| Pat Harris page 2 |
| The following brochure was created by Pat Harris, LMFT ResolveToHeal.com Pat-Harris.com This is page 2 This booklet comes to you courtesy of ResolveToHeal.com, Pat-Harris.com (audio letters to families) and these websites: WeekendLearningSpace.com LookForPatterns.com VisualAndActive.com WhatDoYaKnow.com BuildingInternationalBridges.com MathForArtists.com DoubleMoonShot.com Listening to Mr. Friedman Ten Ways to Extend Your Child’s Education by Pat Harris, LMFT www.Pat-Harris.com www.ResolveToHeal.com “Does anger manage your kids or do your kids manage their anger?” This is page 2 Are you ready to share responsibility for your child’s education? We’re talking about more than just the academic schooling of this future adult who is under your care. Let’s take this journey step by step: 1. What is your child's learning style? There are many ways of taking in information and many ways to express what we have learned. The Internet has several surveys to help you and your child find out how your child learns. Audio: Does your child prefer to hear new information rather than read it? Can your child hear you once and “get it” (with your needing to repeat your request)? Musical: Does your child learn with rhythm? Most of us learned the alphabet with the alphabet song. Internal or Introspective: does your child prefer to work alone? Interactive and Social: Does your child learn by talking a subject over with a classmate? Does your child enjoy working with a group? 3-D, Visual and Numerical: Do numbers become easy for your child to remember? Does your child remember a phone number “because it’s easy to see the pattern”? Can your child draw a three-dimensional figure? Active: Does your child learn by doing? “Just let me figure it out myself” without reading the instructions? ADHD: Attention Deficit is really a variable attention ability (VAA), since many students with ADD can stay focused on something that interests them. Does your child have variable attention? That’s a gift, too. 2. Does your child have a library card? Good -- use it. Introduce your child to the library. Know where to find the references and the sources of information. You need that library card number to use the Electronic Library at www.flelibrary.org. Do you set an example by visiting the library and using your library card? Many people haven’t been in a library since graduating from high school or college. Not having a college degree is not a reason to avoid a library. Peter Jennings, the news anchor for ABC news (who recently died from cancer), never completed college, yet he read voraciously throughout his life. Jennings showed all of us how to take information from a book and apply it to our daily lives. In addition to reading widely, he wrote books “with just a high school diploma.” Here’s how to demonstrate the power of a library to a child: Step 1: I went onto the Internet and looked up Peter Jennings to find an example of a book that he had written. Step 2: I searched for a review of his book and found the following comments in a web log: “My family is a great fan of his television program World News Tonight, and I was honored to receive his excellent History book (The Century for Young People), which I enjoyed reading greatly. It is filled with interesting facts and interviews with people who have experienced the actual events. It is the greatest book I have read, and if you know of any young people, you should make sure to get the book for them. “Adora Svitak Step 3: I went to the library and found the book. I didn’t check it out, but I looked at it for 30 minutes. Spending time with a book can be as important as actually reading it. Step 4: I have a book called “I want to remember this” notebook. I write important notes in the IWTRT notebook. You, too, can interact with a library. Adjust your visit with your child to the learning style of the child. An active learner can be shown how to look up articles from 50 years ago. What did the newspaper read on December 7, 1941? A visual learner needs magazines and things that can be manipulated and moved. Some libraries have kits for math that students can use to demonstrate geometry to themselves. If your child is a social learner, then visit the library during a book reading, where other kids are sitting in a circle listening to one of the many workshops given at the library (which is more than just a place to store books). If your child is a quiet or introverted learner, let your child select a quiet place to sit with books chosen for an undisturbed session of “just looking.” In short, just showing up at the library is just the first step. You act as a role model for your child in how to immerse yourself in the resources available at the library. 3. What example do you set for your child? Do you look at life as a series of problems or opportunities? Half-empty or half-full? Lemons or lemonade? Give your child a model of how to react to a gray day. Do you have a Positive Mental Attitude? (This includes the example you set as an adult, uncle, aunt, grandparent or just the neighbor or person in line at the post office) 1. Do you ask out loud, “How can I learn from my situation?” Does the child hear you turn lemons into lemonade? Here’s a suggested “reframing” or self-talk: Is it really a problem? Well, it’s just what it is. It’s a situation. It doesn’t have to consume me. 2. It happened yesterday. All I have is right now, not yesterday or tomorrow. 3. Could I do anything different today? I sure can. The choice is mine. To take charge of my thinking, my situation and my actions. 4. Life is a process. Self-talk: “I am still learning and growing. My children know that I make mistakes and I let them make mistakes.” I use words like “I’m sorry,” and “forgive me.” 5. Excuses are not helpful. Blaming someone else does not help me. A mistake is an opportunity to learn. When we blame someone else or give excuses, we miss an opportunity to learn. 6. Promoting examples of encouragement are better. When I “help” another person “because he doesn’t know how to get out of the hole he dug for himself,” I am enabling or DISabling the person. Don’t do anything for the children that the children can do for themselves. Dependency doesn’t promote good self-esteem. Here are some samples of “words of encouragement”: “try it again.” “How can you do it differently?” “You’ve got the idea. Keep going.” “What does that word mean to you?” When a child is stuck and says “I don’t know how to explain it,” you can say, “Give me an example.” These words will encourage a child to “perform her understanding.” page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5 |
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