Then I considered, “If my son is so attracted to video games, is it because he is lazy, mindless, unthinking and worthless?” My answer was a resounding ‘‘No.”
Video games did not change the fact that my son is responsible, thoughtful and worthy. If he was so attracted to the game, my thought was that there could be something positive to that attraction. Today in 2010, degrees and careers in gaming and game development – both in programming and design – are in high demand for the exponential growth of this multi billion-dollar industry. The hopeful parents in the Far Side cartoon were heralds of the future!
What To Do: As parents, we need to ask what we are rejecting before we simply write it off as a waste of time. Just because today’s parents either did not have a video game system as we were growing up, or grew up with many of these systems in their infancy does not mean that the boom in gaming we see today is worthless or bad for our children. After all, each generation had a unique set of toys to reflect the times. Think back to some of the games of your youth, and what these games taught you:
• Board Games – taught waiting your turn, going in order, and striving for bonuses.
• Erector sets / Lego – learning to design and build structures as future engineers.
• Operation / Doctor Kits – inspired us to become interested in health related professions.
Yet in today’s world, leaping ahead is more important than waiting. Engineers rely on computer-aided design, doctors are ever more dependent on diagnostic technology, and educational institutions are becoming increasingly dependant on the Internet and online interaction.
Our children’s workplace will be different from ours. Their toys already reflect this difference.
Children can learn many important skills from video games: They can learn to think in terms of goals and strategies; to take risks without fear of attempting; and – perhaps most important for the workforce of 2020 – to expect and accept failure without paralysis and know that success may take weeks or months.
My son learned about “real life” from the fantasy of video games. If he got bogged down, he telephoned a toll-free number to ask for assistance (decreasing his fear of asking for help). He was willing to risk a new way with the hope for success, and he talked with friends to see what they had to offer (research and interpersonal learning). A new challenge produced great enthusiasm, which he had to control in order to cope with frustration when the game outwitted him, which also gave him the opportunity to practice perseverance and determination.
Today, with the advances of the Internet, video game system technology, and Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming (commonly MMORPG) worlds and person-to-person competitions, a player will not go far on his or her own. A child will need to learn meaningful communication skills, seek out collaboration with others from around the world (many of whom they will never meet) and develop meaningful personal relationships for teamwork.
So, are these systems good toys? No matter whether the subject is video games, cards, board games or action figures, parents must still set their own “house rules” for the appropriate use of toys. Too much of anything can be a bad thing. With game systems, many more modern games are unfortunately based only on vice or violence, and with the advent of game rating codes the subject matter of some of these games can be of questionable value. However, these factors can give us the opportunity for discussions that we might otherwise be put off from having, and can help our children know that the boundaries we set have to do with our beliefs and values.
All too many people are ready to criticize; yet criticism is valid only if you can outline the good with the bad. Only then can you decide if the good outweighs the bad, and vice versa, so you and your child can make decisions together based on your child’s future and not your past ideas of “good toys.”
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Emphasize gains, losses in child’s approach to tasks
July 13, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: You say parents should not tie material rewards to their children’s grades. To my regret, I pay my children for grades and chores. I thought that since adults work for pay, children should work for pay, too. Now each time I ask for help I am asked, “How much are you going to pay me?” How do I get out of this trap? Chuck B., Little Rock, Arkansas |
Dear Chuck: It is common for parents to use a system of punishments and rewards when they are dealing with their children. It seems natural to reward a completed job, or to punish a child for not handling his or her responsibilities, and many parents out there will argue for this kind of system. The assumption is just as you said, “I thought that since adults work for pay, children should work for pay, too.”
However, let’s stop and think about this for a moment. At the office, if you have not completed the work you were expected to do, we do not hear an employer come in and say, “If you complete the employee handbook, I’ll give you $5 for each paragraph and $1 for every sentence,” or “Bring in your stereo. You’ve lost it for a month for not getting your work in on time.”
The Assessment: A child’s hopeful question, “How much are you going to pay me?” is often followed by a predictable response when parents refuse to buy into a reward system: “But you get paid for the work you do…!”
Yes, adults work hard to make money and pay the bills, but children have the idea of working to collect pocket money for fun. Parents are not responsible for hiring their children to go to school or to be a contributing member of the household. If a parent makes the choice to pay their child for success in school and for chores at home, the child is silently being told that their motivation is directly tied to our wallets.
