Dealing with Demanding Children: The Public Meltdown

This post will start a three-part series on different aspects of demanding behavior in children.  This particular post will deal with the children that demand stuff.  Part two of the series will deal with the children that demand attention.  Finally, the third part will explore children that demand to have their own way.  Each aspect of demanding behavior has a similar root cause, but requires different techniques.  Demanding behavior constitutes a form of manipulation on the part of a child to either get what they want or soothe an insecurity.

Children that Demand Things
Let us start this discussion with the children that demand things.  We have all witnessed this scenario in any given store on any given day.  A child wants something, and the parent or adult initially says no.  Then the child proceeds to have a complete meltdown until the parent or adult finally gives in to the child and lets him/her have whatever it is or negotiates for a comparable alternative.  The parent or adult in this situation has just been coerced by this child to give the child something they did not need.  This is true even if the adult negotiated for an alternative.  That child has just learned a form of bullying.  That child has learned to use complete meltdowns in public to force adults to do things against their will.  More than likely you have never heard anyone put it that way because we have all been put in that scenario and most of us have succumbed to it at one time or another.  We do not like to think about the fact that our children hold such power over us.  We like to call it "picking our battles."  However, do we really think about the lessons the child is actually learning from the experience?  Believe me, once a child learns that complete meltdowns in public can make his/her parents give in to him/her in most circumstances, that child will use that over and over and over again.

How to Handle the Public Meltdown
What do you do with a child that is having a complete meltdown in public?  First of all, tell yourself that this happens to everyone.  Even though you might actually be getting dirty looks, most of those people either do not have children or are being hypocrites.  I know it is completely embarrassing for your child to come completely unglued in public, but do not let the embarrassment make you do something that is not healthy in the long-term.  Second, stand your ground.  If you said "no,' then the final answer is "no."  Do not negotiate.  If it helps, tell yourself you do not negotiate with manipulators. At this point I have to tell a story.  I had taken my middle child to the store when she was about two years old, and she had asked for a candy bar right as we were getting into the checkout line.  I was not in the habit of buying candy for my children when we went to the store so I told her "no."  She proceeded to fall in the floor and have a kicking and screaming fit.  For a moment, I just looked at her mentally discussing my options.  Then my righteous indignation kicked in, and I was not about to let her get away with that.  Fortunately for me, she was a small child.  I picked her up around the waist with my right arm and tucked her against my hip.  She was still kicking and screaming and flailing.  I proceeded to load my groceries onto the conveyor belt with my left hand as if I was not holding a ballistic child.  I completely ignored the hissy fit.  I thought my checkout lady was going to wet herself because she was laughing so hard.  She had never seen anyone handle a hissy fit like that before.  Once I paid for my groceries, I headed to the car still carrying my child tucked against my hip.  She was still going at it.  This brings me to my third point.  Let the child know that kind of behavior is absolutely and completely inappropriate in any and every circumstance imaginable.  She lost the privilege of going to the store without her siblings for a while among other things.

Or Just Leave
Now, some of you may be thinking, what do you do with a bigger child?  I have seen children these days so big, the mom could not possibly do what I did.  In those cases, just leave.  If the child cannot be contained to where he/she cannot do harm, then the best course of action is to leave.  This may be terribly inconvenient, but those bigger children need to learn that throwing a fit in public simply gets them a quick trip home.  You, the parent may have to rearrange when you make trips to the store in such a way that the child does not go with you.  I know this can be a serious hardship for single parents, but letting your child accomplish his/her blackmail does you no favors whatsoever.  It all comes down to making absolutely sure that manipulative behavior never succeeds.  Behavior that succeeds will be behavior that is repeated.  We really do not want our children to learn to become manipulative people, do we?  For the sake of all society, please suffer the inconvenience that comes with dealing with the manipulative behavior of your child.

Shut It Down
Let us take this into the childcare arena.  When children demand things in our childcares, let them have their hissy fits, but do not ever give in to them.  Do not redirect them.  Make absolutely sure that demanding behavior never accomplishes what the child wants.  Make it the culture of your childcare that demanders never prosper, and the children will at least learn that in your setting, demanding gets them absolutely no where.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!

Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457 

The Hands-on Learning Style

This post will deal with the final of the big three learning styles - hands-on learning.  There has been a huge push for hands-on learning in the last two decades.  However, it is probably the most misunderstood of the three learning styles.  This actually stems from its advocates.  The push for hands-on learning has been so strong that they have overextended the actual reach of the learning style.  I will explain.

Do All Children Learn by Hands-On?
Remember everyone has their own unique blend of learning styles that they use to process information. However, many advocates of hands-on learning have stated that all children learn in this way.  That is simply not true.  Some children have a very strong leaning toward hands-on learning while others have no leaning towards hands-on learning.  I did not have a leaning towards hands-on learning as a child.  How could so many experts be so wrong about this?

