Motivating Children To Learn From Home; According To Their Nature
Completing school work at home can be exhausting especially with the bribing, pushing and pleading. Not to mention the worrying thoughts that you're not being the best stay-at-home, work-from-home, parent-teacher-mum during lock-down.
When you recognise the Nature of your child, you can easily understand what sort of home-school environment would be supportive of his or her needs. When these needs are met your child will feel balanced, happy, more co-operative and motivated to learn - without you by their side.
Children are all wired to process information differently and there are so many nuances and variables between each nature and how they prefer to learn. For instance, Social Natured children can learn with many things going on around them. They can easily complete their tasks while eating a snack or having music on in the background. Whereas Structured Natured children prefer a private, quiet setting where they can focus.
Let's look at a few ways Parents can tweak things at home to support learning.
Social Natured children like to be acknowledged for their success and absolutely thrive on positive feedback. They don’t care about finishing their work as they place more value on socialising and playtime.
A high moving, Social Natured child learns best if he or she can:
Have opportunities to get up and move around while learning,
Have the freedom to connect, then disconnect before connecting again, and
Learn in an environment that is light and fun.
For example, they could focus intensely for a short period of time and then get up, move about and have a stretch before returning to their task.
You will notice they can be very quick thinkers and tend to jump from one idea to another, appearing distracted. This does not mean they are not learning or not motivated to learn; they just learn best when they have the freedom to engage and disengage when they need to.
If a Strong Natured child is supported by a parent who notices his or her gifts for leadership and allows them to work in their swift, forward style of movement, then their home-schooling experience will be successful.
Strong Natured children want to please their parents. But, their survival instincts will always steer them in the direction of getting their needs met first - such as having control.
This high need for control often overrides the opportunity for learning and following instructions, resulting in the child being reprimanded for reactive or unwanted behaviour at home.
High movement children such as the Strong Natured child learns better in groups where they:
Can collaborate, lead and teach others;
Are challenged or involved in competition;
Have control over their own learning; and
Can move forward to quickly see the result of their efforts.
Sensitive Natured children prefer to work in a slow and steady way gathering all the information first before making a start.
For example, if a Sensitive child is rushed and pushed to get on with a task before they have gathered enough details to perform it comfortably, he or she will keep whining and asking questions to meet their need for information.
Sensitive Natured children learn better in a quiet, predictable environment where they can:
Have enough time to complete tasks;
Be given all the details they need and time to process them;
Have time to talk things over with a parent
Structured Natured children generally learn better in a quiet setting where they can focus and have the opportunity for independent learning.
They are task orientated, and will prefer to get on with the task rather than collaborate with others; and
They need opportunities to focus quietly for extended periods of time.
They have high standards of themselves and will work hard to perfect everything they do.
Understanding the different Natures of children and what they need in order to focus and be motivated makes learning from home easier during this time.
For more information on the highest needs of each Nature check out www.thenzsupernanny.co.nz