In the workplace, adults may find themselves taking on additional tasks or carrying work home without the expectation of extra pay. Just imagine responding to a supervisor’s request with the question “How much are you going to pay me?” It could jeopardize future promotions, job security, and the paycheck.
Life will give our children enough opportunities to work for money. As parents, we must teach children to carry out responsibilities regardless of the time, tediousness, or discomfort that the task may require.
The responsibilities that come with being a contributing member of a loving and caring family should not be for sale, nor should success in school. Whenever a child asks, “What do I get for it?” your only answer needs to be, “The opportunity to learn how to love, care and avoid suffering losses in future relationships.” Your child needs to take ownership of his accomplishments and he cannot do that if his success is bought and paid for. Genuine motivation cannot fully develop when it is tied to the promise of an external reward.
What To Do: Introduce your child to a new vocabulary, Chuck. It is a vocabulary of decision-making. Many children base their decisions and choices solely on the promise of instant gratification. The responsibility that you will have in this situation is to guide your child toward making decisions based on a rational assessment of gains and losses.
Each time your child is faced with a choice, they must ask the question: “What am I willing to lose for the sake of what I will gain?” Help your child adopt a plus and minus system of understanding and balancing possible gains and losses. It could be as simple as asking, “If I don’t help dad with the yard work, what will I gain and what will I lose?” Your child will ultimately realize that he is gaining an afternoon of freedom, but will learn that he is choosing to damage trust and cohesion in the family. This is an important understanding not only for the short term repercussions with the family, but also for his long term development in how he will participate in creating and maintaining future relationships in his adult life.
The same plus and minus system also applies to school, where your child has the choice of doing poorly or doing well. When using the gains and losses strategy in this context, stick to the responsibilities that apply to all courses, such as not completing homework. We all have the right to experience failure, but if a student chooses to do poor work, he or she needs to understand that the choice has been made for both short-term (in school grades) and long-term (in life opportunities) losses for the minimal gain of avoiding work.
After you discuss these gains and losses, work with your child to develop her own definitions of doing well and doing poorly in school, then do the same for the responsibilities she has at home with the family. These can be different subjects and may change during the school year. This will give your child a measuring stick for his choices. Write down your short-term and long-term expectations and have your child clearly set out the losses he should be choosing. Giving up an afternoon to yard work in order to be a contributor to a happier home life is a loss worth taking.
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Let children resolve boredom alone
July 06, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I look forward to summer even more than my children. The reason is simple. We “both” get out of school! Yet summers have their own challenges. I plan ahead to make sure my children (ages 5, 9 and12) are signed for as many activities as I can reasonably drive to and still have family time. Sounds like a great plan but I am always faced, no matter how much I try with “I’m bored. What are we going to do now?” When I do not have an answer, the children act as if they are miserable. How do I fill in their “misery” time? Gretchen C., Albany, New Hampshire |
Dear Gretchen: Children are trained by school to have decisions about what to do next mapped out for them. This includes time spent at home, because it is often taken up by a homework regimen. Deciding what to do with time is a luxury children do not have, and this can include weekends as well.
Because of these circumstances, it is difficult for children who are trained to “follow the leader” (the teacher) for at least ten months out of the year to know how to do for themselves what they have little experience doing. The freedom to choose what to do is not a skill schools tend to include in their curriculums.
The Assessment: In order to answer the question of your child’s boredom, we must first ask another question: Are parents responsible for quelling boredom by scheduling away free time with activities? Many parents believe the answer is ‘yes.’
Over the years as an educational consultant, I have heard several recurring statements that are what I have come to call the “natural language” of parenting. One of these “natural” statements is ‘I just want my child to be happy.’
Though statements like this are harmless enough, they tend to lead to a Greeting Card Syndrome. In greeting cards, we read cheerful notes such as “May today’s happiness be with you forever!” This is a pleasant thought, but it is a wish for the impossible. The Greeting Card Syndrome is the belief that this is what we can expect from life all the time, and we are shocked and bewildered when this expectation is not met. All of us go through bad times, and life merely asks that we cope with the situations, not meet them with a smile.
For parents, the Greeting Card Syndrome can cause the belief that happiness is a daily vitamin requirement to be given, and then fall victim to the erroneous thought that they are supposed to supply this happiness vitamin to their children.
