The following are general, practical suggestions on the management of emotions and learning in children and families – techniques of brain management, so to speak. Theses suggestions apply to all children at all ages and are not specifically geared toward any one temperament, learning style, or emotional state.
1. Increase the amount of connectedness in a child’s life.
By “connectedness” I mean a feeling in the bones of being a part of something larger than oneself. The “something larger” may be one’s family, extended family, school, neighborhood, or church; a set of shared beliefs, a club, a political party, a town, a state, an nation, an athletic team (that one plays or roots for), one’s ethnic or racial group; nature and the environment; one’s best friends or workplace; or any other person, group of people, ideal, or institution one feels a part of, involved in reciprocally, connected to. Such connectedness sustains us. Connectedness is the key to mental health in children and adults alike. Unfortunately, over the past fifty years, people’s sources of connectedness have eroded. The extended family, nuclear family, neighborhood, church, and most other strong connections have weakened. People feel more on their own now than ever before. This is ironic, because we are technologically more connected than we’ve ever been. But humanly we are increasingly isolated and set apart. This is not good for children. Their development of confidence, optimism, and security depends upon their establishing a solid sense of connectedness early on. Try to build that sense into the lives of your children as much as possible.
If you can focus on connectedness in all its many forms, and develop and increase it in yourself and your family, you can be certain that you and your family will become stronger, happier, and better able to withstand adversity.
2. Eat dinner together as a family.
If you cannot do this every night, do it as often as you can. Try to make it a priority. Family dinners, even if they are full of confusion and little spats, glue families together. They provide an informal forum for general discussion, as well as a stage where everyone can perform.
3. Know the rules of your house and make sure everyone else in the family knows them, too.
Rules are actually very stabilizing, at least when they are fair and are enforced consistently. They cut down on unnecessary struggles. The truth is that all families have rules, whether they consciously know them or not. It is worth the effort to spell out what your rules are so that (a) you’ll know what they are; (b) everybody else will know what they are; (c) they won’t change every day; and (d) you can enforce them more easily. It is much easier to enforce a rule that has been stated in advance than to enforce one you have made up on the spot. Sit down over your family dinner and spell out your rules. Keep them simple and few. You don’t have to have a rule to cover every detail, just the basics. Debate, negotiate, haggle, do whatever you have to do, but establish your rules. Then write them down;’ other wise you and everyone else will forget them. They can always be changed.
4. Have a dictionary in full view in some important room in the house, like the living room or kitchen.
Dictionaries should not be hidden. Use your dictionary often, and make sure your children see you use it and learn to use it themselves.
5. Sleep well.
Many families sleep poorly. Lack of sleep is becoming a part of modern life. This is inevitable when little babies are around, but once your children are able to sleep through the night try to set up a consistent bedtime for everyone. Your brain likes to get into a set rhythm if it can.
6. Get lots of exercise.
Exercise is one of the best tonics we have for the brain—in children and in adults. Of course, it’s good for the rest of your body too, but it is marvelous for your brain. It helps it focus, makes it less sluggish, and give it the food an nutrients it needs. Exercise works wonders for a child who is grumpy, distracted, or rambunctious. Be active with your children. Play tag. Get into sports of all kinds- picking ones that you like, of course. Chase your kids around outside. This is fun and good for everyone.
7. Get rid of the words “smart” and “stupid.”
Tell your kids those are inaccurate terms. “Smart” and “Stupid” don’t really mean anything- and yet children use them all the time, mostly in ways that make them feel envious, inferior, or awestruck. There are more accurate terms: “Learning styles”, “multiple intelligences”, “temperaments”, and “variations in attention”. Tell your children early on that everyone’s brain has strengths and vulnerabilities, that none is totally smart or totally stupid any more than the United States is totally hilly or totally flat. Some people play music well, others field ground balls effortlessly, others can take cars apart easily, others can memorize anything, and others can learn a foreign language seemingly at a glance. There is no such thing as simply smart or simply stupid; we all have relative strengths and vulnerabilities.
8. Value learning.
Talk about the importance of learning. Tell your child why learning matters. Give him or her the reason to learn, other than to please you or the teacher. Ask your child over dinner, “What did you learn today?”
9. Applaud questions.
Emphasize that the only stupid question is one you don’t ask.
10. Unlink fear and learning.
The most common learning disability is also the most preventable: Fear. Many of us parents grew up in an educational system that used fear, shame, and humiliation as pedagogical tools.
For too long it has been standard procedure for teachers to ‘motivate’ children by scaring them or humiliating them, calling on them when they know they aren’t paying attention, holding up poorly done papers for others to laugh at, posting bad grades for others to chortle over, or literally calling students insulting names. Most of us grown-ups had teachers like that somewhere along the line. That method of teaching, although time-tested, should not be time-honored. Its day should be over.
While fear may promote learning in the short term, in the long term it turns children off to the whole process of education. Learning should be a long-term, not a short-term, undertaking. Instead of instilling fear, teachers should use other tools, such as clarity of expression, patience, finding the apt analogy, or vivid demonstration, humor, praise and structure. These techniques create an atmosphere of learning in which there is pleasure in the work;’ there may be pain, but it is only the necessary pain that often accompanies learning anything new, not unnecessary pain inflicted by a teacher.
11. Read aloud to your child.
Reading aloud helps develop the imagination, because it allows the listener to form his own picture in his mind. It also helps develop a sense of the music and timing of language.
