Posts Tagged ‘Education’

Dad tips for helping young kids learn to study

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

I was helping my daughter study the other night and, as usual, she provided wisdom and inspiration in the dad department. Here are a few things I learned from her and a few I picked up on my own that might help other dads develop good study skills in their kids.

1. Turn off the TV – a confession: I studied every night while watching Mash and Gilligan’s Island reruns and I guess it didn’t kill me. It certainly didn’t help quell the ADD that every adult in the 20th century seems to have. Try though to carve out a space away from too many distractions or at least around the right distractions (see point 2).

Studying2. Hang around while your kids do homework. Perhaps you like this as your wind-down time or watch TV time, but your kids – surprise! – actually will interact more with you if you’re in the room and ready to engage with them.

3. Goof around with your kids. While homework is serious business, there’s nothing that says you can make jokes or use funny voices to illustrate points or help them learn rote concepts. This can be a fun time for both of you

4. Don’t do the homework for them. Even adults sometimes get carried away by how brilliant they are and how easy it is to a third grade math problem. You might look like a genius to your child, but it won’t help him learn the answer. Try to pretend you’re both trying to figure it out together. This way, you can ask leading questions that get your child to see the answer for themselves. If your child gets frustrated, suggest a break and come back and try it again.

5. Be a good role model. Your schedule will dictate how possible this is, but a good situation is to work quietly paying bills or doing some other study-like chore while your kids are working along side you.

6. Use study time to monitor your child’s progress. Most kids, even your little prodigy, should need some help as they work through problems. If your child really isn’t “getting it,” though, make an appointment with the teacher so that you can nip a developing issue in the bud.

Have fun with homework and enjoy the chance to mentor the most important people in your life. Helping with homework can bring up bad memories of school when you were a kid, but with some effort, it can be a fun time to spend with your kids.

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Kids define “evolution”

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

We loved the new book by Charlie’s Playhouse on the Giant Timeline. Now, to get people thinking about Darwin’s discovery and the importance of this concept, Charlie’s Playhouse is sponsoring a contest to collect kids’ ideas on evolution.

Hoping to initiate lively conversation about evolution between parents and their children, the Ask the Kids Project begins today and will culminate on Nov. 24, the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” Parents are being asked to submit by the deadline of Nov. 16 their children’s honest responses to the question online at http://www.charliesplayhouse.com/ask-the-kids.php. Then, on the 24th, Charlie’s Playhouse will post and distribute a professionally-edited video compilation of the submitted responses. 200911141556.jpg

Following are a few real-life examples the company collected from kids:
“Evolution is accidental copies of DNA in a bad way and then results in changes and sometimes the changes can be helpful or the changes can lead to extinction. I think Charles Darwin can explain it better.”
“Something about the evolutionary war.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure, it’s not the cave times when they had to sleep on rocks.”
“The first living things appeared, like medusa and the first fish. And fish evolved. And fish became something very important: a sleepwalker.”
“Evolution is candy.”
“Ummm, it’s science.”
“You mean like when we were animals and now we’re humans?”
“I have no idea.”
“When animals change to adapt to the weather!”

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Who’s better at teaching kids to drive? Mom or dad?

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Teaching a teenager to drive is as much a rite of passage for the parent as it is for the kid. But who does it better? Mom or dad? According to a survey from AA Driving School in England, the answer is dear old dad. In their very unscientific poll of 1,387 adults, 52 percent said fathers were better at the difficult task, while only 24 percent thought moms were better at the job.

[From Seattle Eastside Parenting Examiners: Who's better at teaching kids to drive? Mom or dad?]

This is clearly not a scientific study, or even anything beyond a controversy starter, but it’s funny that people are always trying to figure out which parent is “better” at one thing or another. I can’t even imagine this one really comes down to a sex difference.

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Unkindergarten? A new phenomenon?

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

The New York Times reports on parents who are foregoing the first year of school, usually known as kindergarten, for a looser, experience-based at home schooling experience.

They are part of a community of like-minded parents who are opting to enrich rather than formally educate their not-yet-school-age children (6 is the age that New York City law requires parents to register their children as home-schooled). They discovered one another through the New York City Home Educators Alliance (nychea.org), a home-schooling bulletin board.

…theirs is an ad hoc, day-by-day exploration into what it means to be a stay-at-home parent and child in an accelerated culture like New York. In a city where the race to be on top can start in infancy, the disconnect between these parents’ choices and the New York City norm is vast, as Ms. Rendell learned recently.

[From Home-Schooling Grows in New York City - NYTimes.com]

If I had the time and flexibilty, this sounds like an ideal way to continue those care-free years of babyhood on through age 6, with benefits for both mom or dad and for the child.

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Kids Love Spanish!

