Parents Are First Teachers. Take Time To Teach Your CHILDREN!

During the first years of life, almost everything a child learns depends on experiences provided by the family. Staff who work with families can use this information to build upon their knowledge of how children learn through everyday activities with their parents. Staff will also explore how parental beliefs shape children's learning. Key Concepts ·         Children learn by actively engaging with the world and with other people.  ·         Children's learning and development occur in four domains: physical, emotional, cognitive, and social. These domains are interrelated; for example, putting together a puzzle involves both physical and intellectual (or cognitive) activity. In addition, experiences in one or more domains (such as putting together a puzzle) can influence other domains (for example, success with a puzzle can have a positive influence on one's self-image).  ·         The home is a powerful center of learning for children. This is because the strong emotional bonds children have with family members strengthens the impact of experiences in the home. Also, the family can be spontaneous and individualize experiences that focus a child's interest.  ·         Families' beliefs about children and how they learn, and their behaviors based on these beliefs, have long-term effects on children's social competence and long-term school success. Background Information When people talk about parents teaching their children, many think of times when parents sit down with their children and show or tell them how to do something. While that type of teaching does occur, much of the learning children experience happens in the course of everyday family interactions and experiences. The ways parents touch, look at, and talk with their children from earliest infancy affect children's physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. These patterns also affect how children's brains develop. Babies are born with 100 billion brain cells. As they begin to experience the world, the cells connect into networks. The connections that are made by the brain in the earliest years of life and are used will become permanent, but other cells will disappear in time. For example, a child who is spoken to and read to has a good chance of developing strong language skills because so many neural connections have been laid in the part of the brain where language is handled. On the other hand, a child who is rarely spoken to or read to may have difficulty mastering language skills because there are insufficient neural connections in that part of the brain. The quality of a child's experiences within the family also affects the way his or her brain grows and develops. The repeated experiences of daily life — those arousing joy, curiosity, fear, anger, or other emotions — will likely have long-term effects on the child's willingness and ability to learn. This is why it is important for parents to look beyond what they do with their children to how they do it — to the attitudes and feelings that underlay their actions. For example, if a mother enjoys reading to her child, the child senses this and learns that reading can be a pleasurable experience. However, if a mother feels anxious or distracted while reading to her child, the child may pick up on those feelings of discomfort and infer that reading is an unpleasant task. Finally, it is important for parents to realize how much they teach their children simply by the behavior they model. A child learns by observing his or her parents in daily life as much as by what the parents try to teach. Because so much of brain development occurs after birth, in the early years, parents play a vital role as their children's first and most important teachers. Dr. Lillian Katz, a professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois, describes four important areas of learning that are heavily influenced by parents: ·         Skills. Young children are eager to master skills they see their parents and older siblings doing. While they can't complete tasks with the degree of mastery older family member have, they can develop skills in areas such as: self-help (for example, dressing, brushing teeth, feeding), family life (setting the table, sorting laundry, gardening, cleaning), problem solving (starting to take turns, following rules, negotiating), and literacy (scribbling, storytelling, using pictures to "read"). These skills are fostered and enhanced in the home.  ·         Knowledge. Young children, through their experiences with people and objects, acquire a great deal of knowledge about the world. Children learn very early to name objects and to understand their functions (for example, keys open doors and start cars, dogs bark, cats meow). Children use this background knowledge to approach new learning experiences and to acquire more knowledge. Families are important in expanding a child's understanding of the world.  ·         Attitudes about learning. Children want to do things they see their parents and siblings do. The kinds of activities children see their family members doing and enjoying (such as reading, discussing, or taking on a new task) will greatly influence their motivation to do them. Children also are influenced by parents' responses to their own efforts to learn. For example, the child who is reprimanded after scribbling on the wall learns that scribbling is bad. The same child who is redirected to a piece of paper learns that scribbling is good, but writing on walls is not.  ·         Learned feelings. Closely associated with attitudes, learned feelings are the emotional associations children make with learning. For example, many young children pretend to read, mimicking the voice their parents or teachers use when reading and using pictures to tell the story. A child is more likely to develop feelings of confidence as a reader if adults comment on how much they enjoy the child's reading. Feelings of closeness associated with reading together also contribute to the child's positive feelings toward reading. On the other hand, if a child tries to read a passage and is told, "That's not quite right...let me do it," he or she is likely to associate feelings of inadequacy with attempts at trying new tasks, even when having the skills to do them. Children acquire from their families skills, knowledge, attitudes, and feelings about themselves as learners. The quality of the home environment in the early years of a child's life has a powerful and long-term impact on later social and academic success. Parents set the stage for their children's learning through the attitudes and beliefs they hold about how and what children should learn. These attitudes and beliefs largely determine how supportive a family learning environment will be. There is no one way in which parents create a supportive family learning environment. However, certain factors are key. Three factors introduced in this module include: ·         A belief in the child's role, from infancy, as an active partner in his or her development. The child who has opportunities for hands-on learning will feel more connected to the learning experience.  ·         A realistic, in-depth understanding of the child's abilities and interests. High expectations are important for growth but expectations that are too high or too low diminish the child's confidence. The ability to observe carefully is an important skill for setting appropriate expectations.  ·         A recognition of and emphasis on the learning experiences that occur within routine family activities in the home and community. Included here are: reading to children in ways that actively involve the child, using television appropriately, encouraging the child's active manipulation of a variety of stimulating objects, asking children questions that stimulate thinking and promote verbal problem-solving skills, and having a supportive parenting style (a style that projects confidence in the child as capable and competent).