Turn off the Tube

5 Steps to Raise Self-Engagement Habits in your Child

Turn off the Tube

Why let afternoons idle in front of the tube and vacations amok with broken house rules? I mean, as a growing child, didn’t most of us did the same? If we are repeating history, despite being guilty of our so-called education, then we are worse off than our parents! Is the tube the only way to relax and unwind? Did you know that the T.V is the fastest way to put out creative fires in your child? Especially with cartoons with video game versions that just feed off each other with no meaning and moral in the story line. Moreover, a child learns more with hands on activities than simply watching someone else do it. Let’s engage our children in more creative ways before the next fist fight over the remote!

  

Encourage engaging activities

Is it felt-tip pen drawing that keeps your child rooted in a chair? Is it baking cupcakes? Is it Lego? Or is it mixing paint. Find out the creative side of your child and attune yourself to their creative outlet preferences. Once established, invest in these creative platforms. If it is paints, spend a weekend on buying paints of varying textures. If it is markers, help them develop a collection. By doing so, you are directly encouraging them to engage in their creative activities. Remember, these are their natural, unadulterated creative hobbies. Something that comes intrinsically from them. Not only will they invest more time in such activities, but also produce quality work. This will set the tone for other not-so-preferred tasks. Activities based purely on process, experiencing colors, textures, feel associated with it rather than results it produces.   

Practice Journal or Blog Writing to Communicate with children

In this digital age, raising digital learners, do not create a technological chasm between you and your children and label it as the over rated “generation gap”. In fact, use technology to your benefit by creating mandatory blog writing activities with one single topic: Reflections. Indeed, we reveal more in writing that we intend to. Text-based dialogue is more expressive and even pulls out the most passive issues in the deeper recesses of our minds. Encourage your children to maintain a daily blog on a family website. With a plethora of tools available like Google Sites, Word press and Wix.com, you can quickly create a family account and communicate your writing practice requirements more effectively. You will notice an occasional paragraph or two with some genuine ideas on a creative activity. What they won’t tell you, they will definitely write! We @discoverme encourage children to keep brief account of their daily interactions based on theme of their weekly session —what worked or didn’t work, what they tried,etc either in blog or diary(kids choose their medium)

Practice Using the Design Process to Increase the Quality of Work

Create a culture of “version control” over activities that require greater time and energy expenditure. This helps improve the quality of their performance by providing them with the much needed room for error. For example, the version 1 of the project can only be the final version when everyone is satisfied and find no improvements to make. This habit is a positive step towards accepting constructive feedback and view problems as a systems view. Help your child develop blue prints before tackling their favorite projects. Explain how engineers build prototypes, respond to critical feedback, and refine their design before going into production. Similarly, artists make sketches of big works and revise their ideas before creating their final piece. Drive your children towards high quality work by working in increments and improving through feedback. Process is more focused during the session flow with children taking them though the journey of first draft to final on

Showcase Big Projects

When your child invests their time and energy on a project, regardless of how it turns out, make it a big deal. Teach them the value of hard work and dedication more than the result. Reward them for their diligence and persistence more than the end product. Display their work in an area where it can become a conversation piece with guests and other family members. Take pictures and boast on social media. Share your friend’s comments with your child. Just make it a big deal. Talk about real-life experts that are related to your child’s hobby. Watch or read their biography to deduce their personality, professionalism and work ethics. In this way, you are creating multiple role models for your child to look up to and emulate.We encourage kids to post on their blog and during our session talk more about feelings attached to it –do they feel motivated by efforts they put in .

Our best advice yet? Register for a session or two at Discover Me and learn about your child in a few weeks in a way you never expected! Few of the activities we do @DISCOVERME.

·        Play a game of what if with child wherein you make a statement “what if the sun was pink in color” and the kid makes an another statement saying “maybe and what if the in the pink sun lived a purple cat". Build a scenario or a story using the process mentioned above.

·        Pick any article (pen, fork, etc) and with the child list out as many uses as you can think of for the object. All ideas, however crazy, are ok in the game. Target 50 uses!

·        Draw a picture showing how you would make old enemies like a cat and a goldfish become friends.

·        Act out, with a small group, how you would make friends with an alien visiting Earth.

Let’s EXPLORE, EXPERIENCE, ENHANCE, EMPOWER, & ENJOY OUR CHILD’S POTENTIAL.