Misconcept of Play
The misunderstanding for this learning style stems from a one-sided view of play.  Play for children is just as diverse as the children's learning styles.  Each child has his/her own unique way of playing.  The way a child plays has absolutely everything to do with how that child processes information.  The typical view of play revolves almost exclusively on discovery.  They will say that play is how a child discovers his/her world.  However, for some children play is more about practicing what they have already discovered about the world.  For others play tends to be a means to organize their known world.  Play is the means by which a child makes sense of the world into which he/she was born.  How that child approaches play can be as various as the stars in the heavens.

A Look into My Own Play
Let me explain further by giving you a view into how a child without a leaning towards hands-on learning plays.  As I said earlier, hands-on learning is very low in my repertoire of learning styles.  When I was a child, my play revolved around developing elaborate systems.  I did not play with toys to see what happens necessarily.  I manipulated the toys to achieve certain already determined outcomes.  For example, the way I played with toy cars was to set up a flow of traffic and move the cars individually to make the flow happen.  I was an organizer.  I was also a practicer.  When I wasn't trying to develop systems, I was trying to perfect skills.  I spent hours practicing throwing a ball at a wall to hit a certain spot with consistency.  This made me an extraordinary little league pitcher, but my play had very little to do with discovery.  Was I some sort of freak of nature?  No.  I am not a hands-on learner, and there are many other children in this world that play in a way that would not be described as discovery.

A Definition of Hands-On Learning
Hands-on learning, just like the other two of the big three, manifests itself in a variety of ways.  Discovery remains only one manifestation of hands-on learning.  All the learning styles we will cover in the next months fall into a subcategory of one or more of the big three.  A more representative definition of hands-on learning is kinetic learning or active learning.  Learning by doing almost covers most aspects of hands-on learning, but some manifestations of hands-on learning especially with special needs children has to have more adult participation.  They are walked through the learning process in an active way, but could not just learn by doing.

The Art Desk - The Perfect Test
How then do you determine if a child has a leaning toward hands-on learning?  Or more accurately in our current learning environment, how do you tell if a child does not learn by hands-on learning?  Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a child learns by discovery or has discovered the truth through a different means and simply practices what he/she learns through play.  Probably the best test of hands-on learning can be discovered at the art desk.  When a child that learns through discovery is handed playdough, they will tinker with it and fiddle with it until they discover how to make things with it.  When a child that does not lean toward hands-on learning is handed playdough, they will make the same thing over and over again until they perfect it.  Oftentimes, these children have to be shown how to play with playdough.  That should be a surefire sign that a child does not lean toward hands-on learning.  They might still have a leaning toward active learning, but learning by doing and discovery does not fall high on their list.  It has been my experience that many children today actually do not have a great leaning toward hands-on learning.  I do not know if our current culture deprives children of the discovery process so much that this hinders children from expressing a tendency toward hands-on learning or that this generation actually has a lesser population of hands-on learners than the previous one.  We have had the push for hands-on learning because Generation X and Y did have a large population of hands-on learners.  Time will tell which way this upcoming generation will lean by what becomes the next great fad of education when they are adults.

What to Do with Hands-On Learners
When you discover that some of the children in your care do actually have a leaning toward active learning, what can you do?  These children need time to tinker.  They need opportunities to make, build, draw, etc. from basic materials.  Our current "best practice" for designing early childhood environments suits these children perfectly.  Those children that struggle with building, drawing, or any other type of discovery play might not be hands-on learners.  Observing the children interacting with their environment will show you which way they lean.  If a child makes the same thing over and over with only slight variations, that child is more than likely a organizer or a practicer rather than a discover.  Watching children carefully while they play can tell you so much about their unique learning style.

Active but Dependent Learners
Before I leave this subject, I want to talk about those children that are active but dependent learners.  I have seen this tendency show up in children that struggle with abstract math concepts.  I have also seen it manifest heavily in children on the autism spectrum.  My oldest daughter had an extremely hard time understanding borrowing in subtraction until I broke out the math manipulatives.  When she physically replaced one ten with ten ones and then subtracted, a light bulb went off in her head.  However, I had to walk her through the process.  I did not just hand her manipulatives for her to discover how to subtract.  Discovery is not high on her learning repertoire, either.  She also benefitted from the use of an abacus for more complicated subtraction and addition.  After seeing it work in the physical world, she could then convert the concept to mental strategies in her mind.  That was her visual learning becoming apparent.  Many special needs children have to have those math manipulatives for math concepts to make sense.  Some of these children will not outgrow the need for manipulatives.  This will limit how far they can progress with abstract math concepts such as advanced algebra and calculus.  When my daughter hit algebra and abstract math concepts that were beyond manipulatives for the initial explanation, she struggled horribly.  She had to see it work in the physical world for it to make sense.  We will cover that particular learning style at a later date.  My other two children share more of my learning style and excel at anything that has systems and organization.  That, too, will be a future learning style we will cover.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!

Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457 

Dealing with Pouting in Children

This post will deal with one of children's most potent weapons against both parents and caregivers - the pout.  Most adults would rather do anything than deal with a pouty child.  It manifests in various forms. Some children simply stick out the lower lip.  Some children whine and cry.  Some children throw full-fledged hissy fits.  Whatever the manifestation, the intended purpose of pouting on the part of the child remains the manipulation of adults to get what he/she wants.

The Definition of Pouting
Webster defines pouting as "to show displeasure by thrusting out the lips or to look sullen."  I say pouting goes much deeper than that.  Pouting is like a dark cloud that descends upon a person.  Displeasure throws the person into a foul mood that affects everyone else around them.  Even adults pout in their own way when they do not get what they want.  Have you ever seen an adult descend into a dark mood when they experience disappointment?  That is pouting.

Is Pouting a Natural Response?
Some might say that pouting is just a natural response to disappoint.  Everyone experiences disappointment in their lives, but does pouting have to accompany disappointment?  Is pouting a healthy response to disappointment?  I would venture to say that pouting tends to be the most common response to disappointment, but that does not make it a healthy or appropriate response.  Pouting flows from selfishness, and the more selfish we are about a situation, the more likely we are to pout.  This explains why children are so prone to respond to disappointment in this manner.  Selfishness runs deep in children especially young children.

Is Pouting Developmentally Appropriate?
At this point I am sure the early childhood experts will raise the point that children are egocentric by nature.  We cannot expect young children to learn selflessness because it is not developmentally appropriate.  They will learn to be selfless at an older age when their brain development reaches a point to where they can experience empathy.  I find it amazing that today's early childhood experts believe that learning character magically happens as children grow older.  It has no basis in reality, but they hold to that belief with all their being.  Learning to do wrong seems to be the only thing in this world that happens without effort.  Learning to do right, on the other hand, takes a lifetime of effort, and it starts in toddlerhood.

How to Deal with Pouting
In order to deal with pouting, you must first have an appropriate attitude about pouting.  Disappointment and pouting should never be thought of as indivisible.  We cannot stop children from experiencing disappointment nor would we want to do that.  Many of the most powerful lessons of our lives come out of disappointment.  However, descending into a dark cloud because we have been disappointed should never be an acceptable response from anyone.  At my childcare, when a child starts to descend into pouting, I will tell them to take a deep breath and say, "it's okay."  I do not tolerate pouting in any shape or form.  I do not ignore it nor do I redirect it.  This one I plow through because it is a manipulative ploy used by children and adults alike to try to change a situation for selfish reasons.  Think about it.  Do you want the children in your care to become adept at manipulating people?  Is that a skill you want to encourage?  I have said it before, and I will say it again.  Ignoring these problem behaviors in children equals encouraging these behaviors.  Negative behaviors must be dealt with in a head-on manner.  They will not magically disappear with age.  They only get subtler.

Everyday I watch toddlers and preschoolers play their parents like a fiddle.  These poor parents have bought into the notion that young children are not sophisticated enough to employ that level of manipulation.  However, those same children would never even dream of trying to pull those stunts with me.  They have learned that pouting and hissy fits get them no where.  I will shut it down quickly. Yet, when their parents walk in the door, they switch gears and pull some of the worst stunts I have ever seen.  Now, you tell me.  Have these children got their parents' number?  Absolutely.  NEVER, EVER underestimate the manipulative power of a toddler and preschooler.

Pouting with Toddlers and Twos
Before I leave this subject, I want to briefly touch on dealing with pouting in older toddlers and twos specifically.  The technique of having them take a breath and say, "it's okay" will not work with toddlers and twos.  However, you can shut down their pouting as well.  For this age, I will firmly tell them that I said "no" and that is what I meant.  When the hissy fit kicks in, I will put them in a safe place so they will not harm themselves or others.  Then I will tell them when they are finished, they can come back and play.  I treat the behavior as inappropriate and make it cost them until they decide to return to appropriate behavior.  They must work through the issue not be directed around the issue.  I do not want two year old behavior to spill into a child's third year because I chose to avoid dealing with the issue.  I see way too many behavioral issues lingering into children's older years because adults avoided dealing with the root cause.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!

Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457 

The Auditory Learning Style

This post will deal specifically with another of the big three learning styles - the auditory learning style. This style centers around what a person hears as opposed to what a person sees.  Have you ever met that person that can quote entire conversations verbatim?  That person has auditory learning very high on his/her personal learning repertoire.