Gretchen, you are asking that your children learn how to figure out for themselves what to do about boredom and how to do it. Rather than view this as a problem, view it an extraordinary opportunity.
What To Do: Regardless of all you do for and give to your children, there is an intangible gift that could mean the difference between being a follower for the rest of their life or being a leader in all that they do: the capacity to take charge of life through critical and creative decision making.
When your child says, “I am bored,” define the term for your child.
Respond with, “I am thrilled because you are coming to me so I can choose what to do with your time. Since time is a synonym for life, you are asking me to take control of your life and to get rid of that boredom.” Then you must have the courage to take control.
Tell your child he or she can vacuum the house, clean out the garage, collect the garbage, or clean the commodes.” Your child is going to respond, “I don’t want to do that.” Your answer is “There are no other options and doing one of these is not optional. You have asked me to tell you what to do and I have. You will have to do one of these.” You may see tears, anger or any other form of revolt. Pay no attention, and do not allow the child to do anything else until one of the chores is done and passes your inspection.
When the chore is done, let your child know that he/she has the option in the future of deciding what to do before coming back to you and using the word ‘bored.’ It took me only one addressing of the word ‘bored’ in my home. I never heard the word again.
This will require you to have rules about when and for how long children will be allowed to view television, play video games, or be on the computer wasting time, but it will teach them to overcome Greeting Card Syndrome, resolve these feelings of boredom for themselves and to cope with the negative feelings attached to it.
Let all your children know that the feeling of boredom means they are at the threshold of using their imagination and creativity.
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Don't cram facts, use context to develop learning
June 29, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Today was
the day for my son’s checkup to see if he is
ready for kindergarten. I assumed his hearing and
eyes were going to be checked. Instead, he was
given a pre-skills test for public school and
kindergarten. After about two hours of testing, I
was given a list of things my son needs to work
on the rest of this summer, including his ABCs,
learning numbers through 10, colors, shapes, body
parts, directions, motor skills, and his name,
address and phone number.
I thought he was supposed to learn these things in kindergarten, not before he gets there. My older son, who is 14, did not have to know this for kindergarten. He is going to be a freshman in high school this fall and so far, he has done very well in school. How can I teach my younger son what he needs to know without cramming all this down his throat in a month and a half? Kellye P., Huntsville, AL |
Dear Kellye: With increased pressure from society to teach more and teach it sooner, schools are changing so rapidly that it’s no longer a simple comparison between the education of our generation and of our children’s. It’s not even a simple comparison between your older son and younger one!
In the span of just one generation, what is expected of one child may be quite different from what was expected of older siblings. A common bond for all of us, however, is moving from the context of school to the context of life.
The Assessment: In our parent’s generation, the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories told of poor, uneducated boys who persevered to become presidents of their own companies. In my generation, having a high school degree was sufficient to enter the workforce and success hinged on personal innovation with emerging technology. In today’s children’s futures, education is no longer a choice; it is a necessity.
Does this mean that, as adults, our children will be judged on whether they can name the nape of their neck before entering kindergarten? Will their prospective employer worry whether they can hop on one foot at age five? In the context of school maybe, they can but certainly not in the context of life.
In the real world, education cannot be cut into tidy little pieces. It cannot be force-fed. It is not a list. It is not schooling. Education is the lifelong pursuit of learning by applying knowledge with personal thought, innovation and creativity.
To attempt to cram a list of items into your child, regardless of whether he is developmentally ready for the learning that is required, makes education a goal rather than a means.
What To Do: As a parent, our responsibility is to help our children develop an awareness of learning in the context of life, not to teach a list of facts in the context of school.
To help your child develop an awareness of letters, numbers, shapes, colors and other items that will be required in school, use real life situations to help him understand the purpose behind these concepts.
I have often read instructions to parents indicating how to help teach concepts such as have your child put his foot ‘in’ and ‘out’ of a garbage bag to teach direction and count out the chocolate chips before putting them into the cookie dough. Mostly, these are cute but contrived activities.
But who really steps in garbage bags and counts out cookie pieces? So, rather than spending time on unnatural lesson plans, simply incorporate the language of these concepts into your daily speech. For example:
• Did you wash the nape of your neck when you took a bath?
