why you should help your child follow their passions

Welcome to the May Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival, 'Kids and Learning.'

The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners. This month our bloggers have come up with some wonderful suggestions for fun things to do with your kids, ways to help them learn and thoughts on what learning is. Please read to the end to find links to other blogs, you might find a wonderful new blog to follow.

 

My eldest son is currently obsessed with volcanoes and dinosaurs.  I do all I can to encourage his interest.  Why?  Volcanoes and dinosaurs motivate my child to learn.  When he is involved in thinking about this topic he will apply the most effort and is at his most curious and creative.   He will do what it takes to learn more about volcanoes and dinosaurs.  He might have to learn to read or write, he might have to memorize the names of a hundred dinosaurs, but this will not seem difficult or onerous to him because he really wants to know more about this topic.

I believe that helping your child to follow their interests is one of the biggest things that you can do to encourage learning.  The topic might not seem important to you but the thinking skills and motivation to learn that your child will get from doing things focused on their interest will be used in all areas of their life.

How can you help a child develop their interests?  What if you don’t know anything about the thing they are interested in?  You don’t need to know anything about what they are interested in, what you know as an adult is how to help them find out more.  You know how to research something or how to find a class or whatever is appropriate for the topic.  You are showing them how to learn more and you will learn with them.

What are some resources you can use to help a child develop their interests?  Well, I couldn’t possibly list them all, but you could start by looking for …

• reading material – books, fiction and non-fiction, and websites
• pictures
• videos on YouTube, TV documentaries or movies
• find an teacher (for example, if you child’s passion is music you might find someone to teach them an instrument) or find an expert to talk to them
• go on a field trip (for example, a field trip to a museum is a great idea for my dinosaur-mad son)
• look for activities you can do at home that increase your child’s knowledge of the topic (for example, science experiments).  The caution here is to make sure that your child finds them to be meaningful activities.

Offer the resources to your child and then let them decide what to do with those resources and in which direction to take their interest.

Isn’t this something teachers should do at school?  Why do I do it as a parent?  Yes, good teachers will use your child’s interests to help them learn.  But the reason I will continue to facilitate my child’s learning is because I believe the responsibility for helping my child learn rests with me.  I may decide to use the expertise of teachers, but the responsibility is still mine.

What are you child’s passions?  How do you help them to develop these interests?




Visit Science@home if you are interested in participating in next month's Teach/Learn carnival. Please take the time to visit the other participants and see what they have to say:

• 5 Places to Teach the 5 Senses - Monique at Your Cheeky Monkey has some great suggestions for places to go and use all five senses when playing with your kids. (@Y_C_Monkey)
• Don't look now, but... you're being watched - Sarah from Untenured Teacher is asking about what we really want kids to learn in the classroom, and how are we unconsciously teaching them?
• Make Your Own Abacus - Staci at Teaching Money to Kids has an amazing activity to make your own abacus, which you can eat when you've finished.
• Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival – Kids and Learning - Marita from Stuff With Thing and her daughter have been travelling around the city in different ways and working out how to walk to Queensland. (@leechbabe)
• How to Study Like a Black Belt - The Original SuperParent can tell you how to study like a black belt, with great tips for focusing and getting the most out of your learning. (@superparents_au)
• Learning is a Journey - Deb at Science@home invites you think of learning in a different way and join your children on their journey. (@ScienceMum)
• Art for little kids - Katepickle at Picklebums encourages us to let go of our adult expectations and just enjoy the creative process with our small children. (@katepickle)
• Learning As We Walk - The Planning Queen walks to school with you and learns all sorts of things on the way. (@PlanningQueen)
• B-I-N-G-O is the name of the game - AmandaB from HomeAge shows her own learning in action - the maths game didn't quite work, but she's worked out how to modify it for next time.
• What's In a Reflection - Miss Carly at Early Childhood Resources has a beautiful story about babies learning all the time, even when they are only a few months old. (@ECresources)
• Developing Brains: Laying the Pathways to Learning - Christie from Childhood 101 talks about the importance of sensory learning for early brain development and has lots of ideas for play that engages the five senses. (@Childhood101)
• The Magical Threshold Of School-Age - Mamapoekie at Authentic Parenting wonders why we have a point that we call school age and how children are not ready one day but ready the next. (@mamapoekie)
• Why you should help your child follow their passions - CatWay at Adventures with Kids helps her son learn about dinosaurs. (@adventureskids)

Thanks for joining us! We hope to see you next month.