How Visual and Auditory Work Together
As I stated in a previous post, everyone has their own unique repertoire of learning styles.  For many people visual and auditory learning often go hand in hand rather than oppose one another.  Many people will remember more of a topic if the presentation includes both great visuals and good explanation.  However, how each brain processes the very same presentation varies widely.  Some people latch onto the visuals the most and then process the words associated with the visuals.  Other people process the verbal information first and then attach the corresponding visuals.  Even others might process the information equally.  I am one of those people that will remember more of a topic is it is presented with both formats.  However, I usually process the visuals first and then attach the corresponding words.  This makes me a great note-taker because I will remember what I write down plus what was said about what I wrote.  I actually can visually see my notes in my mind after studying over them for just a little while.  The visual presence of my notes in my head triggers the verbal information stored with that visual.

For people who latch onto the verbal messages more than the visual messages, they will actually hear the conversations or presentations in their mind.  These verbal remembrances will trigger the corresponding visual images that went with them.  Some people can actually work this both ways in different settings.  For example, if a presentation included more verbal information than visual information sometimes my brain will flip how I process the information.  The same holds true for me in music situations.  If I hear a song before I see the music, sometimes my ear will take over in the learning process.  However, for me visual usually trumps auditory in most cases.  If the written music does not match what my ear is telling me to do, the eye usually wins the argument.

Learning Your Own Learning Style
Why is it important to know how you process the information?  Is it not good enough just the process the information?  Knowing your own learning style puts you in a greater position to retain more information.  If you know that auditory learning is higher in your repertoire than visual learning, you can use tools like books on CD/tape to help yourself learn more in a class/training situation.  If visual learning is higher on your personal list, you need to read the actual book with all its illustrations and visuals to get the greatest benefit.  This can also help you make wise choices for all those training hours everyone has to do in almost every profession these days.  We all like to use our time wisely.  Therefore, we can seek out those training opportunities offered in our more dominant learning styles.

Promoting Auditory Skills - Finding Auditory Learners
Our present society actually does a poor job of promoting auditory skills.  If you think about it, we really do not expect people to truly listen to us in most cases.  The presentation methods for classes, trainings, etc. has become more and more visual with every passing year.  This is great for those people with highly developed visual learning, but not so good for those people that have auditory learning high in their personal repertoire.  How can we fix that?  Promoting auditory skills comes in very high on my to-do list for children today.  Even if they do not have auditory learning high in their repertoire, they still need to be able to listen to some degree.  At my childcare I usually present information both visually and orally simultaneously.  However, I do have a few activities that I do strictly verbally.  I have several reasons for these particular activities.  Number one, they help me weed out those children that do or do not have auditory learning high in their repertoire.  This helps me when I do the one-on-one instruction with these children.  Those children that excel at those strictly oral activities can follow my verbal instructions better.  I will tend to present their information more orally in order to develop their more dominant learning style.  Those children that struggle with the strictly oral activities must have their information presented by another format.

The Lack of Auditory Experiences
The second reason I do the strictly verbal activities comes from the lack of these types of experiences in our present culture.  One hundred or so years ago, all societies relied much more on verbal information than visual information.  Radio instead of television comprised the majority of people's entertainment.  Before radio, telling stories and conversations around the dinner table comprised the majority of entertainment in households.  This tended to promote a greater overall competency in processing verbal information.  It is like muscles.  What you use is what tends to become stronger.  Storytelling and the art of conversation has fallen by the wayside in recent years.  For our children, this means that their listening skills and verbal skills suffer.  We need to bring back the storytelling without pictures.  We also need to bring back times of uninterrupted conversations if we want our children to become better listeners and communicators.

Developing Visualization Skills
The final reason I do the strictly verbal activities actually has to do with preliteracy skills.  When a child reaches the stage of reading where the pictures are taken away and only words remain, that child must be able to picture the words in his/her head.  It stands to reason that a child that has had numerous opportunities to listen to information without pictures will be able to make this transition much easier.  This is a reading comprehension skill, and American children as a whole have seen reading comprehension scores drop continually over the last 50 years.  This corresponds to the rise in the dominance of visuals in our culture.  That is no coincidence.  Giving preschool children the opportunity to process strictly oral information actually should be a national undertaking to improve our educational system.  It is that important.

Auditory Activities for Preschoolers
Now let us bring it down to the practical.  What kind of activities should be included for children that have auditory learning high in their personal repertoire?  Games like Simon Says or any other game that relies on strictly listening should be high on your list.  Read stories that have no pictures from time to time.  I have two blogs full of stories that can be used for this purpose.  They are located at https://summerbug1226.blogspot.com and https://nataroo38.blogspot.com.  These blogs are designed for the children to hear the stories without pictures, and then for the children to draw pictures for the story.  I do post pictures sent to me by children of all ages on the blogs.  Another idea can be to utilize older relatives to come in and tell stories like they used to have told to them as children.  Those of us that are older often take for granted that children are told these stories, but they are not.  It might be difficult for the children to listen at first, but soon they will sit as starry-eyed as their ancestors did at the feet of great storytellers.  You can also teach children quite a bit by putting lists of informations to a rhythm.  At my childcare, I teach the books of the Bible this way.  It is how I taught my own children when they were little, and I have incorporated it into our daily schedule.  If you do not want to do the books of the Bible, you could teach them the names of the states and capitals or any other list of information.  The point does not lie in the list itself so much as in learning information in an auditory manner.  If they do it in preschool, they might be able to learn lists of things using this technique later in school when that becomes necessary.  Remember preschool is all about exposure and making those brain connections.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!

Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457 

Dealing with Foolishness in Children

This post will deal with the often misunderstood concept of foolishness in children.  Many people equate foolishness with just being a kid, but the book of Proverbs is absolutely full of references to the detrimental effects of being a fool.  Is foolishness something we as parents and caregivers should try to curb?  Or is foolishness just part of being a kid that everyone should embrace to live life to the fullest?  The two previous questions should give you an indication of just how much people differ in their opinions about foolishness.

The Definition
Webster defines foolish as showing or arising from folly or lack of judgment.  Folly is defined as (1) lack of good sense or (2) a foolish act or idea.  The book of Proverbs says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.  Do children sometimes lack good judgment?  Do they do things that we might consider foolish?  Or is it just being a kid?

The Difference between Wonder and Foolishness
I want to propose that there is a difference between the wonder of being a child and foolishness.  Just like the difference between tenacity and stubbornness, these two concepts come from completely different foundations.  The natural wonder that a child has about the world comes from a desire to learn and a curiosity about how things work.  On the other hand, foolishness comes from willful disobedience just like stubbornness does.  It stems from wanting the world to function the way the child thinks it should function instead of how it actually functions.  Sometimes this is cute, but sometimes this is dangerous, destructive, or completely inappropriate.  For example, when a 4 year old child starts talking about the moon and states his/her beliefs as if they are the gospel truth, we cannot help but smile and shake our heads.  He/She is completely wrong, but there is no harm in his/her opinions.  This constitutes cute foolishness.  We know eventually the child will learn the truth.  On the other hand, when a child believes he/she should be able to jump off the top of the slide and fly, we have a problem.  That type of foolishness must be curbed immediately to avoid a tragedy.

How Obedience vs. Choices Comes into Play 
Where foolishness hits gray area tends to be where people of differing worldviews diverge on what is appropriate and what is not.  This topic very much comes down to whether a person's worldview believes in obedience or choices.  Those philosophies that believe a child should have choices and should not be made to obey, do not see foolishness in the actions of children.  They lump together into the wonderment of childhood both the curiosity and wonderment of a child with the wrong ideas that a child has.  These philosophies make no distinctions between the two and see no need to actively curb a child's wrong ideas until that child discovers the truth on his/her own.  On the flip side, those worldviews that put emphasis on obedience do see foolishness in the actions of children.  These philosophies make the distinction between the natural curiosity of a child and the wrong ideas and actions that a child has or does.

What Do You Believe?
At this point I want you to reflect on your own beliefs about foolishness.  Do you believe that a parent or caregiver should not actively correct a child's wrong notions or actions because it is just part of being a kid?  What if those wrong beliefs or actions put the child or someone else in danger?  Do you believe that a child should learn to do what is right or develop their own sense of right and wrong from their experiences?  Is there inappropriate behavior that falls under the category of foolishness that a parent or caregiver should actively curb?  How you honestly answer those questions will determine on which side of this debate you find yourself.

How Has Wrong Perceptions Affected You?
Now I want you to reflect on your own experiences with foolishness in your own life.  Have there been times in your life that your wrong perceptions of situations caused you grief, harm, or other bad effects?  Have you done things in your life that were based on what you now know as foolishness that brought ill effects?  Can you think of a time when foolishness brought you happiness and good things?  Foolishness is really only cute in babies, toddlers, and preschoolers if we are completely honest.  Every cute aspect of foolishness has a time limit.  What is cute in a baby, brings concern in a preschooler.  The foolishness in which a teenager believes becomes a serious problem when that same foolishness is present in an adult.  We all expect people to outgrow their foolishness.  Are we seeing young adults outgrow their foolish notions when they reach adulthood?  Are we seeing grade school children outgrowing the foolish actions of preschoolers?  Are we seeing preschoolers outgrowing the foolish notions of toddlers?  I do not think we are seeing an adequate amount of outgrowing foolish notions in our present society.  Way too many young adults think that they should be able to act just like they do in high school when they enter the adult work force.  Any employer will tell you that way too many young adults think that they should be able to stay on their cell phone all day and get paid for it.  A very obvious foolish notion left over from their teenage years.

Sow Foolishness, Reap Foolishness
Why are we not seeing an adequate amount of outgrowing foolish notions?  I truly believe it is because we are not actively curbing those notions in young children and continuing the curbing throughout their entire childhood and adolescence.  We see as innocent and cute actions and notions that previous generations actively sought to curb.  We are sowing foolishness, and foolishness is what we are reaping.

