5 Tips for Parents: Smoother Sailing Remotely in 2021

Scarsdale NY

05 January, 2021

8:17 PM

Description

5 tips for Parents in 2021: Smoother Sailing in the Remote Year by Theresa Xia Michna As parents and teachers reset their sails to find smoother sailing for 2021, here are 5 tips to help parents navigate remote waters: 1. Organize tasks and launch them! For students in grades 3 -12, identify their daily homework tasks. Rate the tasks according to a “preference” , from 1 to 3, the least to the most appealing. Once a kid-rating has been set up, work with your student to estimate number of minutes for completion — 30-40 minutes for each is a good start, although some could be as brief as 15 minutes. For younger students, you might use a timer. This gives the student a sense of control over their tasks. Need more ideas on how to provide your child with greater control in navigating the remote environment? Check out a recent interview with Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy. https://www.cnet.com/news/sal-khan-how-to-help-students-and-parents-navigate-education-during-covid-19/ He promotes mindfulness of your child's and your mental health. “This is not a time to try to be a superhero. This is a time to take care of yourself, and try to focus on doing a few things very, very, very well, and try to draw some healthy boundaries for your family’s mental health.” 2. Treasure your role as your child’s best facilitator. According to the N.Y. Times, parents have a most favored position, as their child’s best “inside observer and facilitator.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/parenting/parents-distance-learning.html. Treasure that role. Thus, as “insider” you know what activities fire up your child, and which ones might push him into distant procrastination. As key facilitator, you can also sequence home work tasks for maximum impact. For example: position a ho-hum chore first, followed by a passionate activity. This is an energetic way to launch a task! And children learn from your example. After seeing what works, students will choose to sequence their own tasks in a thoughtful way. 3. Protect reset time as essential. Make sure you incorporate regular “reset” time and breaks between assignments. This is an integral part of “learning health. “  Many ideas make a good reset: stretches, yoga, a game of catch, or zumba. Also doodling and singing songs release endorphins.  4. Writing builds stamina. Remember to praise your student when he is willing to go through the revisions necessary for good work. See Keisha Alexander's, “5 Reasons Why Rejection is Good for Writers,” https://medium.com/@kesialexandra/5-reasons-why-rejection-is-good-for-writers-5f6021e1eaa6. Finally, don't forget that an essential part of writing is the development of GRIT. Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth, psychologists, attribute a student's successes to the practice of GRIT.“Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals.” (Duckworth et al., 2007). Although people are born with varying levels of grit, Duckworth believes it is a trait that can be developed. 5. Communicate with your child's teacher. Identify clues to the all-important question: What are the skills that your child should be acquiring in their present grade? The N.Y. Times, says, “Focusing on skills, or learning outcomes” rather than number of minutes on zoom, helps parents evaluate how much their children are learning. You want to know what skills your child needs to learn before the end of the year, not what tests they need to take. You can identify these skills, or “learning outcomes”, by asking their teachers and reading about curriculum goals set by the School District. For instance,  a 3rd grade social studies outcome revealed: “ DESCRIBE HOW PEOPLE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD ADAPTED TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT.” If this were your child's learning outcome, you might then discuss how your community adapts to its environment, through choices of housing or transportation. Finally, be mindful of the health of your child as well as your own.  As Khan says, in a recent interview: “. Stress and anxiety hit you before you know it. If you’re starting to get easily triggered by your kids. . .it's going to create a really hard environment to learn in at home.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/31/khan-academy-remote-learning/ Theresa Xia Michna, M.A. is a Mindful teacher and tutor, parent, and test prep tutor. Please contact for information: 914-815-8754. www.linkedin.com/TheresaMichna