Monday, September 15th, 2008

Kids Love Spanish Box Set.jpg

We had a chance to meet Julie Campbell, the force and brains behind the Kids Love Spanish series, at the ABC Kids show in Las Vegas where all the new kids’ products are introduced. Her new series, created with her sister, looks like a great introduction for kids to play around learning a language and at least basic words to help them navigate colors, alphabet, number, shapes and basic phrases. Learning a language can be a fun activity for both dads and kids, and an opportunity to show them that you’re willing to start at zero and learn something new with them. While a DVD set isn’t a substitute for real language immersion, and despite all the hype with rapid learning systems, language acquisition is not easy, this still can be a fun way to prepare for a trip south of the border, or to understand the increasing amount of Spanish being spoken in the United States.

Viewers or PBS learning shows will feel comfortable with the graphics and motion in the series. While these may be the best Spanish videos, on the market for children, as indicated by several product reviews, viewers may have concerns that a vast majority of the speakers in the series are not native speakers. Some examples are spoken by Spanish speakers with poor accents that you won’t want your children to emulate. That said, these are a good introduction to the language for very young viewers (3-6).

Other Spanish for children options are available on Amazon if you search on “Spanish for Children” or click this link.

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Four financial tricks to make your child money-savvy

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Jonathan Clements, in the Wall Street Journal today, had some useful reminders for moms and dads trying to teach their kids good money skills. We actually practice some of these on our eight-year old. Our friend, Harvey Beck at ActiveAllowance.com writes a lot in his blog about his money experiments on his two boys and finds that a lot of these strategies really work. All dads should try these things just to see if it helps to quell the “I want” and “I need” reaction to all the buying stimuli kids are exposed to.

1. Postpone joy – Clements suggests offering to trade a $5 per week allowance for $7 if the child is willing to wait an extra week for it.

2. Slow spending with big bills – try giving your child his allowance in coins one week, singles another week, and one big bill the following week. You may be surprised that the big bill gets broken more slowly.

3. Make a wish list – help your child learn to postpone gratification and prioritize wishes by adding things to a list. Giving in to urgent demands does nothing to help kids learn what they really want. Often, kids can’t even remember from one day to the next what their urgent demand even was.

4. Give kids their own money – giving a real allowance, even at five or six, is amazing for sensitizing a child to the fact that money isn’t infinite. Children are suddenly very careful when they know they are drawing down their own stash. Clements relates the story of giving $5 for a school field trip and getting no change. The next time, he gave his daughter $5, but said she could keep anything. She brought home the full $5, which went straight to her piggy bank.

Finally, I’d recommend talking about money in a way that is consistent more with the values you want to instill than in the values you may have picked up. Most of us middle class moms and dads lust over bright shiny objects, but then are surprised when our kids do the same thing. We wonder where they get it and blame it on TV or on their other less-enlightened peers. The responsibility, though, really lands on us. We need to be aware of how many boxes from Amazon come flowing into the house, how much we talk about other people’s money, or how much things cost, and whether we sub-consciously communicate that spending and buying is the best way to alleviate boredom and find happiness. The answer is not usually to “just say ‘no,’ but to help our kids find balance and learn to be good spending adults.

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Basic etiquette for little kids 3-5 (and beyond!)

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Quick! You have 25 days to get the kids in shape to make a good presentation at Christmas dinner. Like a lot of stuff in parenting, consistency and patience are by-words and yes, you can teach a toddler new tricks. Here are the basic etiquette skills little ones should have:

1. “Please,” “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” are not optional. Repeat them over, invite your kids to correct you, and you’ll find by Christmas a pleasant and polite Pavlovian response.

2. Eating with fingers is for babies, with the obvious exceptions (pizza, ribs, chicken legs for example). Little kids can use a fork, though you may have to help load it up from time to time. Resist the temptation to feed them and they will pick up this skill, leaving you free to get them another glass of milk.

3. Kids need to ask to be excused to leave the table. Teaching kids not to run around during dinner is not easy, but you’ll make it harder if you chase them around to get them to eat.

4. Salt and pepper go together. Pass them together for a polished impression.

5. Even little kids can and should use napkins, keep them on their laps, and learn to use them rather than wiping their hands on their pants.

You can make it easier for the kids by eating dinner in a room without distractions like TV, and make a rule not to allow toys or books while eating the family meal together.

Good luck and Bon appetit!

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Back to school flashcards

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

First, an admission: I started fifth grade without knowing my multiplication tables. Now, they teach multiplication in second or third grade. My kid will already be a leg up on me by age seven. Second, I have a worry that my daughter will be frustrated by math and will very quickly decide it’s not for her. That’s why I just bought these Multiplication and division flash cards. They are big, but not unwieldy and printed on both sides to save in bulk. We plan to get a start on the school year, so when the teacher first says “two times two,” she won’t be afraid of hazarding a guess.

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