Let's bring this into the early childhood realm.  Be very careful what you encourage because that will be what you sow.  If you sow sassiness, then sassiness will be what you reap.  Sometimes we do not outright encourage aspects of foolishness so much as we ignore them.  Foolishness is something that must be actively curbed, or it spreads like gangrene.  Ignoring it is the same as sowing it.  Older generations knew this.  Somewhere in the last 50 years that wisdom has escaped our societal consciousness, and we have reaped foolishness in great abundance.  I am afraid that this means in practical terms that raising toddlers and preschoolers calls for a greater amount of curbing than we see now.  How you curb is up to you.  However, choosing not to curb really does not need to be an option.  Our society already scares me because of what we have allowed.  I really do not like to think about how much worse it will get before we either implode or come to our senses.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!

Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457 

The Visual Learning Style

This post will look at how to teach children that have visual learning as part of their personal learning repertoire.  Visual learning is one of what is considered "the big three" of learning styles, which are visual, auditory, and kinetic.  This post will deal specifically with visual learning.

The Individual Learning Repertoire
All people combine different learning styles to make up their own unique learning repertoire.  Sometimes people even have opposite learning styles for different activities.  No one person relies solely on one learning style, and no one person combines all learning styles.  For example, my learning style repertoire includes visual and auditory learning depending on the activity.  When dealing with reading material, I have a visual learning style.  I remember nearly everything I see.  However, with music I combine visual and auditory learning.  Sometimes I rely solely on what I see in the music and other times I will rely on what my ear tells me.  Most people like me combine many different learning styles depending on the nature of the activity to be done.

How the Teacher's Learning Style Plays into the Equation
The learning style a person initially uses for an activity can also be biased by the teaching style of the teacher.  For example, my mother taught me to cook using a hands-on method.  However, as I came into my own as an adult, I switched to a more dominant learning style for me.  Hands-on learning falls very low in my learning repertoire.  I became 1000% better at cooking when I switched to a more dominant learning style for myself.  I can follow a recipe much better than my mother can.  She has hands-on learning as one of her dominant learning styles.  Because she was my teacher, I initially had to learn using hands-on.  This phenomenon explains why a child can struggle horribly under one teacher only to have the same material all at once blossom the next year.  It has everything to do with the teaching style of the teacher meshed with the learning style of the student.

What Constitutes the Visual Learning Style?
How can you tell if you or a child you serve has a visual learning style?  A person with a visual learning style usually retains more than 50% of what they see.  When they look at material, they are drawn to the pictures and can remember details from the pictures.  Many very dominant visual learners have photographic memories.  Do you rely more on what you see than what you hear?  Then chances are that you have visual learning in your repertoire.

We live in a very visually oriented society.  We are bombarded with visual images constantly.  However, that does not mean that everyone in our society has a visual learning style.  Some people simply do not retain what they see.  They may see visual images constantly, but when asked later to recall what they see, they cannot do it.  These people do not have visual learning as part of their repertoire.

The Individual Variations
As I said earlier, I have visual learning in my own personal repertoire as do all three of my biological children.  Therefore, when I homeschooled, I filled my walls with all kinds of charts, pictures, graphs, timelines, etc. because I knew my children would benefit from these visuals.  However, the degree to which each of my children benefitted from these visuals varied.  My oldest is not as strong a visual learner as my other two.  She benefitted from the visuals but also had to have other types of learning thrown in for various subjects, and it varied from subject to subject.  With math, she had to have more hands-on than the other two as well as science, but she remembers what she reads.  The charts and pictures that contained words were easier for her to retain than a simple picture.  Each person will process information in their own unique way.  It is our job as a teacher to find that way and utilize it.

Over the years I have had the majority of my children in my preschool have visual learning fairly high in their repertoire.  Therefore, I have visuals in my childcare everywhere.  However, I now have one child that is not a visual learner at all.  He is an auditory learner, and he pays no attention to all the pictures, charts, graphs, etc.  He also has attention issues.  Visuals tend to overstimulate him and cause him to shut down and drift.  I have to keep his visual stimulus very simple and make sure I use plenty of verbal explanation as I walk him through activities.  He remembers what he hears in such detail, it is astonishing.  I call him my walking encyclopedia.  However, sometimes he does not retain what he hears either.  With him, it very much depends on what gets his attention, which can be random unless it deals with animals.  He always pays attention when the discussion turns to animals.  His unique repertoire will fall into other categories we will discuss in future posts.

