How to teach a child to learn and not spoil everything

The good news is that children love to learn even without us. A small child learns every minute, no matter what he does. In addition, scientists have proven that the brain is able to change throughout life, learning is its natural state at any age. Another issue is that children, growing up, often lose their impulse to cognition. The task of the parent is to create an environment that will help preserve this skill.

What is the ability to learn

The ability to learn is made up primarily of curiosity, a thirst for research, and a level of critical thinking. This refers to the ability to work with information: analyze, doubt the unproven, compare different points of view, draw conclusions, “dig deep”, choose the best solution.

To develop critical thinking, encourage in your child the habit and courage to think. Start little by little as soon as he speaks in sentences. Discuss everything with him. When reading books, ask for an opinion about the characters and the motives for their actions. Let the child evaluate the event.

At the same time, pay his attention to different aspects of the situation, its ambiguity. Talk not only about facts, but also about abstract concepts: “What do you think friendship is?” Speak causal relationships, help give arguments and draw conclusions based on them.

How love for learning disappears

If we talk specifically about the interest in learning, then it is just associated with curiosity. Never blame your child for laziness and lack of interest. Because laziness doesn’t exist. The brain begins to work actively only if it recognizes the benefit.

When this happens, dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for memory, information processing, and anticipation, is released. Therefore, trying to force the other person to learn is useless. But we can create an environment in which the brain wants to cooperate with its master.

Dopamine spills out, for example, when new exciting information arrives, which does not seem overwhelming to us. Or familiar information that evokes positive associations and memories. The only way to motivate to study is to make it interesting for the child, encouraging initiative and creativity in him.

What we usually call laziness is actually a fading interest. Interest disappears most often due to systematic failures and pressure, fear of mistakes or fear of being “bad”, “stupid”. If such emotions arise frequently, the driver for the child becomes the motivation of avoidance – when it is easier to do nothing at all, just so as not to experience a sense of failure.

How to fall in love with learning

To teach to learn means to awaken curiosity and fall in love with the learning process. Use the 5 Whys. At three or four years old, a child constantly asks questions about everything in the world. But, growing up, he stops asking. Revive the “tradition”. For example, a second grader reads a paragraph on “The World Around”. “The telescope was invented to observe the stars.” Get involved in the process and ask how the child thinks – why was the telescope named that way?

There can be about five such questions per topic of the lesson. Suggest looking for answers online or in an encyclopedia. Note how much the child has learned besides the information in the textbook. Teach your child that not knowing is normal and nothing to be ashamed of. Talk about the child not “does not know” or “does not know how”, but “does not know yet.”

It is important to reinforce the feeling that everything can be learned. Encourage questions and always let us know that there are no stupid questions. Teach your child what to do if he does not know something yet, for example: a) look in reliable sources; b) ask parents, teachers, friends.

It is important to create an atmosphere in which the child is not afraid to ask questions and knows that he will be heard. Constant communication in the dialogue mode, conversations on an equal footing (without discrimination “adult-child”) – affect the dynamics of learning. If the parent follows this rule, then the child will be able to perceive new information more confidently.

Make learning interesting – turn the process into a game. For example, if you need to read “Eugene Onegin”, create pages on social networks for the main characters together with your child and simulate new situations and dialogues that could arise. This will help to better understand the motives and characters of the characters, as well as the socio-cultural context of the work.

Learn to “eat the elephant.” Even adults can feel fear or helplessness in front of a big task, and even more so children. It is impossible to eat a whole elephant, but it can be cut into pieces. So the task can be divided into small tasks. Help the child understand what the project consists of (for example, a history essay): resources, stages. In what order should they be completed?

Love bugs with your child. Mistake is the engine of growth, the most frequent and natural thing that happens to a person during learning. But making mistakes can be scary and unpleasant. To prevent this from happening, the child must get used to the error as a guaranteed part of the process that helps to learn.

To do this, you can play this game: you and your child take turns giving each other a task to do something new. For example, a child may ask you to complete a quest on a tablet. And you him – write 10 words from dictation according to an unfamiliar rule of the Russian language. When both completed the tasks and checked each other, we proceed to the theory.

The child tells you how to complete the game quickly. You read him the rule for writing prefixes. After that, the exercise is repeated and progress is compared.

Refer to learning failures as areas of growth rather than weaknesses, and treat them accordingly. Instead of “You’re bad at math,” say, “Let’s do the fractions again.” Instead of “you are not given essays” – “you need to work on the syntax.” Remember that this will only work if you treat your own growth zones in the same way and do not scold yourself for mistakes.

Give balanced feedback when a child comes to you with a project idea, with a drawing, with an essay. This helps the child to maintain motivation and creativity. First, you note what you liked, then – how you can do it even better, then tell you what the result will be after improvement. It’s in that order. Try not to give out empty praise (well done, smart girl) and not reproach for shortcomings.

An example of balanced feedback: “You managed to describe Pechorin very accurately through the story of Princess Mary. It seems to me that if you mention some other example, not about love, then you will reveal his character from different sides.

An example of unbalanced feedback: “We need to add more examples, otherwise it’s not enough. But the case with the princess is well written.

If something does not work out, help the child to analyze. What did not work in the control? Where is my growth zone? How can I pull up the topic in order to solve such examples well? Let’s have freedom of choice. If a child only wants to read superhero magazines, let him read them. Does he read? Already good. After that, there will definitely be other, more complex plots and characters.

The main thing is to encourage the activity itself. Don’t oppose your child’s hobbies to study. Use other arguments. Because otherwise the child will think that learning is a routine, and other activities are a reward.

Make the computer your child’s friend. The computer helps in learning (for example, to create associative maps to remember historical events; to make presentations of projects; to check information on the Internet, to build graphs and diagrams, and so on).

And most importantly, keep learning yourself. Through parental example, the value of learning is formed in the child.