12. Praise your child's efforts to learn, and give lots of reassurance.
Remember, learning is hard. You should shower the learner with praise and reassurance. This is not ‘empty praise.’ Some parents and teachers feel that they should praise a child only when he has done something marvelous do ‘deserve’ it. While understandable, this point of view is counterproductive. It is like adding oil to your car’s engine only when it ‘deserves’ it. A child needs praise all the time, just as an engine needs oil all the time. Learning generates heat and friction in the brain; praise and reassurance lubricate and smooth the process.
Your child will know when she has done something marvelous; you do not need to hold back your praise for only those special moments. In fact, frequent praise and reassurance will make those special moments come more often.
13. Music can be powerful.
Anecdotal studies have suggested that workers do better work when Mozart is playing, and children learn more. Many children study better when listening to music of the right kind.
14. Eliminate sarcasm.
If you’re angry, say you’re angry. If you’re disappointed, say you’re disappointed. If you think what someone else said was foolish, say you disagree. But try never to make sarcastic remarks to children. Also try not to make them to associates or your spouse, as listening to you is one way children learn how to be sarcastic themselves. Persistent use of sarcasm instills fear in children and curtails their willingness to be open.
15. Make sure your child knows that it is safe to fail.
No one learns without failing first. The only way you can develop a new skill is by passing through a period of doing the task poorly, then gradually improving. If your child is afraid to fail because she fears ridicule or disapproval, she will learn much less than the child who is bold and brave enough to learn new skills.
16. If your child is ‘fighting with her brain’, pounding her head and saying “I’m Dumb!”, as she does her homework, give her reassurance and then stay with her for a while.
Help her bear the tension of learning. Tell her that the pain and frustration she feels are okay, a normal part of the learning process. Ask her whether she needs some help, or whether there is another approach to the problem that she might try.
17. Know your child’s brain.
This tip is the neurological equivalent of “Know Thyself”. Getting the best out of your brain begins in knowing your brain well. Ask yourself: What are the strengths of my child’s brain? What are its vulnerabilities? Under what circumstances does it learn best? When does it learn poorly? It is a mistake to assume that everyone’s brain is the same or functions best under the same conditions that work well for someone else. Help yourself and your child get to know how her brain operates best.
18. Assess the “goodness of fit” between you and your child.
If you are naturally quiet and you have a voluble child, try not to blame the child for getting on your nerves; be aware of the issue of fit, or relative lack of fit. If you are naturally uninhibited and you have an inhibited child, try not to force the child to change temperament, which is like changing handedness; instead try to adjust to the difference of fit. Since you are the parent, it is appropriate for you to try to adjust to your child, rather than to force your child to adjust to you.
19. Help your child name feelings.
One of the best ways for someone to avoid being overpowered by a feeling is to be able to name that feeling. Giving a feeling a name puts it at arm’s length, rather than right up in your face where it is most threatening. When your child is in the grip of an unpleasant feeling, help her not only to name the feeling but to tell someone else about it. The statement, “Mommy, I’m feeling sad,” can mark the beginning of feeling better.
20. Also, when an unpleasant feeling comes upon your child, help her get into the habit of knowing that it will pass.
No feeling lasts forever. Tell her it will pass, even if she gets annoyed at you for saying so. This is one way to instill the basic tool of self-assurance, a very important skill to acquire.
21. Diet matters.
Exactly how does it matter? We don’t really know. However, we do know that you should not ignore the issue. The food your brain uses comes from what you eat. We used to think sugar was a big problem, but most evidence now refutes that. Be an empiricist. See what diet works best for your children. Talk it over with your pediatrician or a nutritionist. Above all, watch what your child eats and try to see how individual foods affect him. The best advice is still probably the tried-and-true advice: Eat a balanced diet, eat three meals a day, and stay away from candy, junk food with lots of additives, and between-meal snacks.
22. Use structure.
Make sure there are rules, schedules, and consistency in your child’s life. If you do not have a schedule, sit down with your family and make one. If you can’t stick to it perfectly, fine. But at least you have a template that each day should more or less be followed. This is reassuring to kids.
23. Pray or meditate.
And teach your child to do the same. If you are religious, try to pray every day. If you are not religious, learn meditation or self-hypnosis or some other technique that allows your brain to go into a controlled trance at least once a day for at least a few minutes. This is not the same as sleep. It is extremely good for your brain. Meditation, prayer, quiet time and even pleasant daydreaming all have a relaxing effect upon the brain. They drain it of its goal-directed, present-centered frenzy, a state in which too many of us, and our children, live too much of the time. Children who can pray, meditate, or quietly reflect can replenish their mental energy by doing these activities. You can learn to meditate by buying a book on the topic. There are many in paperback: Look for a title that includes self-hypnosis and meditation, but avoid a book that pushes a certain religion or single point of view.
24. No illicit drugs.
Obvious, but worth mentioning. It is highly unlikely (and if you count caffeine, almost impossible) that your child will go through life without trying some drug or another. However, you should teach your child what each drug does. It is up to you, as a parent, what standards and rules you want to set, but try to make this decision early in your child’s life so you can start talking about drugs of all kinds in a consistent way from childhood on.
25. Ask your child what works best for her. Ask your child what techniques or habits help with studying, playing, and getting along in everyday life.
If you ask, your children will tell you. However, most of the time we prescribe what we think is best for our children without asking them first. This is a great mistake. Always ask your child first what works: “How can you get this project done best?” “What is the best time for us to talk?” “How can I help you talk to your sister so you won’t fight with her?” Often children have specific suggestions that could really help, if only we would ask.