Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

| CWK Producer

A new study in Developmental Psychology confirms that one of the powerful ingredients in a child’s success, not only in school, but for the rest of their lives, is to think and wait and then act.  It’s a simple lesson, but profoundly important and one that parents can teach at home. 

As soon as she gets home from school, 10-year-old Kailey hits the books.  “Sometimes I work ‘till dinner on my homework,” she says.

She gets A’s and B’s, all hard-earned.

“It’s hard sometimes, when she sees other kids that it does come easy for them, and they don’t seem to do a whole lot to get an ‘A’,” says her mother, Robin Williams.

But is intelligence as important as self-control?

In one experiment, researchers gave 300 eighth graders a choice:  they could have a dollar now, or get two if they waited a week.

A year later, it was the children with the discipline to wait who got the best grades in school… even better than the students with the highest IQ

“A child who does not have to work hard in school won’t learn how to manage their time, how to study, how to delay gratification,” says Bonnie Cohen-Greenberg, an M.Ed. in Special Education. “Everything comes easy to them, and later on in life they will have problems.”

Parents, Cohen-Greenberg says, need to teach their kids to wait - watch TV, go to the mall, hang out with friend, but only after your homework is done.

And she says that, too often, parents will applaud intelligence over self-discipline.

“And in fact,” she says, “they’ll even brag ‘my child doesn’t have to work very hard and they’re getting great grades, isn’t that wonderful’.” 

Cohen-Greenberg says parents should encourage their child to seek out challenges, such as classes or activities that don’t come easily at first, and praise the effort.

For Kailey, math, her most difficult subject, is one of her favorites.  “I like the challenging [subjects] the best,” she says.  “You learn more.”

Tips for Parents

How can you determine if you child needs a tutor?  The Huntington Learning Center lists the following signs indicating that your child may need extra academic help:
 

• Your child’s teacher or school counselor recommends it.  This may happen at a parent-teacher conference.  It may also occur when progress reports are issued or at report card time.
• Your child’s grades start to fall independent of how hard he or she seems to be working, where before they were improving or holding steady.
• No matter how long your child spends on homework, it’s neither complete nor accurate.  This may indicate a lack of basic skills or a weakness in a specific academic area.
• Caught in a cycle of frustration and failure, your child shows an increasing lack of confidence and motivation.
• Your child has lost interest in learning.
• Your child experiences extreme anxiety before tests and exams.
• Your child is reluctant to go to school, fearing failure and criticism from others.
• Your child’s teacher reports that he or she is acting out, becoming a behavior problem in class.
• Your child says, “I’m too stupid.  I’ll never understand this stuff.”
• Your child says, “I give up.” Or, worse, you hear yourself saying it.

Even if your child is not struggling in school, you may want to consider getting him or her tutor.  The experts at FamilyFun magazine cite the following benefits of a tutor:

• Tutoring can provide personal attention that teachers simply don’t have the time to offer.  Sometimes, your child can feel lost in a room of 25 or 30 kids.  
• Sometimes your child is gifted, but advancing him or her to the next grade may be inappropriate.  A tutor can offer challenges and special assignments to keep him or her excited about learning.
• A tutor is not Mom or Dad.  Children are more willing to open their minds in one-on-one academic settings when parent-child dynamics are not involved.
• Having a tutor may make your child feel special.  Your child may feel that he or she deserves this special “coaching” much as gifted athletes are often privately trained.

When looking for a tutor, it is important to find someone with whom your child can develop a rapport.  According to the experts at Schwab Learning, a good tutor should possess the following characteristics:

• Be well-trained in effective instructional approaches
• Have plenty of prior experience tutoring children in a specific area
• Be good at working with children, including establishing rapport, so that your child wants to go back.

Keep in mind that when you find a prospective tutor, you will need to interview him or her to determine whether or not the individual is right for the job.  Consider the following questions as you prepare for your interview:

• What is your background, training and experience in teaching struggling children?
• What kind of approach to teaching do you take?
• What special training or certification have you completed? 
• How long have you been tutoring children?
• Approximately how many students have you tutored over the past five years, and what were the outcomes?

References

• FamilyFun magazine
• Huntington Learning Center
• Schwab Learning

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