• Why don’t you wear your favorite blue shirt today?
• Get your blue socks to match and put them over your feet.
• Don’t leave your shoes under the bed.
It is important to speak naturally to your child and when necessary, to demonstrate your words (such as pointing to the nape of his neck before he takes a bath and pointing underneath the bed as you speak about your requests).
Stay focused on the context of life and what is important to your child in the world and you will discover many ways to incorporate and demonstrate the real purpose of lifelong learning.
No matter what activity you share with your child, your primary role is to be a responsible and loving parent, not to act as a surrogate teacher.
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Time is life: Calendars develop responsibility
June 08, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: During the
past school year, my daughter has made great
strides toward being responsible when it came to
her daily schoolwork, but she fell behind every
time there was a long-term assignment such as a
book report or science project.
We’re barely into the summer break and I can already see her just living from moment to moment. While I do want her to have a chance to relax, I also want her to understand that we can’t always live for just the moment. What can I do this summer to help her develop her long-range planning skills? Treena B., Alexandria, LA |
Dear Treena: Every adult has memories of the last day of school. We all ran out of the building for the final time that year with only one thought: Freedom! Our imaginations went wild with the anticipation of doing all of the things that we were not allowed to do while school was in session, like sleeping in and staying up late. Yet most of us learned pretty soon thereafter that our parents envisioned a different vacation for us. For a child, chores and responsibilities can make a long summer seem very short – so it is a great time to learn how to manage time and develop responsibility while still leaving plenty of time for summer fun.
The Assessment: During the school year, children are constantly being reminded of the importance of time, not just in finishing tasks at school but also in their home life. So, it is not uncommon for them to relax as soon as school is out for the summer.
Parents often prod their children with remarks such as:
• Hurry up and brush your teeth, it’s time for bed.
• Get in the car or you’ll be late for school.
• You’re not dressed and church starts in half an hour.
Time hassles children not just in the present, but also in the past tense. On report cards, it’s the category called “Uses Time Wisely.” At home, it’s likely to be an argument that brings on guilt, frustration and anger. Then, these children hear remarks such as:
• You had six weeks to do this project and you’re just telling me now?
• Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you were failing?
• What do you mean you forgot you had a test?
The emphasis on time can be confusing for both children and adults. Although children are expected to finish short-term and long-term assignments on time, many adults have to turn to seminars on time management to learn to do the same things in their daily lives.
“Time” is a difficult concept, but we can use the easy living of summer to teach our children that time is the opportunity of a lifetime.
What To Do: Get a month-at-a-glance calendar and cut out the summer months. Tape them together in a sequence so the entire summer is visible. Make sure to include the month when school starts again so your child learns to manage the transition.
Set a “time” to sit with your child and talk about the calendar. In your conversation, include these two basic points:
1) Time is all you were born with. When you’ve used it all up, you’re gone! So time doesn’t belong to the clock, it belongs to you.
2)Time is your life and a calendar is a picture of your life. Use it to show what is important to you.
Next, have your child make a list of things she plans to do during the summer. The list should include daily events, such as: “I want to sleep late, watch cartoons from 3 to 4 every afternoon and play outside with my friends before dinner.” The list should also include summer projects, such as: “I want to build a skateboard and make a dress for my doll.”
Then help your child add things you know she will have to do that she might not think of, such as: “feed the dog, go to the dentist, get a haircut, and make a card for grandmother’s birthday.”
Now ask your child to fill in her life (her calendar) in the spaces. Have her do it in pencil so each day she can change her life if she needs to. Here is where your child learns that much of her life (her time) is under her control. Finally, have your child write a title on top of the calendar so that you know what to call this later on, something like “A Picture of My Life.”
Each evening, make sure your child crosses out the day gone by so she understands that no matter how she uses her time, that opportunity will never come back again. Have your child assess the next day and make any changes needed in “her life.” Take a long look at the future and focus on the long-term by reminding her, “only eight days left until the fourth of July.”
As summer goes by and your child can see how she can be in charge, you can set her up to take charge of her life when school starts again because now she plans on it!
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Study skills classes simply outdated way of learning
May 18, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: All year long, my son’s teacher has written notes saying my child could do better, needs to prepare more for tests and needs to show more effort. His school and other places are offering a study skills course in the summer. Do you think this can help my child do better in school? Tonya A., Bartlesville, OK |
Dear Tonya: No.
