We get a lot of questions about how we parent our children.  So much so that our next seminar out will probably be on parenting. There are the obvious questions about their great public behavior, but the thing that people notice next is how ‘smart’ they sense our kids are. Now if you’ve been with me a while, you know I love my kids greatly.  And you also know they can frustrate their parents with the best of them!  But I operate under the unbiased assumption that my kids are not special by birthright.  I know, hard to believe a parent thinks that way, but it’s true.  Smart is just knowledge, not ability.  See my Secret to High IQs article if you need more thoughts on that.  What I do teach them is that their knowledge, opportunities and how they use those two can make them special.  And it works – see Is Competition Healthy for Kids? What I won’t disagree with is that our kids have an overdose access to knowledge.  Somebody once told me that learning from me is like trying to drink water from a fire hydrant, and that’s true but I’ll tell you, kids are adaptable.  They will drink as much knowledge as you give them.

The other day, Julie and the kids came home from the beach with a rare sea turtle that had predatory injuries as it tried to make it’s way to the Gulf Stream.  So they brought it home, we scoured the internet and nursed/exercised it until we were able to deliver it to a wildlife rescue the next day.  We learned not only about sea turtles and the Gulf Stream, but of course it was another opportunity to learn team work, nurturing and unselfishness – teaching opportunities.  If you are a parent, you know this and hopefully you both find and take advantage of these opportunities often.

Kids learn more and much faster than most parents believe. Occasionally I am given the opportunity to show what I’m talking about and without fail, it blows people away.

I can’t tell you how many times friends and family members have come up to me and said, ‘You know I just don’t think he/she is ready to tie their shoes and I’m ready to throw in the towel.’ Hmmm….what to do?

I know for a fact that this 5-6 year old can tie their shoes and I can teach them in 20 minutes.  And I don’t intend to get them to mimick, I mean teach in such a way that they’re doing it weeks and months from now.  Now, I can’t guarantee you anything when they hit their teens – I can only do so much!

An opportunity like this becomes multi-tasking for me, because as much as I want to teach this child to tie his/her shoes, the bigger joy for me is teaching the parent how to teach and what their kids are capable of doing.  That is the gift that keeps on giving. So how do I do that?

First off, I cut the bs.  Stories have a place in teaching, but not for simple tasks.  This is a job for mechanics and memory.  Most people want to teach something about a rabbit jumping through a hole - I don’t.  I show them, ‘hey, you have to make this loop so that the knot will hold, but still allow you to untie them easily.  Besides, we have to do something with all of this shoelace to keep you from falling on your face in front of pretty girl/handsome guy!  See how that works?’  And they laugh – and learn.

And it always amazes me that we double task our kids.  How did our teachers teach us the planets?  ‘My very eager mother, blah blah blah’.  Right?

My thought goes like this – I can teach my kids that sentence but then they have to translate upon memory which of course takes longer.  Just teach them the planets - then they only have one thing to remember.  Plus, they might be distracted by the silliest of things…”my very eager mother…chased me around the house last night yelling at me to clean my room!  Ahhh, I hate cleaning my room AND the planets.”

Another example is bi-lingual teaching.  If you want fluency, then you want to teach your kids to ‘think’ in their second language – not translate.  So you don’t show them the French word ‘rouge’ and follow by saying ‘red’ and connecting those two ‘words’, instead you teach them the same way you taught them their primary language, say ‘rouge’ and point to something that is rouge.

So to wrap up, how it is I teach so effectively, it’s like this – I keep it simple and here’s the big key, the key that burns it into memory – repetition and praise.  I’ve tought many kids to tie their shoes in 20 minutes and it’s a very active 20 minutes.  We start with the base knot.  Then I untie it and make them repeat it. We probably do this 20 times – the first few times they giggle and laugh because it seems silly to them to have to repeat this rather simple, single task.  But then, they get what’s going on and they start burning it in.  Repetition.  Then we move to the next step but every single time starting with the base knot.

You build the pyramid and everytime, start at the base and move up 1 platform every 3-4 times or so. Now, older kids will fight this sometimes.  That’s ok.  Praise them more and turn it into a challenge.  Kids can’t resist a good challenge.

Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner said that there are 5 main obstacles in learning:

1. People have a fear of failure
2. There is a lack of directions
3. There is also a lack of clarity in the direction
4. Positive reinforcement is not used enough
5. The task is not broken down into small enough steps

Skinner suggests that with all of the obstacles out of the way any age appropriate skill can be taught using his 5 principles:

1. Have small steps
2. Work from most simple to most complex tasks
3. Repeat the directions as many times as possible
4. Give immediate feedback
5. Give positive reinforcement

Don’t take my word for it – give it a try and remember a couple of things: it usually works, the younger the child or the longer you’ve been using this method the better, so don’t give up – takes breaks until you get the feel for it – once it clicks, you’ll be glad you did it.