In Conclusion
To sum up, visual learners need lots of material before their eyes.  They benefit from visually stimulating textbooks and usually learn well with computer graphics.  In a preschool setting, they will be the children to notice all the labels we are encouraged to put all over everything.  They will be the ones to notice when you change decorations or visuals on the walls in two seconds flat.  These children need a good variety of picture books to peruse.  You must never underestimate what these children can learn from a picture.  They will also benefit greatly from exposure to art both realistic and abstract.  However, each child will latch onto different forms of visual stimuli.  Take note of what gets their interest.  More than likely, this will give you clues as to the unique mix of that child's learning repertoire.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457

Dealing with Stubbornness in Children

This post will tackle one of the most hotly debated topics between early childcare experts and parents especially when dealing with toddlers.  I will look at whether stubbornness in children can actually be a good thing, or is good stubbornness actually something entirely different?

The Definition
Webster defines stubbornness as (1) done or continued in a willful, unreasonable, or persistent manner or (2) not easily controlled or remedied.  Many modern early childhood experts exclude all the preceding definition for stubborn except the persistent part.  They basically equate stubbornness with persistence and tell parents that the stubbornness in their children is really a good thing.  Being stubborn will make them strong people that can stand up for themselves.  However, I think these experts are badly mistaken by equating stubbornness with tenacity.  Webster defines tenacious as (1) not easily pulled apart or (2) holding fast.  Tenacity involves the ability to hold fast to what you believe is right in the face of unbelievable odds.  Stubbornness, on the other hand, is holding to what you want to do whether it is right or wrong without regard for wisdom and sound judgment.  There is a world of difference between these two concepts.  Being stubborn will not make a person tenacious.  It is a different character trait.

A Time of Reflection
Before I proceed, I want everyone reading this to take a moment and reflect on how many times in your life stubbornness caused you grief beyond measure.  How many times did it put you in a position where you ended up spending more money or wasting a whole lot of time?  How many times did stubbornness reek havoc on your relationships?  Now, turn that around and think about all the times in your life where stubbornness was a good thing in your life.  Were those times stubbornness or were they tenaciousness?  Were you standing against the crowd for what you believed to be right?  That was tenaciousness.  Can anyone honestly say that holding onto what you want to do without regard for wisdom and sound judgment has ever brought anyone anything but grief?  Now, can anyone say that stubbornness is a character trait we want to instill in our children?  I hope not.

Is Stubbornness a Good Thing?
I cannot tell you the number of articles I have read in recent years that actually tell parents not to worry about those stubborn tendencies in their children.  They promote stubbornness as a sign of being a strong person, and therefore, not something a parent should be concerned about curbing.  However, these same parents are completely confounded when those stubborn little toddlers turn into completely irrational stubborn teenagers that endanger their own lives and the lives of others with their actions.  Guess what?  If you deal with the stubbornness in toddlerhood, you will produce teenagers that at least have a little sense.  The stubbornness does kick back in during the adolescent years, but if it is allowed to go unchecked until that point in a child's life, you will have uncontrollable teenagers.  All one has to do is look around at our society to know that I speak the truth.  Teenagers believe they can do whatever they want to do without any consequences.  They were allowed to be raised in their stubbornness and all they will bring to their parents and society is grief beyond measure.

How Do We Deal with Stubbornness?
Now, if what I say is true, then we have a serious problem with our parental and childhood behavior management philosophies.  The current best practice for dealing with stubborn toddlers is to redirect them or give them two positive choices.  Does this deal with the underlying problem or simply put it off for a later date?  I will tell you what it produces.  It produces three, four, five, six, seven, eight, etc. year  olds that can throw a hissy fit to rival any toddler.  The magnitude and severity of the hissy fits has escalated to the point that parents feel like their children rule the roost and not for the better.  Many parents continue the redirection or simply completely give in to avoid the horrible hissy fits that ensue when they try to get their children to do something they do not want to do.  I say our behavior management techniques for toddlers are completely misguided and detrimental to society in the long-term.  Toddlerhood is the time when a parent/caregiver should deal with the stubborn monster head on. That produces three, four, five, six, seven, eight, etc, year olds that can actually be reasoned with and deal with having to do something that must be done that they do not necessarily like.

Stubbornness Is Inappropriate
So, if redirection and two positive choices do not constitute a wise way to deal with toddlers, then what is?  First of all, you must treat stubbornness as a completely inappropriate behavior.  Most of the standard behavioral "wisdom" of the day states that stubbornness is developmentally appropriate for toddlers and therefore not to be dealt with as a behavioral issue.  Hogwash!!!  When we begin to view stubbornness in the same light as we do aggressiveness, we might begin to turn the tide against some of the horrible aggressive issues that childcare professionals on the front lines see every day.  The Bible equates stubbornness with idolatry.  Maybe just maybe stubbornness needs to be treated as something not appropriate in our society.  Secondly, we need to walk the toddlers through their issues rather than around them.  Will this involve tears, wailing, and gnashing of teeth?  Absolutely.  Will it be time-consuming and inconvenient?  More than likely.  However, in the LONG-TERM best interest of the child, this will be absolutely necessary.

