Kids don’t come with an instruction manual.
There are parenting classes, but most people don’t take them. Not until they have problems anyway.
Most of us learn as we go along.
I consider myself lucky to have spent a number of years as a teacher for young and very young learners. I myself learned enormously during those years – not only from the many seminars and teachers’ events I attended, but from the kids themselves.
Here are 13 things about raising and educating young children that you may not have known.
1. Seventy-five percent of a person’s brain development will take place in the first three years of life.
Some people think that education really starts when a child is “capable of understanding”. But that is a false premise.
If three quarters of a person’s brain development takes place in their first three years of life, it follows that those three years are immensely important.
Start as early as possible.
Read to your child.
Talk to your child, even if you think he or she doesn’t understand. This is how they learn.
Explain what you are doing, all the time if possible. Again, you will teach them a lot.
2. Children need an emotional kind of education as much as they need the intellectual kind.
Most folks don’t think about educating their children about their emotions.
But the fact that someone’s emotional intelligence determines more of their success than their intellectual development should tell us something about this kind of education.
We think that it happens somehow naturally… organically… kids just pick it up as they go along.
Some of it, they do. It’s true.
When they are held and caressed and kissed often, when they are told “I love you!” and shown that they are adored, they literally learn how to love is expressed. They then start showing it themselves. In this kind of environment they can thrive and form a healthy sense of self-esteem and self-worth.
Parents who express their emotions and show their children healthy ways of dealing with the whole spectrum (from rage and anger to enthusiasm and wild joy) literally teach their children how to be successful in life. And, more importantly, how to be happy.
3. Kids need time to process new information.
This one seems like a “duuuh” one. Of course kids need time to process new information… and yet, how come many adults expect an instant reaction to their words?
“I told you to…x. RIGHT NOW!”
When the kid seems thunderstruck, they get mad… and push harder!
But children don’t “take their sweet time” to be naughty (well, sometimes they do… but not often, in fact!). What happens most often is that they need time to process instructions, to put them in context and simply react.
So give them time to digest your requests and then react!
4. Children often seem not to pay attention… when in fact they do!
A child’s brain is an amazing thing: it absorbs information from everywhere and on many, many levels.
It happened to me quite often, when I was teaching school, to see a child who appeared to be absent-minded but who later proved that he or she had good knowledge of what I had taught!
So don’t jump to conclusions! Just because they don’t look like they are paying attention does not mean that they are not.
5. Kids need a lot of repetition. A lot.
Later on in life people start to dislike routine and repetition. But early on, it is not only necessary, it is something that kids thrive on!
Neural pathways in the brain are much like roads in a forest: the more traveled they are, the wider and deeper they become.
So yes, they need to listen to that song or hear that story a million times. Do the same things, night after night after night, in the EXACT right sequence. It strengthens their mind, you see?
6. Very young people don’t have the vocabulary to express in words how they process the world, but that does not mean that they are “simple” or “they don’t get it”.
A child’s view of the world can be incredibly complex – and highly personal. He or she may not be able to tell you about it, but rest assured – kids have an incredible inner life.
Sometimes I look on my son’s face and I see him deep in thought. He gets lost in his inner worlds and, if I gently call his name, he comes back to our shared reality and starts smiling! He knows! And he’s only three and a half!
Other times I explain something to him in words that I think he knows, even though the concept itself might be quite complicated. It might be something about the physical world or something about human interaction for example. I have been doing it since he was a baby – and even back then, I swear he “got it”. I am firmly convinced that this is one of the reasons why he has thrown very few temper tantrums in his life.
I saw the same behavior at school: the more I took the time to explain things – and to allow them to process their experiences – the better my experience with them! They were not only well-behaved, but thriving.
7. Children can reach the wrong conclusions… which are perfectly logical from their point of view!
I used to have a 7 y.o. in one of my classes who hated reading and writing. Her mother told me at the end of the school year (she was in second grade) that when she started first grade she came back home crying on her first day of school because she had not learned the alphabet that day!
Her mother was very puzzled. “Of course you didn’t!” she said. “You have the whole year to learn!”
But the little girl had somehow understood that in first grade you learn the alphabet… on your first day!
Nobody had told her that it was supposed to be during the whole year.
From her perspective though, it made sense! She was heartbroken over the “failure” anyway and years later she still could not shake that disappointment.
So if there are any signs of trouble, check their assumptions and their “logic”!
8. Kids gets intimidated easily, even if they pretend otherwise.
Well, imagine you are scooped up and dropped in a country where you can barely reach the seat of a chair with your nose, most furniture is way higher than you and the people around you who are supposed to take care of you are not only three times taller, but they also seem infinitely stronger and definitely in control of the known universe, which to you makes no sense. You would be intimidated too, wouldn’t you?
9. The rebellious ones are often the most sensitive ones.
All the “problem kids” I have ever dealt with in my life – and I mean ALL of them – were highly intelligent AND highly sensitive.
They get rebellious because at some point the world becomes too much, for one reason or another. They are struggling to make sense of something and it’s just not coming together. So give them your patience – and never mind their “rebelliousness”.
10. They are okay with you not knowing everything – and not always being in control.
There is a lot of pressure on us adults to appear “god-like” to our kids: always in control, in charge and perfectly knowledgeable.
But saying “I don’t know!” when you don’t can make you very lovable in the eyes of a child – because he or she will relate to you so much!
They go through years and years of “not knowing” so many things!
So you don’t have to pretend. Show them it’s okay to not know – and that there are infinite ways to learn and grow and find out. That’s where the fun is!
11. Children are usually shocked when adults apologize.
This follows closely the one before: adults who feel pressured to “know it all” have a hard time admitting they are wrong. But that’s… just wrong!
Kids know when you are wrong.
You know it too.
It’s like the proverbial elephant in the room.
There were a few times I raised my voice in the classroom because I was tired and ran out of patience… or I corrected a child when, in fact, she had done the exercise the right way. Or… or… or… many other things, just like in any relationship.
I made it a point to apologize as soon as I saw the error of my ways – and most often than not, their first reaction was that of surprise. They are just not used to adults apologizing! But that is one way I gained their trust – and kept it real.
12. Young kids cannot differentiate between learning and fun.
What I mean by that is that, very early on, they will as eagerly learn the shapes of the letters in a colorful book as play in the sand.
So… try to make learning fun and fun a learning experience.
13. The earliest messages that a brain receives have a huge impact. So big that it can override genes.
“Genes provide a blueprint for the brain, but a child’s environment and experiences carry out the construction.”
Most people’s view of the world is formed in infancy. Everything that comes afterwards is added on this foundation.
This is why this period is so important.
TO RECAP:
But don’t fret… at the end of the day, what matters most is feeling loved and safe.
As I like to say, my children will find information at the library. But they can never find their mother’s love anywhere else but in the heart of their mother (or father). And when I say “love” I mean patience and kindness and understanding and laughter and joy and attention and fun and tenderness.
Maria
Maria Ellis: Books for Children 