Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
- Leo Buscaglia


Your Child’s Learning Environment

Just as a beautiful gemstone needs the perfect setting to allow it to shine, your child needs a special setting, physical, emotional, and intellectual, that will bring out his or her brilliance.

For learning to endure, a child needs to feel safe. There are different sorts of safety - physical, emotional, intellectual - and they are all paramount to a positive learning experience. Another application of your child’s learning style is the understanding of what sort of environment will work best. Creating a safe learning environment that addresses your child’s learning style will protect and foster his or her innate love of learning.

Physical Environment
First, we’ll concentrate on your child’s physical learning and study space. Ideally, your child would have a place that is dedicated solely to school work, where he or she can be safe from interruptions (unless, of course, your child actually learns better in the midst of activity).

If your family shares a computer, we recommend creating a schedule for its use, so no one feels discouraged or prevented from doing schoolwork.

Let your child’s learning style help define the way the study space is set up. This involves many things: whether he or she sits at a desk, at a table, on the floor, or somewhere else, what kinds of supplies are preferred, how those supplies are arranged, how the space is lighted, whether it is quiet, or near to others (if your child needs interaction while he or she works). Regardless of how the study space is arranged, it’s very helpful to have whatever will be needed for doing schoolwork available at your child’s fingertips.

It’s not uncommon for students to resist doing schoolwork because they are physically uncomfortable. Sometimes, they may not even be aware of the reason for their reticence or frustration. They may just know that it doesn’t feel right. So, you can help by paying particular attention to some details. Your child will probably be spending considerable time sitting at the computer. Be sure everything is ergonomically suitable for your child. Appropriate lighting is also important to avoid eyestrain. If your child studies best with music in the background, make it available. Also encourage your child to get up from the computer occasionally and walk around for a few minutes. Your child may feel inspired and energized by occasionally working outdoors.

Emotional Environment
In order to encourage and sustain a child’s enthusiasm for learning, that child needs to feel safe emotionally: safe from harsh or unjust criticism, humiliation, ridicule, and judgment. Some families choose distance learning because their children have had negative experiences in a classroom setting. These experiences can range from insensitive or inattentive teachers to classroom bullies, to outright violence. By teaching your child at home, it’s easier to ensure that his or her thoughts and emotions are safe, and that expressing them is safe. In you, your child has someone who is there to listen without judgment. Listening carefully to your child’s expressions of thoughts and feelings is a gift you give that will be remembered and valued. Ask your child questions about his or her feelings and encourage him or her to be open and analytical on this subject. Even if you don’t get an immediate response, you’ve planted the seed of introspection. It can form the basis for long-lasting habits that really help in later life as well, when you’re not there to listen.

If you’re teaching more than one child at home, always remember that each of them has a unique way of learning. Just as our temperaments are varied, our learning styles are different, and no one of them is better than any of the others. For all of us, confidence and enthusiasm result from the knowledge that we are safe from being criticized for being who we are. Positive feedback is an important part of this. Your child will flourish if his or her uniqueness is understood, celebrated, and rewarded.

Intellectual Environment
Everyone possesses the capacity to acquire knowledge. Intellect covers a wide spectrum and displays itself in everything from dancing to rocket science to running a business. So, within the framework of schooling, providing intellectual safety for children means encouraging and protecting their choices in their education as being valid and worthy of the effort they require. Some children have a great facility with languages; others are naturally adept at math or science, while still others may excel in sports or theater arts. No matter which way your child is intellectually gifted, it’s important to show that you respect those gifts. Again, this is an area where it is really beneficial to understand your child’s (and your own) learning style, and patiently apply that understanding in the way you support and instruct.

Our society requires that children be taught a wide range of information, and we all certainly want our children to learn everything they can. We want them to succeed in life. You can give your child a great advantage by teaching this information according to the way your child learns best. This creates intellectual safety and builds a confidence in your child that his or her intellect is being given active help and encouragement – making learning and success achievable.
It used to be thought that focusing all one’s energy on a child’s strengths was the only way to go. Today, we know that isn’t necessarily true. Equally important is helping students grow in the areas where they are more challenged, in order to provide them with fertile ground for balance and inner harmony. When your child knows his or her intellect isn’t in question, he or she will flourish.


One of our favorite quotes….

Growth involves instant renewal and expansion. While in protection or defense mode, growth stops. If children feel unsafe, part of their attention is diverted from learning to defense, which limits growth. Development is compromised when protection becomes chronic without a safe place; children can't trust the world they are compelled to embrace.
-    Joseph Chilton Pearce



Motivating Your Child

Wisdom begins in wonder
- Socrates

Motivation through Learning Styles
Addressing your child’s interests is a great motivator. Showing an active interest in what your child is interested in creates a sense of well being, enthusiasm, and even inspiration. This can really create energy that will flow over into all areas of your child’s life and studies. Having his or her interests addressed, your child will learn, by example, to be curious about the interests of others. All this positive energy and curiosity will create motivation to learn and grow. Your child’s interests and talents are both part of his or her Learning Style, and addressing them can help to inspire enthusiasm for learning and working.

Motivating the Performing Disposition
Performing learners feel motivated when they are acknowledged for being fun, witty, and entertaining. They are also motivated by the idea of being allowed to entertain and to choose their activities.

Motivating the Producing Disposition
Acknowledge producing learners for being productive, neat, efficient, and punctual. They are motivated by the opportunity to set goals, and by receiving approval in the form of written praise, awards or prizes, and good grades.

Motivating the Inventing Disposition
Inventing learners want to be acknowledged for being clever, for making discoveries, and for solving problems. They are also motivated by the chance to see their work, inventions, or ideas actually put to use.

Motivating the Relating/Inspiring Disposition
Relating/Inspiring learners wish to be acknowledged for being thoughtful, kind, helpful, and for understanding others. They are highly motivated by having the opportunity to talk with others and receiving personal attention.

Motivating the Thinking/Creating Disposition
Thinking/Creating learners are motivated when acknowledged for being observant, open, and creative. Their motivation also comes from being able to work on creative projects, the opportunity to have time alone to think, and having their work recognized or displayed.

Feedback
Children need positive, thoughtful feedback on any endeavor they undertake. If a child works on something and receives no feedback, or minimal feedback that doesn’t feel relevant, he or she may lose interest and confidence and may not feel very inclined to work at something again. Conversely, if feedback is meaningful, instructive, and positively framed, a child will feel supported, encouraged, and equipped to move on and try new things.