LET all ROSES BLOSSOM!
Kids have a pure eye towards life. They see, learn, imitate, and most importantly they slowly slowly develop a vision. Adults need to learn how to help them grow genuinely innovative, reliable, and bright without shadowing their own negativities.
WHOM ARE YOU TALKING TO?
Each child is a newly unique person. The mother and teacher main role is to discover the person they deal with rather than to expect a certain form of a person and try to shape it up. Shaping up a certain form of a person by ignoring the unique character never worked out! Wood, stones, metals… etc are different types of material, each has a tendency to form numerous different products. Human beings are also different as such, nevertheless, they have a will to be! The main reason of this article is to learn how to know the type of the child and how to work on her/him without breaking their own will!.
Some mothers also think that twins are similar and they ignore the differences in type and will of each one; this is crucial. One of them will always be trying hard to cope up with the unwanted circumstances just because the other one is fine with them while mom is expecting him/her to behave similarly to the satisfied one. Teachers who deal with larger groups and moms who deal with twins or many kids need extra caring attitude in terms of understanding the different personalities of kids and acting wisely to help them all blossom healthier.
TYPES ARE DIFFERENT IN WHICH TERMS?
FAST/ SLOW
Fast kids are smart for sure but, this fact does not mean that slow ones are less smart. Some kids need more time to develop deeper understanding that fast kids might ignore. It is very important not to jump to the conclusion that the slow ones are lazy. Kids’ social intelligence is higher than we, adults, can ever imagine, and as soon as they feel you are hopeless of their speed, they become irritated and feel insecure. What mothers and teachers must do is to:
Encourage slow ones nicely to take their time to finish the exercise.
Balance the rhythm of exercises considering speed differences among kids.
Open up the idea that they can continue later when they are free if they are trying hard to catch up with the next assignment.
Do not corner slow kids in the lazy zone.
Encourage faster kids to be as careful and neat if you noticed these qualities in the slower kid’s work.
Praise the faster kids even though they are encouraged enough to build up their self confidence.
ARTISTIC/ LOGIC
Artistic kids are visionary, spontaneous, dreamy… You will notice them as soon as they try their first paintings by watching how beautiful their sheet becomes. Logic kids are practical, mathematical, down to earth and prefer to build with blocks than painting a sheet. The balanced kids are the ones who can really be interested in any of the tools, so they can be visionary when they paint, and can prototype the dream park with tooth picks and some play dough! Adults’ main role here is to help each one develop the favourite skills without imposing a certain technique.
A good teacher or a good mother is the one who feeds kids’ passion to explore life. For instance, if the topic taken is about underwater life, artistic kids can be directed to the colouring techniques and the colourful life of fishes and reefs, while logic kids can be directed to prototyping the houses of fish eggs or the sea shell structure… The main goal is to feed their passion to learn, explore and interact using their preferable tools.
Balance your input between scientific knowledge, aesthetics and practical know-how in each session.
Teach them how to use the tools in a secured manner and let them express their views independently.
Let them use different types of tools and materials freely as this will help you understanding more about their personalities.
Only if they asked for help, you can suggest a solution for their cases.
Encourage them by highlighting the good points in each one’s work honestly as kids can easily notice fake comments, so don’t fake them.
Let all kids prototype or document what they have learnt as their own notes in a shape of a drawing or a prototype.
SCORE COLLECTOR/ NOT KEEN ON SCORES
Please don’t give any reaction when you hear their early scores; it is very important to know if the child is so excited about it or just doesn’t care.
Kids are always encouraged with the good scores but those who couldn’t get it can either be so sad, or just don’t care… Encourage the not-keen attitude more and try to understand why they couldn’t collect scores without blaming them. Fear is the worst thing to grow with your child. One round is not the end of the world. Focus more with the development they have achieved. Remind them how much was it difficult last year to write the letters alone and how this year they could do it easily and bravely. Never to focus on their weak point because in early ages, 4-5 years, they build up confidence of their abilities.
If your child can not write the letter “e” for instance, do not push him/her. Teachers also need to be flexible in this. We were all students one day and we faced difficult times in some exercises; however, we can all write the letter “e” at last:) Come on… your child might become a great writer in the future while you are spoiling all the journey with your fears. If s/he can not write the “e” letter now, my advice for mothers is to BE COOL! Your child will get in a better place if you can see the development and without drawing your fears in the air around them.
Other differences can tell more as differences are tiny and many, what was mentioned in this article are the major big ones that can help you to know the main features of your child. At last it is worth mentioning that mothers and good teachers can trust their gut feelings to assess each child’s main features and they should always be as positive as they can when doing such an assessment. Written for Tough Enough Magazine