Stated bluntly, I believe the concept of study skills is as obsolete as the dinosaur. It’s a term I buried years ago and I refuse to consider today.
The Assessment: The notion of study skills has its roots two or more generations ago when people went to school to prepare for a working world that required sameness of thinking: Many people carrying out the same job description with the same level of productivity.
This is not today’s working work.
Today’s children must prepare for a working world in which uniqueness of thinking will be rewarded. The focus will not be, “Can you do the same task eight hours a day?” Instead it will be, “Can you find a better way to do it?”
Previous generations focused on studying what their teacher (or supervisor or manager) gave them. But now our children must learn what teachers put on the table by redeveloping it with personal thought and creativity. This allows our children to take ownership of knowledge. Anything less will mold our children into the very workforce dinosaurs that corporations can no longer use. You can see this is the case in the people these corporations have pink-slipped in just the last year to get this message across.
If a course is called Study Skills, the very message is inappropriate today.
A child should no longer go to school to accomplish studying. Studying should be viewed as only one of the means for learning. Instead , our children must use their uniqueness in developing a complete learning process.
The term Study Skills and the concept behind it preaches uniformity of study habits:
- Sit at a desk.
- Have good light.
- Avoid distractions.
Unless you live on the moon, it’s unlikely that you can function in such a rigid, sterile way. Our children must develop strategies to confront changing circumstances. You cannot learn how to do this with a system that ignores change and diversity. Your child must develop his or her own ownership of information in a manner that new knowledge and innovation are the goals.
I once worked with a child who had a study skills course as a separate class in which there were tests on study skills. This child went to class to study how to study and then studied at home to be tested on whether he knew the process of studying. Ridiculous!
Telling children how to study is like telling them what size clothes they have to wear. Some kids will fit that size and those who don’t end up looking silly.
What To Do: Tonya, before deciding whether your son needs a course in study skills, consider these points:
- Your son needs to learn how to learn, not how to study.
- Your son must learn to develop strategies to confront new information and diverse situations. He can’t do this with a one-size-fits-all set of skills.
- In order to learn how to learn, your son must actually be learning. A sense of purpose is essential for children to enter into self-exploration with the end goal of developing their own knowledge.
This summer, help your son explore his unique interests. During vacation, he may find some of the best processes for learning, whether it’s keeping up with his favorite baseball team or figuring out how to build a tree house.
At the beginning of the school year, help your son set up a notebook that will contain a diary of learning strategies. In this notebook, your son should keep track of the strategies that worked best and those that didn’t work. Take time once a week to review this with your son and help him learn how to set new strategies that will help him adapt to changing tasks and complex situations at school and in all other environments. This is what your child needs to learn for the long-term.
Here’s an example of a strategy for learning spelling words I use with the children I counsel. Writing spelling words three times as one child’s teacher required was not enough for her to learn the words. I had her record the spelling words on a digital recorder and play them back so that she could take her own practice test.
If you have an iPod or other brand of MP3 player, your son can record his spelling words in a digital audio format for playback. Or, if you have an old-school tape recorder, this will work. Just have him record them and play them back.
Help your child use his imagination and creativity to learn and to become someone capable of facing change by changing himself. Your child can’t get this from a static set of study skills.
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Teacher works as long as child works like everyone else
May 04, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: When I
first went to my child’s school, I was amazed.
“We care about your child’s self-esteem. We know
each child is different and the teachers work
with your child based on that concept,” the
school told me.
What they didn’t say is that this is the case as long as my daughter works like everyone else! So ultimately, what I got was a big sales pitch and yes, I fell for it. But my daughter is bright in many ways that school totally disregards. She is caring, meticulous and wants to learn. She’s also very sensitive and cries when she thinks she can’t do the work. When I pick her up from school, she’s often upset by extra work she has to do at home because she didn’t finish it in school. This is on top of her homework. She feels so defeated that she says she’s not as smart as the other kids and I’m tired of having her destroyed because she must live up to the expectation of her teachers. What can I do? Mary M., Raleigh, NC |
Dear Mary: With a reform education movement in this country now steering heavily toward more choices in education, perhaps we need to stop and define both terms – more and choice.
The Assessment: In the past, only parents with extra money, and perhaps extra sacrifice, could afford the choice of a private school. Since they were required to pay for their child’s education, many parents went in search of more for their dollar.