The Difference between Stubbornness and Tenacity
Before I leave this subject I want to briefly touch on the difference between stubbornness and tenacity in toddlers.  When a toddler is trying to do something themselves, that is tenacity.  This can be terribly inconvenient at times, but should not be treated the same way as a toddler that is refusing to pick-up or put on their coat when it is cold outside.  Tenacity flows from a desire to do what is right.  It actually comes from a place of obedience.  The child desires to do the right thing even if it might be the wrong time.  Stubbornness, on the other hand, flows from willful disobedience.  It comes from a child wanting his/her own way regardless.  The two character traits are not the same.  Do not treat tenacity as stubbornness unless the child has crossed over into irrational behavior.  Toddlers are inconvenient quite a bit of the time.  It comes with the territory.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457

An Introduction to Different Learning Styles

This post will be an introduction to a series I will do on different learning styles.  Many people only refer to three different learning styles - visual, auditory, and kinetic.  However, in this series I will look at those three plus many more.

The Lessons of Homeschooling
As a former homeschooling mom I understand that all children have their own unique take on learning. All three of my biological children had their own unique ways of looking at the same material.  Homeschooling taught me to be very flexible in how I approach teaching the same material to different children.  I did not have to change the material contrary to what some experts believe.  I am not one that holds to letting the child fully determine the contents of the curriculum.  I have seen that in the homeschooling world, and it produces children who know everything there is to know about lizards but are unable to actually read the books about lizards.  The material can stay the same while the approach to the material can be individualized.  For that child who lives for lizards, lizards can be utilized in as many ways as possible, but you will still have to cover the basics of reading and math.  The core of what is taught children does pretty much remain universal around the world if we are completely honest about it.  How that core is taught fuels the greatest debate of the last couple of centuries.

Educational Fads
Why is it that everyone has "the way" to reinvent the educational system?  Over the last fifty or so years so many different educational fads have come and gone.  This was really pronounced in the school system where I attended K-12.  We were a guinea pig school.  We were so small that in order for our school system to maintain adequate funding, our administrators would take grants to try every new thing that came down the pike.  My mother was a teacher's aid and had to attend all those preservice trainings to learn the "new" way school was being done that year.  I remember listening to her tell all about the latest way to get children to learn, and I watched good teachers burn out because the school systems would not just let them teach.  They were constantly having to follow a new formula that did not fit their teaching style nor our learning style.  If it were not for decent textbooks, I would not have had a decent education.  Fortunately, while I was in school they left the textbooks alone.  That is not the case in today's educational world.

The Value of Knowing Your Personal Learning Style
When approaching the educational world, the very first item of business every teacher, administrator, and politician creating educational policy needs to understand is how they learn individually.  Understanding your own personal learning style does matter greatly in how effective of a teacher you will be.  If you do not understand how you learn, how can you decipher how someone else learns.  However, the second item all of these groups must understand is that everyone else may not learn that way.  Here lies the problem of ALL the educational fads that have come and gone.  A person discovers his/her own learning style and believes he/she has discovered the perfect way for everyone to learn.  What this person discovered was the perfect way for him/her to learn not the perfect way for everyone else to learn.  To be an effective educator, you must understand how unique every person's learning style is.  Deciphering your own learning style gives you the tools to discern other people's learning styles.  It is not a stopping point but a place from which to launch the investigation into how the people being taught learn as well.  Every group of people will encompass different ways of grasping material.  The beauty of being a teacher is that you never stop learning how to teach other people.  You must be a student of learning styles in order to effectively present material to your students.

The New Fad - Individualized Instruction
Right now the new fad in education in some circles revolves around the individualization of instruction.  Most of what I have seen of this new fad falls into some of the categories I will be covering in the next several months during the weekend posts.  However, they demonize many other categories of learning that I will cover.  They have fallen into the trap of only seeing the world as they personally see it and demonizing the rest of the world as inadequate.  I hope that I will not fall into that trap during this series.  The one thing I have learned during all my years as an educator is that sometimes my teaching/learning style does not mesh with the learning style of one of my students.  Because our learning styles may be opposite of one another, I need to have the maturity to understand that and let those parents know I am not a good fit for their child.  That does not mean something is wrong with that child.  It means that child needs a teacher that can relate to his/her learning style.  In the educational world we do not need a one size fits all mentality.  We need a plurality of teaching styles and the freedom for children and parents to seek out the styles best suited for their children.  One teacher cannot possibly cover every single teaching style and do it justice.  I understand the many different teaching styles, but I also know which ones I simply cannot cover well.  Does that make me a bad teacher?  No. That makes me a wise teacher.  When the rest of the educational world finally quits trying to find the "one" right way to teach and admits their limitations, we will begin to see a true individualization of instruction in a way that is truly productive.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457