Lois Brydenbeck, a teacher from America with 54 years of teaching experience at the school, told what parents should pay attention to when preparing children for the future.
1. Read to the child, read with the child, and listen when he reads. Let her see what you read.
2. Teach children to be independent, do not do everything for them. Find information about what skills to expect from a child of a certain age. (For example, when she needs to be able to tie shoelaces).
3. Recent research (published by Business Insider) shows that the most successful people are those who as a child were taught by their parents to do daily household chores, and had a schedule. So let the children do the housework.
4. Set rules and be consistent, follow the rules and daily routine for the child.
5. Be authoritative, not authoritarian. Do not shout at children, do not be cruel.
6. Listen to the children, and put your phones away. Learn to communicate live.
7. Sometimes parents say, “I’m talking to my child.” But they are talking to her, not to her. If you have a conversation together, then you teach your child how to communicate with society.
8. We say that children have freedom of choice, but they are not born with the ability to make good choices. Therefore, it is our responsibility to teach this. This does not mean opening the closet and saying: choose what to wear. After all, a child can choose a T-shirt in winter. Instead, choose between three things that are appropriate for the weather and the place where the child is going.
9. If the child does not want to make a choice, or he does not like what he was offered, your task is to teach him to control his emotions. Children need to understand that the emotions they feel are real. We must teach them to call “anger”, “joy”, and “happiness”, and to control and recognize others. And also to understand that they are real to another person.
10. Focus on the process, not the result. Children need space to make mistakes because they learn. They must learn to correct mistakes and be responsible for their choices.
11. Bilingualism or knowledge of many languages will help the child in the future because he will have to work with people who do not know his native language.
Linguistic skills involve more than just language skills. As you learn a language, you also learn who the people who speak it are, and their culture.
12. Do not require children to speak a foreign language after the first lesson. Free social communication takes 2-3 years, and fluency in an academic language requires up to seven years of study. Everything comes with time.
13. Music helps to develop auditory memory and therefore facilitates language learning.
14. I don’t know why “boring” has become a bad word. Boredom is good, it gives time to think.
15. When children do something good – praise them, but not so that they consider themselves kings and princesses. In this way, they will develop healthy self-esteem, and they will know when praise is deserved and when it is inappropriate.
16. Help children form the image of a healthy person. Now girls think that they should have perfect skin, lush lips, and be very thin. Remember that beauty standards are constantly changing.
17. When you complain about the school or the teacher, know that it will affect the school’s ability to teach your child.
18. Don’t forget to take the time to let your child see that you are a person. Don’t make her the most important thing in your life so that you don’t have relationships with other people – it will affect her own ability to build relationships.
19. Develop in the child a strong sense of family. Introduce family rituals that you will do together. You should have family time together – for example, lunch.
20. Help children understand their place in the world – share with them the language of your family, and tell family stories or memories.