Schools responded to the demand for more by teaching more and teaching it sooner. As a result, children were taught in kindergarten what their parents learned in first grade and the accelerated curriculum mentality was off to a fast start.
Now we are beginning to see that this overdose of education has brought only much pain. The children are the ones who pay the price with depression, feelings of failure and reduced self-esteem and worse yet, those able to do all the additional work confuse intelligence with achievement as measured by rote tests. They also have a change in their feelings such as calling themselves ‘gifted,’ leading to feelings of superiority due to their creativity rather than their thought and action that results in true creativity, not just cute ideas or projects.
What we need from reform is not more teaching but more learning and that our choice is not merely between public and private schools, but between schools that focus on teaching and those that focus on learning.
What To Do: When evaluating a school, meet with the administration first and then meet separately with your daughter’s potential teacher, or teachers.
Keep in mind this general checklist:
The Curriculum: Ask to see a curriculum guide. Select a portion and ask how quickly the material will be covered and what your child will be expected to know. A teaching-intensive curriculum requires students to memorize enormous amounts of information for short-term recall: “We discuss the chapter in class, the children answer the questions from the book and we have a test every two weeks.”
Learning-Intensive Curriculum: A learning-intensive curriculum encourages the students to process information with thinking, learning and creativity: “Each child must read the chapter and be able to explain the impact of an event in history or bring to class the questions of the chapter that the author’s did not answer.”
Homework: Ask to see a typical week’s homework assignments and judge what will be expected from your child both in how they will perceive learning (memory/thinking) and the hours of their childhood it will take to comply.
Teaching-intensive Homework: This requires a student to do certain tasks, usually for a grade and occasionally within a set time limit. This may include copying definitions or answering questions from the textbook.
Learning-intensive Homework: This encourages creative thought, which may not be graded. It may include setting aside time at the end of the school day for each child to assess what is left to be learned.
Tests: Ask to see samples of tests currently used by the teacher. Are the tests formulated by the teacher or from the textbook company? Are the tests graded by machines or by teachers? Will tests be returned to students to give back information in a predetermined format? A teacher-intensive test relies on multiple choice or true-false answers that require students to give back information in a predetermined format. A learning-intensive test requires the student to express thoughts and diverse ideas in reference to unexpected prompts.
One of the best tools for evaluating a school is a very simple one: Stand outside the school for a few days and watch the children leave. Look at their faces. Listen to them talk. Then ask yourself, “Is this what I want my child to be like?”
Your answer will tell you if that is the right school for your child.
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After Spring Break, what now?
April 20, 2010 12:00 PM
Parents
can’t get children back into a
routineRead
more...
The story of an eighth-grader’s life
April 13, 2010 12:00 PM
If school
is a desert island, subjects are the bridge off the
islandRead
more...
Writing with a pen spells big trouble for children
April 06, 2010 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My
daughter holds her pencil in the most awkward
way. Her writing is as difficult for me to read
as it is for her to write. We agonize over
homework writing assignments as well as other
homework. She has no problem with math at home
yet she has a hard time making her numbers
readable, so much so that the teacher deducts
points off for wrong calculations. The school
psychologist tested her and found no learning
disability. That means I cannot get any help from
the school system for her on this. Our
pediatrician says nothing is wrong.
I am frustrated, as she is, because teachers continue writing on her papers, “Redo this. I can’t read it.” She now has to write cursive, which is a nightmare, plus, her teachers want her to use a pen instead of a pencil. Do you have any advice for me? Sharon D., Springfield, MO |
Dear Sharon: Problems with fine motor skills, such as writing, usually spell big trouble for children in school.
The Assessment: Students are expected to learn through verbal commands from teachers or from written commands in textbooks, workbooks or ditto sheets. Most of these commands require students demonstrate their understanding and learning in writing. For the child with an awkward pencil grasp, this may be a monumental task. Even though she understands the material, her writing does not adequately demonstrate that knowledge.
Asking a teacher to give an oral assessment to the child is usually impractical. But there are other ways to help a student with fine motor difficulties without asking the teacher to do additional work.
What To Do: Ask for a teacher conference but prepare for it thoroughly by researching and analyzing your child’s academic problems.
