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5 Unique Ways to Help Your Struggling Child
So how do you help a child who is struggling in school? While hundreds of books have been written on this subject here are 5 ways to get you started.
1. Play with your child- You played with your child when she was a baby. Now that she has her own interests you may not always know how to 'play' with her. What is Runescape? What's that new facebook application that allows her to play scrabble with her friends? Ask him questions about his webkinz or penguin. Ask her questions about how things in her world work. Not in a nosy way but just the same way you would ask a friend if you were genuinely interested in their work. Enter your child's world and they will step towards yours.
2. Explore with your child - Once you have learned something new from your child (if you haven't, then you haven't played with him enough yet - go back and play some more!) then it's time for some fun activities. If your child has a fascination for dinosaurs go to your local library or bookstore and browse books about them. No time to go to the library? Go online and search for information about their current hot topic. Are they crazy over cell phones - use the opportunity to go online and read reviews together about how cell phones work or what new phones are going to be coming out next year. I once had a 20 minute adult-like conversation with a so called "struggling 11 year old" on concept phones and touch screens. I went into google images and we viewed pictures of phones that were going to be coming out in Europe. He gave me his opinion on functionality and features. Whether a child should have a cell phone or not is a different matter. The point is for you to explore a topic that your child is CRAZY about (not just interested in) but completely stark raving mad about.
3. Write with your child - Help your child do something with the information they've found. Help them write an article about their topic or have them help you write a blog about it. Send the blog or article to all your friends and family and encourage them to comment. Let your child read the comments or read the comments out to them. Bloggers continue to blog because they get feedback from 'fans'. Let your child feel as if they're the expert on their topic and encourage them to continue sharing their information either through drawings, blog posts, pod casts, powerpoint presentations on slideshare or videos that they upload to YouTube. When I do usability testing with kids at work and ask kids to help me design a game or give me ideas on how I can make a lesson better they feel important AND it helps ME see the world differently too!
4. Get your child involved in the community- Encourage your child to continue to expand his interests and connect it back to subjects he is learning in school. If he is passionate about robots have him email some researchers on robotics with a note about how old he is and attach a link to the hub page or blog. If you can afford it, buy your child software or tools that will allow him to participate in competitions or tech camps. My happiest (and perhaps also most fearful times) as a child were when I got to share my stories, drawings, poems with others and they responded (kindly). Ok, I was a geek. I admit that. But don't under estimate the power of someone besides you telling your child that they're good at something. Children never get tired of hearing they did a great job.
5. Support your child as they grow - Your child's interests will change. That's a GOOD thing. So you spent a tidy sum on music lessons and now he hates anything to do with a violin. That's OK. So he wanted to be an astronaut and now he's decided he wants to create the next MySpace. Great! Get a $10 subscription to a magazine related to his newest interest or have him build a prototype of his idea on paper and show it to his friends. The point is, it is your job to help him figure out what he is truly passionate about in life, not to force him into continuing to do something because you forced him into it. Imagine if your child could spend his adult life doing something that he LOVES because you allowed him to figure out what that was - what a gift!
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