6 MISTAKES PARENTS ARE DOING THAT DISCOURAGE LEARNING

1) Over teach

There is a reason why MOE lauded its ‘Teach Less, Learn More’ initiative. Too much teaching discourages independent learning. Your child needs to learn how to learn. He needs to learn to discover and understand on his own. Many parents make the mistake by pushing their child to learn too fast and too much. The race is not about how fast you know a certain skill or how much you know; the key skill that your child need to cultivate is the ability to learn on his own.

2) Discourage the love of learning

Children are innate learners. But some parents inadvertently discourage them to learn. Be careful not to make negative remarks on learning. Do not use learning as a form of punishment (e.g. ‘Because you threw a tantrum, I am sending you to your room to read’). Do not make it sound like it is not fun (e.g. ‘You can only play after you finish writing this’). And never belittle your child (e.g. ‘You are so stupid’)

3) Rote learning

​Learning should not be static. There is no one way to learn. While each child might have different learning styles, do not confine them to one mode of learning.  Write it down, use manipulatives, songs, physical activities, group-work – the key is to hone your child’s ability to learn in all ways. And never rely only on assessment books.  

4) Learning without context

​The most common mistake parents make is to limit knowledge to paper and pen. Children need to understand things in authentic contexts. They need to see, hear, touch, smell and feel before they can create meanings. And they need to transfer their knowledge to various authentic contexts so that they internalize what they learnt. For example, if 1 and 1 make 2, they should transfer that to know that $1 and $1 make $2; and one hour after one o’clock is two o’clock. 

5) Overly repetitive

Repetition is good to perfect skills. But you don’t have to repeatedly do the same thing if the understanding is complete. Some enrichment and tuition centres focus on repeating and practicing the same skills. In the short term, your child will achieve good results. But over the long haul, your child becomes fixated on one method of learning and may face problem moving on to higher level skills. 

6) Promote unhealthy competition

Never compare your child’s performance with another child. Learning is not for results solely. Teach your child to enjoy learning, and to strive to excel for himself. Competition discourages both the winner and the loser. As long as your child improves, that is a victory and should be celebrated.