First, pick a current assignment in each subject and time your child as she reads directions and finishes work. How long does each assignment take? What strategies does your child use to complete the work? Does she have the required knowledge but seem unable to express it in writing? Track her progress and analyze the timed results to determine which assignments are most difficult for her.
For each difficulty you can identify, develop solutions to present to your daughter’s teacher. Remember that each solution must meet one criterion: Your daughter must do the intellectual work required of all students to master the knowledge at hand.
Here are some possible scenarios with possible solutions:
1) Writing sentences from an English book and underlining each noun takes an hour and 10 minutes. Photocopy a month’s worth of pages and have your daughter identify the parts of speech by underlining only. (This can be done for math computation drill exercises also.)
2) Computing 10 math problems takes 55 minutes because your daughter has trouble spacing the problems on the page so they don’t run together. A possible solution is to fold the paper into six blocks (vertical in half and horizontal in thirds). Write a problem in each box and have the child stay within the box to compute the problem. Answers will be in a square at the bottom of each box. Have her do as many problems as she can in 30 minutes, or at least half of the work. If she completes a sufficient number correctly, then she has shown mastery. Otherwise, she will do the rest of the problems the following evening.
3) Redoing work because of ink takes up valuable time. Have your child use only pencil so that errors can be erased instead of crossed out. This also lets your child produce neat, legible work that she can be proud of.
4) Writing in cursive causes homework delays. Have her do work in manuscript, except handwriting assignments.
Teachers want to help their students but they must fulfill their own responsibilities, first. Your solutions should not require the teacher do more work in order to use techniques that respect your daughter’s differences. In a parent-teacher conference, you can work collaboratively to find solutions that will benefit all three learning partners - student, educator, and parent.
<<Previous page
C’s Do Not Mean Your Child Is A Loser
March 09, 2010 12:00 PM
Use graded
papers as a learning toolRead
more...
Timing Is Everything In Schools
March 02, 2010 12:00 PM
Need for
speed forces children to move on before they’ve
accurately learned facts.Read
more...
Parents Accused Of Being Unfair
February 23, 2010 12:00 PM
Child
needs to learn the meaning of negotiation rather than
pitching a fitRead
more...
School Expectations Change In Seventh Grade
February 16, 2010 12:00 PM
Ideation
is the missing link that stumps many seventh graders
Read more...
Read more...
Homework Problems Stem From Lack of Plan
January 19, 2010 12:00 PM
Mom
doesn’t help by fostering procrastination in
daughterRead
more...
Student Doesn’t Need Occupational Skills - Yet
January 12, 2010 12:00 PM
Basic
skills are not inherent and still must be lessons
taught
Dear Katie: Do parents expect too much if they ask their child to go to work and do their job? Probably not. But do parents ask too much if they confuse teaching with telling? Definitely.
When we select a new dentist, we assume that if the person has the title of dentist, he or she must have the occupational skills that go with it. We do not arrive at the dentist’s office and demand, “Let me see you hold the drill,” or, “Let me watch you mix a filling to see if you do it right.”
The occupational title makes us feel secure that the dentist has been told, taught, mastered what was taught, passed state boards, and practiced the trade. The dentist has a major advantage over a child who, at the age of five or sooner, begins the 12-year occupation of student. The dentist goes to school to learn the occupational skills required. But when our children arrive at their workplace (school), they are expected to have many of their work skills already in place.
The Assessment: When our children don’t have the occupational skills of being a student (and these increase in amount and complexity for each grade), we use the quick fix, “I'll tell them what they have to do.” Apply this theory to your dentist. Would you want to be examined by someone who was only told how to drill a cavity?
For students, it takes more than telling for your child to learn important occupational skills, such as organization, time management, task analysis, completion of commitments, prioritizing, self-assessment, recognition of positive and negative consequences, independent learning, and planning for achievement with responsibility.
These are not topics of courses taught in school, but each skill is essential for children who are growing up in a world where what they learn is quickly eclipsed by new knowledge. Unfortunately, at times we are so intent on giving our children current knowledge that the essential task of teaching them how to be independent, self-directed and continuous learners for the grade they are in and to build on later, is glossed over.
What To Do: Katie, a memo pad or a calendar with a day or a week-at-a-glance feature are the precise ways to tell children what they must do without teaching them skills that will make them lifetime learners. It is no wonder that so many children say “no” to a technique that makes no sense for their lives.
