Teaching Frustrated Kids - edited

If you have ever tried to teach a child a new skills, you will be familiar with the frustrated anguish they feel when they struggle with a new concept, and the frustration you feel when you try and try, and they try and try, and they just can't get it. 

The adult gives up wanting to teach the child, the child gives up wanting to learn.  For anyone to learn effectively, they need to find the learning process an enjoyable experience, and children are no exception to this.  Adults need to find ways to make that happen for anyone they are teaching, but especially so for children.  Kids feed off our emotions, and if we are getting frustrated or bored, they will sense that and also become distressed or bored.  However, staying calm is only the tip of the iceberg of things that we need to be aware of when trying to teach our children.

All the best advice I have ever received about teaching children anything has come from my brother - a drum tutor that works with all age groups.  He has made me very aware of many little things that I otherwise would have taken for granted - and according to his dealings with his student's parents, my ignorance was quite typical.

Firstly, we need to understand why children get frustrated.  For a start, they want to be able to do things as well as adults, and they want to do it now.  Of course, that is impossible as everything takes practise.  We need to encourage patience and persistance, and we also need to make them aware of every little improvement - thus instilling the belief that in time they will be able to do things as well as we can.  They need to believe that they can eventually achieve their goals.  My brother constantly tells all of his students, regardless of age, that the only difference between his drumming ability and theirs is that he has spent more hours learning and practising - and it is a true statement.

The next thing that we have to be aware of is that every new skill has pre-requisites that need to be learned first.  We can't learn to run until we have figured out walking, which we can't do until we figure out how to stand up.  Everything is like this.  Often we have trouble seeing what it is that the child is struggling with because there are many things that we as adults take for granted.  Counting, the alphabet, left and right, physical coordination, ability to express themselves, and a million other little skills that have become second nature to us, are still being learned and practised by children. 

My brother has to take time out to help some of his students learn to count, as the timing in music requires that simple ability, yet some of his students have not learned that yet.  As a swimming instructor, I had to teach children how to hold their breath.  Seems too simple, but if they haven't learned to do that, they may not necessarily realise (until they try it) that breathing water hurts (which scares them and then they lose interest in learning).  When a child is learning a new skill and struggling, we sometimes need to take a step back and figure out if we should be teaching them something else first.

The attention span of a child is far shorter than that of an adult.  We are better off giving them many short lessons, rather than a few long ones.  A longer lesson is just wasting time, as the child will stop absorbing information far sooner than an adult will.  The child will also become very quickly bored.  Bordom does not qualify as an enjoyable experience, and again, the child will end up in a situation where they simply no longer want to learn.

Children are smaller than we are.  When learning to do anything physical we need to take that into consideration.  They can't run as fast, they can't jump as high, they can't reach as far, they aren't as strong, and they aren't as coordinated.  Their ability to judge speed, area, and distance is weaker than ours.  We also have a learned knowledge of weight and dimension.  As far as a young child is concerned, there is no logical reason why they wouldn't be able to pick up and carry an elephant, or why they wouldn't be able to fit a giraffe in their pocket.

Another common mistake that adults are inclined to make when teaching children is under-estimating their intelligence.  Some adults often talk down to children.  They assume that because children aren't as knowledgable as adults are, their lack of understanding results from a lack of intelligence rather than a lack of experience.  Treating children as being unintelligent sends them the message that you believe they are unintelligent, it damages their self-esteem, and they can eventually end up believing that they aren't smart enough to learn - and consequently they lose heart and no longer want to learn.

Finally, the lessons have to be interesting to the child.  For example:  a child that loves vehicles will very quickly pick up on any information you care to give about the subject, but if that child is not interested in cooking, no amount of effort is going to coax any information to sink and stay in the child's memory - unless you find a manner in which to make it interesting.  This is tricky, as you need to find ways to associate what they are not interested in with things they are interested in.  This child might take an intense interest in making biscuits, if the cookie cutter is shaped like a car.

As parents, we are constantly educating our children, and it may seem like we do okay, stumbling along and learning from our children as much as they learn from us; but it doesn't hurt to have a little bit of extra insight into these little things that are so often over-looked.