Does Repeating Roberts Line Over and Over Again Help Him Remember It?
Instruction While Parenting: The Long Game
by Kate Roberts & Maggie Beattie Roberts
Our son was throwing food on the floor. Constantly. Compulsively, even. It was a game and nosotros were losing desperately. Our interaction went the same way each mealtime:
Son throws pea puree on flooring.
"Nosotros don't throw food on the floor." Cheerful tone of phonation.
Son continues throwing pea puree on floor, now staring us dead in the eyes and smiling.
"We don't throw food on the floor, buddy. C'mon yous know that." Serious
tone of phonation.
Son now throws applesauce on the floor with a shriek of glee and
another stare down.
"Hey! Do you run across Mama has to make clean that up!" Exasperated.
All of the food is hurled in every management.
One night over dinner with a dear friend, we brought up our son'due south new habit. Nadine, wise parent, chosen sister, and good friend, said, "The affair almost parenting is that information technology's all about the long game."
We had no idea what she was talking most.
She noticed our bare faces and connected. "In parenting, there are all these things you want your kids to do differently or larn. But they don't. Not at first. You lot take to go along at it, repeating the aforementioned directions calmly and with honey. And it withal doesn't piece of work. For months. Maybe years. Feels like forever. Simply then, of a sudden, your child says cheers without beingness reminded, or stays on their back for a diaper alter."
So we tried information technology. We kept saying calmly to our son without getting flustered, "Nosotros don't throw food on the floor." It's accurate to say we said it a thou times. It did not work, until it did. He stopped.
We did the same thing with hitting. "We don't hit. Gentle hands." Over and over. Every bit calmly equally we could. And and then he stopped. Same with sitting in his seat for mealtime, staying on his back for diaper changes, maxim please and give thanks you.
Now that he is older, we are tackling bigger and more than hard skills. We are working on navigating nervousness and beingness kind to friends when you don't get your fashion. We are trying to do the same thing — sticking with the strategy, repeating it over and over as calmly as we tin can, until the seed takes root. And nosotros are beginning the whole process again with his younger brother. It's easier with him because we take a frame of reference. We know that with repetition and practice, the behavior will take hold.
We've also notice that the moment we go frustrated (which obviously happens way too much because we are human), the behavior intensifies. It's like our frustration feeds the negative stuff and makes it grow.
A therapist recently told u.s. that kids crave connectedness with their parents. They will go along to seek it however that connection is made. Positive or negative, they want our attending. If nosotros requite them exasperation and frustration, they will seek the beliefs out that gives them that intense connection, admitting negative. If we requite them silliness and dear, they will do more of that behavior. And if we give them neutral energy, they see that this behavior doesn't get them what they want at all.
"Give them more than of the happy, silly loving connections for what you want them to exercise and neutralize everything else. The negative reactions still feel like connection and they will crave it."
As teachers, there are endless skills, behaviors, and mindsets we promise our kids will develop. We set up goals for our class, and then more individual goals for our students. We seek to offer them strategies that volition help them reach those goals. We teach our hearts out, seeking means to appoint, back up, and inspire.
And then . . . they don't practise it. The kids proceed throwing their food on the floor. The unit moves on, and and so do we. We switch to new goals, new skills, and teach our hearts out. The bike repeats.
Now, school is non home. Nosotros are non our students' parent. There are then many students and just one of united states of america. Any expectation that we will exist able to nurture each student with the same consistency, dear, and compassion that we exercise our own kids is jump for failure. However, there are some ways we can bring what we know nigh learning into our classrooms.
We can remember that teaching is all about the long game too.
i. Set up Long-Term Goals
We frequently set up our sights on the short-term goals of a unit. For example, "My students will write a literary essay." Instead, nosotros tin think bigger and broader. What goals could our students cover that would bear upon lots of kinds of writing? What if they learned how to elaborate in whatever genre? What if they spent time structuring their writing by studying different mentor texts for possibilities? Or possibly their goals are more behavioral like, "My students volition spent lots of fourth dimension brainstorming and collecting in their writing notebooks before committing to an idea to bring to publication."
These kinds of long-term goals are ones nosotros tin can repeat, with love and patience, knowing they volition sink in over time.