A memo pad or a day-at-a-glance calendar is a technique many adults use. However, through experience these adults have incidentally learned pre-skills for the larger tasks. We can’t assume a child has mastered the skills of task analysis with appropriate logic and sequencing, time management, resource assessment, prioritizing and forecasting, to name a few.
Statistically, 25 percent of all children can innately carry out this kind of adult organizational skill. But that also means that 75 percent cannot! Yet they could if they were taught with the same expectations and effort that we place on mastering reading or math. So, when your child doesn’t do what you have “told” her to do, ask yourself, “What am I assuming my child knows how to do that she probably doesn’t?”
Many times, I have found the problem to be in my assumption rather than in the child’s desire to please.
All children need to, grade by grade, learn what ultimately will be the full array of these adult techniques. To accomplish this, however, they simply need parents who can recognize their child’s age and their non-negotiable need to be taught. Parents do not necessarily ask too much of their children, but sometimes they just ask for what a child cannot learn by just being told.
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|
Dear Dr. Fournier: My child
is the most disorganized human being on the
planet! I try to get her to write her homework
and other assignments down in her notebook and to
put all her handouts in one place and that has
not worked. I’ve bought books, pads, special
notebooks, trappers, calendars and planners for
her, all to no avail. She doesn’t use them to get
organized. If anything, she uses them to become a
bigger mess. Is there any hope for us or am I
expecting too much? Katie
W., Pensacola, FL
|
Dear Katie: Do parents expect too much if they ask their child to go to work and do their job? Probably not. But do parents ask too much if they confuse teaching with telling? Definitely.
When we select a new dentist, we assume that if the person has the title of dentist, he or she must have the occupational skills that go with it. We do not arrive at the dentist’s office and demand, “Let me see you hold the drill,” or, “Let me watch you mix a filling to see if you do it right.”
The occupational title makes us feel secure that the dentist has been told, taught, mastered what was taught, passed state boards, and practiced the trade. The dentist has a major advantage over a child who, at the age of five or sooner, begins the 12-year occupation of student. The dentist goes to school to learn the occupational skills required. But when our children arrive at their workplace (school), they are expected to have many of their work skills already in place.
The Assessment: When our children don’t have the occupational skills of being a student (and these increase in amount and complexity for each grade), we use the quick fix, “I'll tell them what they have to do.” Apply this theory to your dentist. Would you want to be examined by someone who was only told how to drill a cavity?
For students, it takes more than telling for your child to learn important occupational skills, such as organization, time management, task analysis, completion of commitments, prioritizing, self-assessment, recognition of positive and negative consequences, independent learning, and planning for achievement with responsibility.
These are not topics of courses taught in school, but each skill is essential for children who are growing up in a world where what they learn is quickly eclipsed by new knowledge. Unfortunately, at times we are so intent on giving our children current knowledge that the essential task of teaching them how to be independent, self-directed and continuous learners for the grade they are in and to build on later, is glossed over.
What To Do: Katie, a memo pad or a calendar with a day or a week-at-a-glance feature are the precise ways to tell children what they must do without teaching them skills that will make them lifetime learners. It is no wonder that so many children say “no” to a technique that makes no sense for their lives.
A memo pad or a day-at-a-glance calendar is a technique many adults use. However, through experience these adults have incidentally learned pre-skills for the larger tasks. We can’t assume a child has mastered the skills of task analysis with appropriate logic and sequencing, time management, resource assessment, prioritizing and forecasting, to name a few.
Statistically, 25 percent of all children can innately carry out this kind of adult organizational skill. But that also means that 75 percent cannot! Yet they could if they were taught with the same expectations and effort that we place on mastering reading or math. So, when your child doesn’t do what you have “told” her to do, ask yourself, “What am I assuming my child knows how to do that she probably doesn’t?”
Many times, I have found the problem to be in my assumption rather than in the child’s desire to please.
All children need to, grade by grade, learn what ultimately will be the full array of these adult techniques. To accomplish this, however, they simply need parents who can recognize their child’s age and their non-negotiable need to be taught. Parents do not necessarily ask too much of their children, but sometimes they just ask for what a child cannot learn by just being told.
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Focus On The Work, Not The Grade
January 05, 2010 12:00 PM
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