How To Support Your Children To Achieve More

Image

We all what our children to do well in school and in life, making good decisions, working hard towards their goals, and ultimately being rewarded with the fulfilment of their dreams. But how can we best support them to achieve all this? We all hear the nightmare tales of overly hothoused children, pushed too hard by ‘tiger moms’ and stern dads until they can’t take any more. Equally, we don’t want to be negligent in our parenting duties. How much support is too much? What can we do to support without smothering? Finding that balance can be extremely tricky. If you have kids due to start school, you may be wondering how you can best help them to thrive. Your child’s potential doesn’t have to be a challenge – simple, everyday positive behaviour patterns set in the home can really support them.

Failure Is Okay

What do all great innovators and leaders have in common? They’ve failed more times than you can count. It’s important to teach our kids that things going wrong is a normal part of life and that it’s how you deal with these setbacks that ultimately determines who you are and what reward you get. Use failures as learning opportunities, not a time for blame. Try to teach perseverance and tenacity, whether it’s coming back from a failed maths test or carrying on when guitar lessons get hard. Teach them not to fear making a mistake – it’s a gift that will stand them in great stead throughout school and beyond.

Learning is a Beautiful Thing

Children are naturally born with enquiring minds, stimulated by the world around them and all the new things it contains. This natural curiosity needs to be fostered and developed at every step. Although the toddler stage of asking endless questions can seem infuriating, take it as a compliment that they are so interested in the world and your answers. Use every day happening to explain the basics of science, human behaviour and history to them. Encourage them to enjoy learning for its own sake, not just because of a tangible reward. This will turn them into self-motivated learners who drive themselves forward in life.

Support Your Child’s Processing Skills

The way we interpret and store information is hugely important to our learning success. Research from the University of Sheffield found that trying to remember a piece of information has little or no effect on if we actually recall it. Instead, we need to break down and reorganise the information in some way to really take it in. Learning the secrets of successful revision is often down to having a few of these tricks up your sleeve, so teach your children how to chunk information and process it from reading to writing to improve their exam techniques.

Teach Them How to Switch Off

Just as important as their learning skills, is their ability to be able to relax during their downtime. This is something most adults could do with learning, so instil these abilities in your child and they will be ahead of the game. Winding down using controlled breathing or mindfulness techniques is a necessary support to the focus and concentration they will need when carrying out a task.