Creating a Time for Learning

One of my biggest challenges has been creating a time for learning. I am much more enthusiastic about my son learning than he is. And it seems like the more enthusiastic I am, the more reluctant he is. I have found two things that work wonders for us, however. The first has to do with timing; the second has to do with the process.

When we first started doing lessons everyday, I tried to make Ronan sit down right after dinner. He wanted to play instead and sometimes the lessons (which should have only taken 10-15 minutes) dragged on until bedtime. So we started doing them around lunchtime when his attention span was a bit longer. Even when I gave him a reward chart and stickers for every lesson he finished, he still complained A LOT. I tried to make the lessons fun by adding in paint or candy, but most of the time that didn’t work either. Eventually, I gave up altogether and we would only do lessons maybe once a month when I could convince him for five minutes that they were fun. One day I noticed that Ronan couldn’t remember how to write most of his letters and I decided the lessons had to start up again. I got a calendar and hung it on his bedroom door and I printed out a few calendar based activities that I found online. I decided that at the very minimum, we would go over the calendar once a day. It worked out at first. About 75% of the time, Ronan was happy to do the calendar. He learned his days of the week, we worked on number recognition (he still has trouble with the teens), and we sang a song about the month that I also printed and hung on his door. He was pretty good at memorizing the songs, which also helped some with word recognition. After about a month I also started having him read me an easy book. That was the beginning of the end. Ronan hates reading. It got harder and harder until one day I had a epiphany. Ronan might hate learning, but there is one thing he hates even more- going to bed. We moved his bedtime from 8:30 to 7:30 (he didn’t notice) but after he was all ready for bed, he could stay up as late as he wanted doing lessons. It was amazing. He doesn’t complain as much about going to bed and he doesn’t complain at all about doing lessons. Sometimes he decides he doesn’t want to do a lesson at all and sometimes we stay up until 9:00 working. Taking them away is a punishment. If he whines or stalls too much when getting ready for bed, we don’t do a lesson. And the best part is that now that he doesn’t think of learning as a chore, he will actually ask do educational activities during the day.

The second thing I learned about making time for learning was that getting everything ready while the kids are sleeping is a TERRIBLE idea. When I started doing activities with Ronan, I would make sure I had everything ready so that the activity was as easy as possible. Then I would spend the entire activity trying to convince him that he was having fun. Not anymore. When I want to do an activity, I get everything together and start prepping, preferably somewhere that Ronan will randomly notice. Of course he wants to know what I’m doing, and of course  “you’ll see” and “making something” aren’t good enough answers to satiate his curiosity. So he watches. And gets more interested. And asks to help. And by the time I’m done getting ready, he’s hooked. Not only does helping with the prep help him get interested; it gets him to do more. Prep is another opportunity for learning. Whether its cutting, writing, counting, or even stirring, it’s all good practice for life.