My best advice is to focus on developing the following 3 skills to make you swift, focused and efficient learner.
Preparing our children for success in distance learning can also prepare them for later learning success, regardless of where and in what form.
1. Focus
Thanks to distance learning, concentration has become a popular up skill. It’s hard for kids to learn without it. To reduce distractions and distractions that kill concentration, we can do the following.
Define a training playground. Children need a place to focus, and when we identify just a place for concentration, we help them train their brains to focus better.
For example, they may have a specific location in a small office in the foyer where they do their homework online and do their homework and just that.
Ask them to quit their jobs and check social media or do something other than the target job. Encourage them to move away from their desk during breaks.
Their presence at this table can be a signal to other family members that they are trying to concentrate and that everyone should be quiet and be careful not to disturb.
Ask them how they are doing. Interference and distractions can be external loss of internet access, Snapchat alerts and internal feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Research shows that when children suppress their feelings also known as suppressing emotions, it affects their intelligence and ability to learn.
Pretending to be good, even when we really feel like something else takes energy and self control, and takes the energy and power of will to concentrate. As parents, we can help our children understand how they are doing.
I’m worried now, they might say. It’s a tame technique. When children define their emotions, they tend to get distracted.
If they start telling you a story that makes them more emotional, tell them lightly how they feel. The challenge here is to define how they feel, not necessarily why they feel it. It may be difficult.
We can hold on to our stories of why we are upset and stuck when trying to solve problems. But that won’t help us focus. We need to talk about real emotions, not the causes of the emotions.
See if you can express your feelings in one or two simple sentences. For example, You’re sad and alone. You can leave it here or add a little sympathy.
It’s so difficult. Loneliness is the worst. Don’t try to fix their difficult emotions. It’s about finding and labeling your emotions, not changing them.
Let your children know that you think they will be able to cope with these difficult emotions.
You do not have to fill them. Encourage unique challenges. It may seem quite obvious that children will need to focus on one thing in order to concentrate, but in the world it is no longer so.
Although multitasking is extremely inefficient, it seems productive. Especially for kids who are bored and stuck at home with lots of open screens and incoming alerts, they are busy and full of energy.
But multitasking is the enemy of concentration. The human brain has not evolved to focus on many things at once, nor can its tasks can only change quickly. In many ways, this is a huge thorn in the brain of children.
It makes them tired or nervous and attentive. Most of all, multitasking makes learning ineffective.
As parents, we can help children adjust their learning environment, devices, and time online so that they are not tempted to multitask at the same time, are pulled less alerts, and less likely to check on social media.
Turn off all alerts and turn on Do Not Disturb, and set aside parking space during school hours so they can only access one screen at a time.
2. Motivation
Trying to motivate kids with carrots and sticks is a particularly strange parenting hell. Learning is difficult without personal motivation.
Fortunately, we can keep our children motivated by increasing their skills, increasing their independence and strengthening bonds with others. These are the three basic psychological needs whose satisfaction leads to self motivation.
Here’s how you can help meet those needs. Prove your skills. Help the children see what they have done well in the past through their own efforts and no complaints.
Ask Where do you feel most secure? And then help them understand exactly what their efforts led to that ability. Allow independence. And let them develop these 3 skills to become swift, focused and efficient learner.
Our children need the freedom to fail on their own and the freedom to succeed without even giving you your due. Our children cannot feel responsible for their school activities if we remain an organizational force.
So instead of teaching and guiding children, ask them, What’s your plan? For example, What is your breakfast schedule before class? Asking children about their plan will clearly show that they are still in control of their behavior and help them understand their own motives and intentions.
If children are not invited to express their plan, they sometimes fail to implement it. Especially kids who have a habit of teasing; these kids know that their parents will eventually get mad and start making plans for them.
Foster a sense of belonging and connection to the school. Obviously, during a pandemic, it is much more difficult, but it is possible. Ask your children who they feel connected to. What groups or classes help them feel connected?
If not, ask them who needs help and what they can do to help that person. Helping others is one of the best ways to bond.
3. Flexibility
You may have noticed that our plan seems to fall apart. We live in a time of rapid change and constant uncertainty. This is why it is so important that we and our children remain flexible.
They can go back to class this year. This may not be the case. In any case, they will have to fight the blows. We can help them with that. Stick to a consistent sleep schedule.
Fatigue makes us vulnerable; It is difficult to be flexible when we are so tired that we want to lie down and cry. Although not much is happening, many children are tired, mostly teenagers.
No school facilities at least not to miss your bus, it is difficult to stick to your schedule and fall asleep.
Additionally, many older children, accustomed to the intimacy and camaraderie of school, now meet their needs for independence and communication with their peers by playing midnight video games without parental supervision.
Unfortunately, irregular sleep isn’t just about overwork and fatigue. Even a slight deterioration in the quality of sleep, such as a simple lack of deep sleep due to a decrease in melatonin levels under the influence of light, makes children more isolated, even without melatonin depletion.
Therefore, if their sense of connection with their peers is already weakened, trouble sleeping can make the problem worse. We parents will do the right thing if we go to bed regularly.
The bottom line is that they don’t necessarily go to bed early if their school starts late and they can go to bed, but rather get enough sleep for their age and do so regularly.
See this article for how to reset babies’ body clocks. Practice accepting what is really going on. Our kids don’t have to like going to school online, but the more they resist, the harder they will be.
We can admit that the school is not perfect at the moment, as well as what they think. No problem if they are upset or disappointed.
Plus, the sooner they come to terms with reality, the better. This does not mean that they will no longer be disappointed, frustrated or upset with the situation.
Our feelings are part of what is really happening! When our children submit to opposition, they have more opportunities to move forward. To be clear, accepting is not the same as quitting.
Accepting a situation does not mean it will never recover. We don’t accept that things will stay the same forever; we only accept what is really happening. Support happiness.
Fortunately, I mean positive emotions, not pleasure. Positive emotions increase our cognitive flexibility. It is an elegant way of expressing our capacity to cope with change. And these 3 skills will also help the kids to become swift, focused and efficient learner.
Research shows that positive emotions such as gratitude or admiration make managing change less stressful and make us more open to new things.
This may be one of the reasons that other studies show that students with higher emotional well being tend to have more semesters ahead.