Readiness: Not a State of Knowledge, but a State of Mind
By Dr. Dan Gartrell
People used to think
children were ready for kindergarten if they could say the ABC’s, count,
identify colors, and write their first name. Readiness was always more
complicated than that, and new brain research is helping us understand what
readiness really is. Readiness doesn’t mean just knowing the academic basics.
It means a child has a willing attitude and confidence in the process of
learning: a healthy state of mind.
How do families help
their children gain this state of mind? By being responsive to all areas of
their children’s development—physical, emotional, social, cultural, language,
and cognitive (thinking). Children are born with a great ability to learn and
grow—different kinds of abilities, to be sure, but abilities that individually
and together constitute the miracle of humanity.
Adults do best for their
children when they nurture this unexpressed potential rather than ignore,
reject, or try to train it. Healthy development, and with it school readiness,
is the result of secure, responsive adult–child relationships. Here are eight
parenting practices that nurture children’s untold potential and readiness to
learn.
1. Have contact talks with your child each day. A contact talk is a few moments of shared time
between adult and child. Contact talks can happen anytime, day or night—often
while reading together, but also while giving a bath, changing diapers
(really), taking a walk, riding in a car, or when your child approaches you.
When you decide that a contact talk will happen, stop what you are doing.
Listen, encourage, and support. Don’t “teach, preach, or screech.” Learn more
about this little person and help that child learn more about you, as adult and
child together in the family you share.
Contact talks build
healthy attachment between an adult and child like nothing else can. They
support the development of a child’s self-esteem, social skills, thinking
skills, and language abilities (key capacities for school success). If contact
talks take place during physical activities, they enhance physical development.
Adult (quietly smiling): “I wonder where it’s going.”
Child: “To our house, of course. Moon likes it at our house.”
Adult: “It’s nice to have a home that’s liked.”
Child: “Yep.” (Smiling, continues looking at the moon).
In a few years, this
same child will understand that the moon just looks like it is following the
car. But no correction of this perception is needed now. What is important is a
shared quality moment around the child’s beginning interpretations of the world
and the people in it. Contact talks don’t have to be long, but they do have to
happen, every day. They tell your child you value her and what she has to say
is worthwhile.
2. Recognize that children's reasoning skills are just beginning
to develop. Problem-solving and
reasoning skills, what some call executive function, start to develop in the brain at about age 3.
These abilities, including the capacity to understand complex situations,
accommodate others’ viewpoints, and stay on task, are a work in progress into
early adulthood.
It is important to
understand that young children don't think the same ways adults do. Young
children do not have the same grasp of reality as adults, and they see things
from their own (often charming) viewpoints. Recall the young child who said,
“The moon is following us.” The adult’s supportive response was to comment, “I
wonder why,” and enjoy the child’s creative thinking. Helping the child make
connections, and not fact-checking, builds brains. An older child considers the
idea of the moon following the car pretty lame. But in the meantime, “Good
night, Moon.”
3. Think of young children's conflicts as mistaken
behaviors, not misbehaviors. A 3-year-old has 36 months of life experience. A 5-year-old has
only 60 months. It is an error for adults to think that children misbehave
because they “know better” and chosen to do wrong. They are not bad. They are
only months old!
Heck, we adults don't
always know how to “behave better.” We work on expressing strong emotions in
nonhurting ways our entire lives. Young children are just beginning to learn
this complex skill. Children have conflicts and strong disagreements with
others, because their incomplete brain development and limited experience means
they haven't learned yet how to behave more maturely.
Think of behaviors
usually considered to be misbehaviors as mistaken behaviors. One way to think about a mistake is as an
error in judgment that may cause or contribute to a conflict. Like all of us,
children make mistakes. Young children make more of them because they are
beginners in the learning process. They have yet to develop the personal
resources they need to prevent, resolve, and forgive the conflicts all of us
tend to fall into.
4. When children have strong conflicts, adults work to teach
rather than punish. Research shows that
punishment—infliction of pain and suffering as a consequence for something a
person has done—harms healthy brain development. Punishment results in the
release of stress hormones, in particular cortisol and adrenaline, which then
“slosh around” in children’s brains.
Especially when stress
reactions continue over time, they cause children to feel threatened even in
nonthreatening situations. In reaction to perceived threats, children resort to
patterns of fight-or-flight behavior. In such situations, children often show
aggression (to their minds, they are defending themselves) and get into even
more trouble. Children who bully are showing aggression to assert their wills
in the face of life circumstances they have come to see as challenging.
