I wrote last time about how we should persevere and not give up as we go about our homeschooling (and our lives) – how change does eventually happen, how learning eventually takes place, how our kids eventually “get it.”
Sometimes, however, it is not we moms (or dads) who get discouraged, but it’s our children. Often when they don’t understand something right away, or when they aren’t able to do something, they get very frustrated. They might scrunch up a paper as one of my children did when she tried to write an “s” but kept making it sideways. Or they might call themselves names such as “stupid” like another of my children did when he couldn’t remember some of his French vocabulary.
We need to teach our children the “Rome wasn’t built in a day” concept: that as they continue to work on it, they will “get it.” This is best done with concrete illustrations – is there anything that they can do now that they weren’t able to do before? If nothing comes to mind, tell them they didn’t used to be able to walk, and now they can walk wonderfully, but they didn’t learn it all at once. Describe to them how long it took.
Then there are the times when you are teaching the children something, and they don’t have a picture, or may not believe what the result of continuous practice or learning will be: One example is French (or another language). As they are learning vocabulary, and beginning sentence structures they cannot fathom that they will ever be able to speak the language – it seems like a useless and unappealing way to spend their time. Again, it is helpful to use illustrations from their lives, your life, or the life of someone else you know, of persevering until mastery. Any skill that they have now, (including speaking English) is a skill they didn’t used to have, and could be used as an illustration.
Piano (or another instrument) lessons is another one of those things where
children often can’t make the connection between the work they are putting in as they practice, and the ability to actually make beautiful, sophisticated music. Remind them of something that they are doing well that they didn’t always know how to do (or do well) to show them that they will get better as they practice. They will eventually be able to make nice music. If they are reading fluently, that can be used as an illustration, or if there is a chore that they have learned to do. Pointing out any activity or accomplishment that they have learned can help them grasp the concept .
Tell them stories about your own life and your own frustrations as you tried to learn something new. Or stories of others that you know. Stories are powerful teaching tools. Through life illustrations, we can do our best to help our children see that as they persevere, they will eventually master whatever it is that they are having difficulty with.
But you need to have that vision in order to pass it on: the vision that they will learn, they will improve, they will get it. Because…they will.
Both model and teach them…
Patience. Faithfulness. Little by little, every day.