Tip 11: Develop a Love for Learning in
Your Children
First
of all, though, I will say that a love for learning is usually not developed in
a child who is pushed to learn things for which he is not ready. Period. It just makes sense. Of course, if a child struggles
and struggles to learn to read, and we push and push day after day—even though
reading readiness has not been realized, that child will grow to hate reading,
learning, and oftentimes, school and homeschooling.
Secondly, model a love for learning for your children. Your children want to be just like
you! They might not say it. They might say just the opposite at times, but the
fact is, they want to be just like Mom and Dad.
The beginning of teaching our
children any skill is to model that skill for them. I remember in
teacher’s college when the trendy topic was SSR—Sustained Silent Reading. The
goal of SSR was to set aside ten or fifteen minutes each school day to have
every student reading. The superior teachers were the ones who didn’t grade
papers or file their nails during SSR; they read too. The idea was that if the
teacher modeled reading for her students, they would follow her example.
The same is true for homeschooling
parents with modeling a love for learning. Do you force-feed your
children what they need to learn, but remain stagnant in your own learning? Do
you act as though you already “know it all,” so there is nothing else for you
to learn? Do you seek out information about topics you are interested in
learning more about?
Several years ago when we took a
family vacation to Disney World®, I was able to put this “modeling a
love for learning” to the test with our children. I carried (well, whoever carried the backpack
actually carried) an eight-hundred-page volume titled, The Unofficial Guide
to Disney World®. I pulled it out as we traveled to each park,
reading aloud about the best viewing spots for the afternoon parade, the worst
hamburgers in the place, and the longest time one has to wait in the
mid-morning to ride “Space Mountain.”
At first the kids teased me
merciless (okay, I did have over a hundred sticky notes of various colors and
sizes protruding from the sides of the book—you’re not allowed to highlight in
a library book), but then they began asking me what “my book” said about this
or that. Eventually, we were fighting over the book during tram, monorail, and
bus rides!
On the last night, the kids insisted
that I cover myself in sticky notes, scatter my “charts” around me (oh, I made
charts too), and have my picture taken with my precious book. They saw
firsthand how learning new information makes for a great vacation; they came to
see the method to Mom's madness—and I guarantee not one of them will ever take
their kids to Disney World without that book! Modeling a love for learning
for our children works.
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