The top five ways parents can support their child’s learning through half term
By Lyn Fiez-Vandal, Lower School Assistant Principal at ACS International School Cobham
As half term draws closer, students will be looking forward to a well-deserved break from school. As a parent, I also understand that this can be a time when you start to consider how you can support your child’s learning outside of the classroom.
Below, I have listed five top tips to nurture your child’s learning over the holiday break.
Help your child develop a growth mindset
Growth mindset is a self-belief that one can improve their abilities through persistence and practice in any area, academically, socially, and emotionally. Neuroscientists have discovered so much more about the brain in recent years and the most compelling finding is that our brains are much more capable of learning throughout our lives when we have a growth mindset.
The first step to facilitating a growth mindset is to foster a life-long love for learning. This means understanding that learning is not restricted to the classroom. Learning can happen anywhere. The ingredients needed are curiosity, a desire to discover, and embracing making mistakes as a part of learning. One way to help facilitate a growth mindset is with language. You can model saying, “I can’t do this yet” and “I’m still learning how to do this” instead of “I can’t do this”. Help your child change their narrative, too. Model and encourage persistence and perseverance. Engage in puzzles, building, and creative tasks with children to give them time to practice these skills.
Learning is experiencing the world in different ways, and making discoveries is a vital part of the process. At ACS Cobham International School, in order to facilitate confident, caring, and effective learners, we know that for deep learning to take place, children need to be active participants in their learning – asking questions, exploring, experimenting, and engaging in play.
When children make mistakes, celebrate this as a part of learning. FAIL = First Attempt In Learning. The goal is to facilitate a natural growth mindset in all activities from eating habits to mathematics.
Develop positive habits and routines at home
Instilling positive habits and routines will benefit all aspects of your child’s life. One simple habit to cultivate at home is reading. Reading does not need to be restricted to bedtime. It might be reading together with your child in a comfortable spot, reading signs around the neighbourhood together, or stopping everything to read for 20 minutes as a whole family each day. Children of all ages enjoy hearing adults read aloud and this is just as impactful, if not more so than listening to a child read. Setting reading habits at home helps your child not only develop a love for reading, it also allows for practice of skills that are easily transferable to the classroom.
Other examples include establishing and maintaining morning and evening routines, daily chores around the house, and playtime both independently and together.
Nature is a classroom
Nature is a vital learning space, and gives your child the chance to explore, make decisions, problem-solve, and follow their curiosities. Children might simply observe the natural world, such as insects and plants or animal tracks. Encourage them to ask questions, try to find answers within the natural world, and research the questions they still have later on with your guidance.
Spending time with nature creates authentic learning experiences for your child, and helps them to feel more connected to themselves, their family, and the world around them.
Help your children learn about themselves
The half term break provides your child with a chance to take a breath and reflect. Children have a chance to learn more about themselves as individuals. Talk with your child and guide them through the process of reflecting on their strengths and challenges, learn more about what works for them, and consider strategies to improve.
As parents, we are busy and it can be tempting to fill every moment of the holiday time with activities, outings, and structure. However, it is important to allow for some down time. In fact, a crucial part of guiding children through the process of self-understanding is to allow them to be bored. Navigating boredom will enhance self-awareness and help children find things that intrigue and inspire them. It can be frustrating or even annoying as a parent to hear, “I’m bored!” and challenging in the moment to not offer an iPad, turn on a movie, or give them a toy. Instead, try, “that’s great news! I can’t wait to see what you decide to do!” Let them sit with the feeling for a while. Overcoming boredom does take some time and practice.
Set short-term targets
Create goals together for your week or even for each day. Consider short term, achievable goals that will set your children up for success. Ask your child what they want to work on doing better over the holiday, this might be keeping their bedroom tidy or having more patience with a sibling or reading every day. Tell your child what you notice as well and what you would like them to work on. For example, for a child who rarely eats much of their dinner, setting a target to eat their whole meal every night for a week is daunting and unlikely to be successful. The first target might be to eat three bites of every item on their plate (or one bite depending on the child). Once this is achieved, this can be celebrated and then set the next target. Praise your child with specifics. Instead of just “well done!” try, “you ate more of your dinner tonight! That will help you grow stronger” or “you ate more of your dinner tonight. Now you will have more energy”. Praise what they did well and why it is so great. This is one step toward building intrinsic motivation for continued growth.
Reaching targets can show tangible progress and instil confidence in your child that will carry over in everything they do in and out of school. Achievable goals are a starting point for children to think more ambitiously, and apply the process to other aspects of their life as they grow.
Let them work things out
The path to independence is full of twists and turns and an abundance of problem solving opportunities. Throw caution to the wind and give your child space and time to ponder and try out possible solutions. The possibilities are endless and range widely from sorting out disputes with a sibling, cleaning up after themselves, figuring out what to do when too much toothpaste comes out of the tube, determining why some items float and some sink when thrown into the river, how to build the LEGO® set on their own, or why wellies are the better choice on soggy fields.
We are not here to give our children all of the answers to all of their problems, rather, we are here to give them the tools to problem-solve and gain independence. When we allow children the time, space, and tools to find solutions, we support their internal process for problem solving and communication, which are vital skills to becoming independent, life-long learners both in and out of the classroom.
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