2. Seek Out Repetition in Discussion and Deed
In one case we know our long-game (elaboration, independence, revision) nosotros can consider how to set up repetitive practice for our students, as well every bit encouragement and coaching. People learn best when they go to try the same thing over and over again. We are but learning how to parent well because information technology's the aforementioned stuff over and over. Then, the kid grows up into another developmental stage and we are bad at information technology all over again until nosotros go those hours and hours of practice in again.
Consider how students could practice that long-term goal each 24-hour interval. If the goal is elaboration, recall about when kids will practice "writing long" in reading, writing, or the content areas. Fifty-fifty if it's just 10 minutes of stretching out a story from their day afterward a lesson on structuring a story. Every bit of practice counts.
3. Stay Neutral, Get Silly
Now comes the hard work. Because these are long-term goals, we accept to think in long-term means; kids are not going to go better right away. Or some of them might not. We have to exist okay with that.
Watching our sons "get" a lesson after a month of repeating the same strategies and lessons again and again has shown us that teaching is so much near staying patient when you feel exasperated. Keep those negative thoughts on the inside. When you find yourself feeling similar "I've already taught you that a million times," remember that when something is hard, or unengaging, or unfamiliar, information technology tin can take a really long time to get information technology into our automated exercise. Similar when we were reminding our boys non throw food, try to stay neutral as you repeat the same strategies, the same instructions, for the millionth time.
After all, our connection with our students is incredibly important. When nosotros go frustrated that they are not "getting it," nosotros create a tension that is the antithesis to engagement and motivation. Or worse, we create a negative connection they then crave. When you come across some growth, even a tiny lilliputian scrap, allow your enthusiasm and honey polish. When we couple the repetitive do of clear strategies with the commemoration and encouragement in small growth, we create the conditions for truthful learning.
The other 24-hour interval, we were feeding our youngest. He is two and is in full food-throwing manner. When he is done, he is Done. For the past two weeks, we have repeated the same words nosotros repeated to our eldest a few years agone. "We don't throw our food, buddy. We merely say, 'All Done!'" He is ignoring our instructions valiantly. As we write this, he projected his Cheerios across the dining room flooring and our eldest sighed, laughed, and repeated those same words to his younger brother. "Nosotros don't throw our food." And then he looked at usa with the sincerity only a four-year-erstwhile can muster and said, "Don't worry, he'll larn. I didn't know in one case like that too."
We will remember that when we are telling him to be flexible for the millionth time.
Kate Roberts is a national literacy consultant, top-selling author, and popular keynote speaker. She taught reading and writing in Brooklyn, NY and worked as a literacy coach before joining the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in 2005, where she worked as a Lead Staff Developer for 11 years. Kate'southward latest book, A Novel Approach, asks how we tin teach whole course novels while still holding onto student-centered practices like readers workshop. She is also the co-writer of Falling in Love with Close Reading (with Christopher Lehman), DIY Literacy (with Maggie Beattie Roberts), and she co-wrote two Units of Study books on Literary Essay. Her work with students across the country has led to her belief that all kids can be insightful, academic thinkers when the work is demystified, broken downward and made engaging. To this end, Kate has worked nationally and internationally to assistance teachers, schools, and districts develop and implement potent teaching practices and curriculum.
Maggie Beattie Roberts is coauthor (with Kate Roberts) of DIY Literacy. As a staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Maggie is committed to helping teachers tap into the ability of their ain deep engagement in reading and writing. Maggie has led enquiry and development to assist teachers employ digital literacy and technology, including popular media, every bit an alternate manner to help young people grasp fundamental concepts; she has likewise pioneered new work in content-area literacy. Maggie began her career in the heart of Chicago, and pursued graduate studies in the Literacy Specialist program at Columbia Academy's Teachers Higher. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences, and leads school- and metropolis-wide staff development around the state.
Follow Kate and Maggie online.
Twitter: @TeachKate @MaggieBRoberts
Pinterest: /IndentBlog
Blog: KateAndMaggie.com
Source: https://medium.com/@heinemann/teaching-while-parenting-the-long-game-7feb616d5206
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