All parents wish their children do well in life and have a good future. To have a secure future, one’s foundation needs to be strong, regardless of the final destination. Although school is one of the places where your child acquires a lot of knowledge, self study learning new things by themselves at home, or wherever they are, goes a long way!
Children require their parents around them the most, especially in the early part of their schooling. Be it to help them with their homework, or to take them up on what they have learned. But you. as a parent, cannot always stay on their tail, especially as they begin to grow older. This is where the habit of self-studying comes into play.
With that said, the natural question that arises is ‘How can I help my child self study?’
What is Self Study and Why is It Important?
Self-study is an indispensable skill or a habit that one must inculcate into their wards. When your child comes home from school and does their homework without you telling them to do so, or study for an exam by themselves, or even learn a new skill on their own, then you can say that your child has developed this habit of self-studying.
Cultivating this habit is crucial as it begins their journey of becoming independent. The earlier your children start establishing this habit, the better it is for them, as the learning process is much faster for children when compared to adults. Therefore, it is critical for every parent to understand the importance of self study.
How Can You Independently help Your Child Self Study?
There are many ways and techniques that you can use to help your child indulge self-studying. Few self study tips are highlighted below.
1. Create a Healthy Environment
Creating a healthy and holistic environment for your child is the primary objective in enabling them to self study on their own. The surrounding conditions should make the process of self learning fun and wholesome rather than upsetting or annoying.
2. Encourage Communication
Sit down with your child and talk about how their day was at school. Ask them things like what they learned in class or how they interacted with friends to solve academic problems. Even though the idea is to develop the habit of self study, it does not mean that you should cut yourself off completely.
Let your children know that even you are involved in their schooling and are also interested in knowing more about it so that they can approach you without any doubt when they are stuck or have any problem. This will help them gain the confidence needed to take steps on their own, knowing that you have always got their back!
3. Provide Resources
Provide them with self study material that will be helpful for them. For example, give them enough books in which they can practice what they have learned. You can even allow them to use a computer once they have grown a little older, as the internet contains a plethora of knowledge.
Apart from this, ensure that they work in a well-lit room, which is free of distraction and is also properly ventilated.
4. Child-Centric Learning
Focus on the interests of your child and come up with activities that are related to those interests, so that your kid does it with enthusiasm and curiosity and also learns something from them.
It is also important in the initial stages that you do not force your child to cultivate this habit. Start slowly and on a small scale. At the end of the day, the activities and learning should be child-centric, and they must do it at their own speed, making it a self paced learning.
5. Provide Motivation
It is natural for a kid to get demotivated after a failure and give up. This is where it becomes crucial for you to motivate them and ensure that they keep going. Let them know that making mistakes is acceptable, and failure is not the end of the road.
Give them examples of incidents from your own life or any other famous personality, who didn’t turn around when they failed, but learned from the mistakes they made and worked even harder after that with success as their only goal.
6. Acknowledge Their Victories
Acknowledging and celebrating their victories and accomplishments can also play a major factor in keeping your child motivated. This is even more essential for young kids who constantly need to know that others are appreciating their work.
Their achievements don’t necessarily have to be big ones. Even small things like doing well in their test or learning a few words in a new language must be recognized and respected.
Also, it is necessary to provide feedback on things that they can do better next time. Whether they taste success or failure in their task, there will always be room for improvement. And only you can let them know of areas that they can refine and enhance.
Conclusion
An autodidact is valued more today than a person who must be told what to do and how to do it at every stage of the job. In a professional environment, it becomes easier for a person who has a higher authority to know that their staff or workforce can get a job done without much interference from their side.
Thus, it becomes important for you as a parent to guide your children in their early years in becoming independent self study taught learners, as it will certainly help them in the long run. A platform such as Learningbix can be an excellent way for you to get started.
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