Thus, the effect of
punishment is to make it harder for children to learn the very social skills we
want all children to learn. A cycle of stress, acting out, punishment, and more
stress, starting early in childhood, can cause problems for an individual
throughout life.
5. Teach, don't punish. Conflicts do have consequences. There are consequences for children when they
make mistakes and cause big conflicts, and there are consequences for the adult
as well. The consequence for an adult is to teach the child another way to
behave—how to express strong emotions in ways that aren’t harmful. The
consequence for a child is to understand the adult’s expectation that he or she
learn a better way to behave.
Always, the first step
when children have conflicts is to tend to anyone who is hurt, then calm
everyone down, including yourself. Time away from the situation may be
important in helping to calm young (and older) family members. This is not
time-out, but a cooling-off time so all can calm down, talk about what happened
as soon as time can be made, and learn a better way to deal with the situation
next time.
It takes hard work for
adults to consistently teach rather than punish. Efforts don’t have to be
perfect, but they do need to be honest and well intentioned. Adults who use
guidance are firm when they need to be—but firm and friendly, not harsh or
wishy-washy. To the best of our abilities, we need to model the reasoning and perspective-taking
skills we want our children to learn. If children know we love them, even
imperfect efforts at guidance can—and do—work. Guidance establishes a
foundation children continue to build on, learning how to get along and solve
problems as they grow—a foundation for building a healthy state of mind.
6. Use guidance talks. Different from the age-old lecture, a guidance talk is talking with (not at) a child about a conflict. In a guidance talk, the adult acts as
a firm but friendly leader, talking with children after all parties have calmed
down.
In using guidance talks,
first recognize the effort or progress toward emotional restraint your child may
have used. For your child to listen to you, you need to convey that you are
working with, not against, your child. Work to build your child’s understanding
of each person's feelings during the conflict. Discuss what your child could
have done instead, what can be done differently next time, and how your child
could help the other person feel better.
It is not helpful to
force an apology. Instead, when he is ready, ask your child how he can make
things better. Most children forgive more easily than adults. They just need a
little time to settle themselves and figure out what happened. Restitution and
reconciliation are important goals in using guidance. They help us remember
that every person is a full and important family member, even when they make
mistakes.
7. Hold family meetings to discuss and figure out problems that repeat themselves. The purpose of family meetings is to teach that differences can be discussed in civil (not disagreeable) ways, and that family members can work together to address difficulties and solve problems.
7. Hold family meetings to discuss and figure out problems that repeat themselves. The purpose of family meetings is to teach that differences can be discussed in civil (not disagreeable) ways, and that family members can work together to address difficulties and solve problems.
Family meetings are not
always popular, but when an adult emphasizes mutual respect as a guideline, the
meetings can reduce, prevent, and resolve strong emotional issues, even with
young children. Family meetings make family problems something to talk about
and work on together, rather than let problems be the elephant in the room.
8. We adults (still) make mistakes. Being a parent who is a caring and positive leader is the hardest job in the world. (Second place is a tie between being a caring and competent early childhood professional and a middle-school substitute teacher!) When we make mistakes in our own behavior, we need to forgive ourselves, forgive the others involved, and learn from the mistakes.
8. We adults (still) make mistakes. Being a parent who is a caring and positive leader is the hardest job in the world. (Second place is a tie between being a caring and competent early childhood professional and a middle-school substitute teacher!) When we make mistakes in our own behavior, we need to forgive ourselves, forgive the others involved, and learn from the mistakes.
Note, however, when a
family member makes a lot of mistakes, has lots of conflicts—consider this a
plea for help. Sometimes families need help from outside. This is OK. This
difficult step can open the door to a better life for the entire family and
help children make progress toward what we all want them to learn and to be.
For me the bottom-line
question is this: As our kids get older, what do we want them to do if someone
bullies them or pressures them to bully someone else, or (eventually) to
experiment with alcohol, drugs, sex, or vandalism? If the answer is to come to
us for guidance, then we get it. It’s hard to know how to respond to life’s
tough questions, but good relationships with our children, begun when they are
infants, will see us through.
Readiness is a State
of Mind
Research shows that the
best thing we can do to get children ready for school is to form and keep
positive relationships with them. Children who are securely attached to their
family members accept themselves as worthy individuals. With ongoing family
support, they can handle the frustrations, embarrassments, pressures, and
successes that come their way. Securely attached children are better able to
make friends, work with others, solve problems creatively, learn, and succeed.
The best predictor of children's success in school and life is a brain that
develops in healthy ways, as a result of their attachments with their family,
and especially their parents.
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